Two Palm Sunday Parables (Mat 21:28-46)
28 “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29 He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. 30 The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.
33 “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. 34 When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’? 43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. 44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
These two parables were told by Jesus on Palm Sunday, when he entered Jerusalem on a donkey and was proclaimed by the people to be the King of the Jews. Their meanings are unmistakable in this context. The first parable is about the religious leaders who rejected God (thus proving themselves to not have true religion at all) and the sinners who embraced God (thus showing evidence of their true religion). It’s not a parable designed to hide its meaning from the unbelieving religious leaders; it’s rather a way in which Jesus can affirm who he is without directly saying it and thus getting himself arrested before his hour has come.
The second parable has exactly the same purpose, except in it he clearly, yet obliquely and in parable form, says that he is indeed the Son of God. Jesus is creating a moment of crisis. Through the use of parables he is forcing everyone hearing his words to make a choice for themselves: either he is or is not the Messiah; either he is or is not the Son of God. If he were to say directly, “I am the Messiah; I am the Son of God,” the religious leaders would have been able to simply arrest him for treason and blasphemy and never have to deal with the content of what he said. Through the use of parable he was able to avoid the political showdown on this particular day, but force everyone to consider his claims.
We could simply end our remarks right here, but these two parables beg a further question: Do parables only have a single meaning or can they function at different levels simultaneously? The history of interpretation makes it clear that parables can properly function beyond their immediate context. Unless we want to declare the renowned interpreters of scripture of the past wrong and misguided, it is completely appropriate to seek further meaning from these parables.
A More General Consideration of These Parables
The first parable about the two sons is not only about the response of the religious leaders, it is also about the nature of belief in general. Belief is not just verbal assent; it is not simply going through the motions. If that’s all we do, then we are like the first son who said, “I go, sir,” but never bother actually doing the task at hand. To put it into the vernacular, inviting Jesus into one’s heart means nothing if one’s life isn’t changed. True belief cannot be encapsulated in a formulaic prayer any more than it can in performing a specific ceremony. All those outward actions are an empty shell if they do not grow out of a transformed life. Belief and transformation, faith and works, cannot be separated.
Why is this so? Because what is on the inside ultimately is expressed on the outside. If I believe and embrace Jesus Christ, I will begin to be transformed by the Holy Spirit. If I am being transformed, then my thoughts and actions will begin to reflect Kingdom values. Conversely, if I assume I’m a Christian, but nothing is sticking, no changes are taking place, I had better go back and evaluate my actual heartfelt commitments, because this inaction indicates that I have some sort of self-deceiving “belief” that is actually focused on me rather than Jesus Christ. This is the larger point of the second parable. The landowner kept sending people, but the workers weren’t interested in the landowner, only in their own comfort and well being. As a result they ultimately killed the Son because of self-serving interest (in contrast to a desire to serve the Master) that was in their hearts.
The story of Palm Sunday is the story of Jesus and his relation to sinners, on the one hand. On the other hand (as seen in these parables), it is the story of Jesus and his relation to the religious leaders. But they’re not two separate stories, rather they are two sides of a single coin. So the story of Palm Sunday is the story of how these two stories interact and play out, leading to Jesus’ death on the cross. While this is factual history (I don’t want to be accused of explaining away Jesus’ death and resurrection), it is also much more than just that. The Palm Sunday story is history, but it is also a parable for us. As we live our lives today we recognize that we are both the sinners and the religious leaders. We are recipients of both grace and judgment. We are capable of both accepting the Son and rejecting him. We are more than just capable, we do in fact both accept and reject the Son of God.
This is particularly well illustrated by the crowds present in Jerusalem. They were largely ignorant of the specifics of this controversial Rabbi from the north. What they did know is that they hate their oppression, and when this Rabbi came riding in on a donkey (a symbol of kingship), they were ready to express their hatred of Roman oppression by proclaiming him Messiah. All the ramifications of that were not in the forefront of their mind. At this practical social level, it was not so much an embrace of Jesus as the Christ, it was rather a rejection of the Romans.
In turn, when the religious leaders made the case that Jesus was a false prophet, even though their case against him was obviously vindictive and lacked real substance, the people were easily convinced to call for his crucifixion. They may have hated Roman oppression, but neither were they ready to face a vicious crackdown by the Roman army. Sure, they hated the Romans, but more to the point, what they really wanted was to get on with their lives.
And this is where these two parables, as well as the Palm Sunday story as parable, confronts us. We all hate those things that oppress us. Everyone wants a better world. It is simply part of the human condition to hope for a utopia in which there are no more tears. Throughout his earthly ministry Jesus explained how we can achieve this. In essence, we must love God so much that it seems that we hate the world, that is everything around us. More to the point, achieving the true utopia (and not just some fanciful utopia of human imagination) which is the Kingdom of God will mean that we must die.
It’s not a pleasant message. Love is turned on its head. Divine peace is achieved by the sword being brought against us. Hope is seemingly extinguished in death (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?), although it ultimately comes out the other side in resurrection to new life.
And so we are left with a choice. Who are we willing to be crucified? Us? Or the Master’s Son?
And we are also left with a task, as v. 43 describes it, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” Will we be the ones from whom much is taken away or will we be a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom?
Copyright © 2006 James E. Nelson (Just Another Jim). All Rights Reserved.
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