vineyard – A Preacher’s Ponderings

Fifth Sunday of Easter; 28 April 2024; Easter 5B (RCL); Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:24-30; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8.

The image of the vine is a guiding metaphor in the Old Testament for Israel. Psalm 80, a psalm of complaint in which Israel questions why God has not restored Jerusalem, speaks of Israel as a vine: You have brought a vine out of Egypt; you cast out the nations and planted it. Then after describing God’s care for the vine, the psalmist goes on to complain: Why have you broken down its wall, so that all who pass by pluck off its grapes. And then begs: Turn now, O God of hosts, look down from heaven; behold and tend this vine; preserve what your right hand has planted.

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost; 8 October 2023; Proper 22A (RCL); Exodus20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20; Psalm 19; Philippians3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46.

I dread this parable. If there were any passage I could excise from scripture, it would be the parable of the vineyard and its tenants. All three synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke) include a version of it. It happens in the narrative context of Jesus teaching in the Temple after he has expelled the sellers of animals and overturned the tables of the money changers, so the Temple cult is in view. And any parable about vineyards or vines occurs against the background of Old Testament passages like Isaiah 5:1-7 and Psalm 80:8-19, in which Israel is compared to a vineyard or a vine.

Tag: vineyard

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The vineyard and its tenants