Mark 12:1-12
The Vineyard and the Son
1Then Jesus began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a wine vat, and built a watchtower. Then he rented it out to some tenants and went away on a journey.
2At harvest time, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect his share of the fruit of the vineyard.
3But they seized the servant, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed.
4Then he sent them another servant, and they struck him over the head and treated him shamefully.
5He sent still another, and this one they killed. He sent many others; some they beat and others they killed.
6Finally, having one beloved son, he sent him to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
7But the tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’
8So they seized the son, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
9What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.
10Have you never read this Scripture: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
11This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
12At this, the leaders sought to arrest Jesus, for they knew that He had spoken this parable against them. But fearing the crowd, they left Him and went away.
Berean Standard Bible
They would not answer his question about John, so he tells them a story, and the first sentence of it is not his. A man planted a vineyard, put a wall around it, dug out a wine vat, and built a watchtower. Isaiah has a song with that same furniture in it, the planting and the watchtower and the winepress dug out, and he says at the end of it what he meant: the vineyard of the LORD is the house of Israel. Every man listening could have finished it for him.
Then he changes what happens inside the picture. The owner rents the vineyard out and goes away, and at harvest he sends a servant for his share. They beat that man and send him back with nothing. The next one is struck over the head and shamed, the third is killed, and after those come many more, some beaten and some killed. Every prophet God ever sent is standing in that list. Then the owner does something the story has given us no reason to expect.
Finally, having one beloved son, he sent him to them. "They will respect my son," he said.
Beloved son is not a neutral phrase in this Gospel. It is what the voice said at the river and what the voice said on the mountain, and now it is sitting inside a story about tenants who kill whoever comes up the road. The father sends him anyway.
This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.
There is no confusion in that sentence. They do not kill him because they have taken him for a fraud, but because they know exactly who he is. They take hold of him, kill him, and throw him out of the vineyard.
Jesus asks what the owner will do about it, and answers his own question: the owner will come, kill those tenants, and give the vineyard to other people. Then he finishes with a line out of a psalm.
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
The picture has changed under their feet. In the first one the son is dead and thrown out of the vineyard; in the second he is the stone the whole building rests on, and Jesus sets them side by side without explaining how one becomes the other. Mark's last verse tells us they had followed every word. They wanted him arrested on the spot, because they knew he had told the story against them, and the crowd was the only thing that held them back.
How We Know
The opening line of this parable is a quotation. Isaiah 5:1-2 sings of a vineyard on a fertile hill: the owner digs it up, clears the stones, plants the finest vines, builds a watchtower and digs out a winepress. Mark 12:1 has a man plant a vineyard, put a wall around it, dig a wine vat and build a watchtower. Three of those are shared, the planting, the press and the tower. Isaiah's stone-clearing is not in Mark and Mark's wall is not in Isaiah.
The allusion is unmistakable, and it explains verse 12. Isaiah's vineyard stands for Israel and its fruitlessness, so the men listening did not need the parable interpreted. Mark says they knew he had spoken it against them.
What Jesus adds to Isaiah is the son. Isaiah's owner tears the vineyard down. This one sends an heir. The allusion itself is settled by the wording, and the readings drawn from it are not.
Questions
1 The story opens with a man planting a vineyard and building a wall and a watchtower. Why would that first sentence alone have made these men sit up?
AnswerBecause Isaiah sings about a vineyard with the same details in it, the planting and the watchtower and the winepress, and Isaiah says outright that the vineyard is the house of Israel. They knew the picture before Jesus started changing it.
2 Who are the servants the owner keeps sending, and what happens to each one?
AnswerThe prophets. God had been sending them for a long time, and the story lists what came of it: beaten, struck over the head and shamed, killed, and then more sent after those.
3 Name one thing in this house you think of as yours. Now listen to what the tenants say when the son arrives: what did they think the vineyard was?
AnswerTheirs, or near enough that killing for it made sense to them. Everything they had was rented. Nobody at this table has to answer the first part out loud, as long as everyone is honest with themselves about what they would fight to keep.
4 How do we know the chief priests and the others understood the story?
AnswerMark tells us plainly. They tried to arrest him, because they knew he had spoken the parable against them, and they only backed off because they were afraid of the crowd.
What This Means for Us
The tenants did not misunderstand the son. They understood him and killed him anyway, and that ought to change how we think about unbelief, our own included. We tend to assume that somebody who wants nothing to do with God has not seen it clearly yet, and that a better explanation would settle the matter. Sometimes it would. Here it would not have made any difference at all, because the trouble was never information. They wanted the vineyard.
So turn the parable around and ask it here. Is there anything you have decided not to look at too closely, in case it turned out to be true and you had to hand something back?
Prayer
Father, everything we have is rented, and we forget it constantly. Forgive us for acting like owners. Thank you for sending your beloved Son to people who you knew would not receive him, and for making him the cornerstone anyway. Amen.