by Jean Allen
In this parable where the tenants, who refuse to give the landowner his produce, beat and kill the landowner’s representatives and end up murdering his son, it’s easy to assume the landowner represents God. Not so. In Jesus’s day, heavy taxation, debts and crop failures forced many peasant farmers to lose their land, which was then bought up by absentee landowners. Tenants lived on the edge of economic disaster all the time but they still had to pay the landowner no matter what. It is also historical fact that land could possibly be claimed by tenants if there were no owner and no heir, sort of similar to homesteading today. So, the tenants in this story may have been striving for that outcome.
This story was politically and economically charged to the listeners, who would have been sympathetic to the tenants at first. It was not simply a parable about giving God his rightful dues. What might Jesus have been trying to point out? The tenants begin as objects of sympathy; they end by becoming a united mob, convinced that killing one person will secure their future. What Jesus was revealing was how easily victims can become victimizers when rivalry and fear take over.
It is important to note that Jesus didn’t say that the landowner should “put those wretches to a miserable death…” The Chief Priests and Elders said it. Remember, this was not a parable about God; it was a statement about victims and victimizers. The people listening to Jesus, who could be seen as victims, became victimizers themselves just before Jesus was crucified. Any group of people can turn against one victim and believe all their problems will be solved by expelling or killing the victim.
Nowadays we don’t resort to actual murder but a person can be ‘killed’ by rumors, unkind words and exclusion stemming from fear and anger. I’ve seen it happen in too many groups and churches to believe it’s a rare occurrence.
It’s a mob mentality and it’s dangerous.
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