CHAPTER 12
THE PLOT THICKENS
1 Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 2 At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.
6 “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
7 “But the tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
9 “What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Haven’t you read this passage of Scripture:
“‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
11 the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
12 Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away. Mark 12:1-12
Another parable but this time designed to reveal the plot, the story of the Bible in a nutshell. This time His story was very blunt. To the religious leaders, it was so clear that they immediately got the point. But instead of responding thoughtfully with the view to changing their attitude, they became even more murderous in their hearts. Jesus was slowly turning the tables on His tormentors. They had been hounding Him since the beginning of His ministry. Now He was exposing them and they didn’t like it. They couldn’t get away fast enough because the common people were always around and they, the religious leaders, were losing face by His exposure.
This parable was not difficult for them to understand. Since the Jews read (or heard) a story for identification, they easily identified the villains of the plot. There is also familiar symbolism in the parable. The Old Testament prophets used the vineyard as a symbol of Israel, e.g., Isaiah 5:1-7. In this story, the emphasis is not on the nature of the vineyard or the quality of the crops but rather on the ones responsible for caring for the vineyard and the landowner’s right to the harvest.
Although one does not necessarily interpret every detail in a parable, there are some details that are hints that bring a greater understanding of the kingdom, e.g., the landowner’s absence and his entrusting his vineyard to farmhands who would manage it for him. According to Genesis 1:26ff God has entrusted His creation to man to manage.
In this case, the farmhands would be the spiritual leaders who were entrusted with the care of God’s people – the vineyard. Instead of carrying out God’s instructions, they exploited the people for personal gain (see Mark 11:15-18). The servants sent to collect the farmer’s share of the profits would no doubt have been His prophets and the son obviously Jesus. The religious leaders immediately recognised their own identity in the story and rose up in anger against Him but, once again, they were afraid of the mob at this point. This was not the time to take action against Jesus. They would have to be subtle to win the people over.