Amy C Walters

The Parable of the Wicked Tenants | Luke 20:9-19

When the religious leaders question Jesus’ authority, Jesus responds with a parable about wicked tenants in a vineyard. The parable shows that Jesus comes with God’s authority. But even so, the tenants will still reject him because they want the authority for themselves. And just like the religious leaders, we rebel against God’s authority.

In the story before this, Jesus is teaching in the temple, and a large group of religious leaders challenged Jesus on where his authority comes from. Jesus sidesteps their question and responds with a question of his own: “was the baptism of John from heaven or from man” (Luke 20:4). When the leaders are stumped and unable to answer, he refuses to tell them where his authority comes from. Instead, he tells them this parable. 

In it, a man plants a vineyard and then rents it out. The owner then goes to another country for a long time. But when the time comes to pay the rent, the tenants rebel. They refuse to pay and instead, they beat up the owner’s servant and send him away empty-handed. 

In fact, with every servant that the owner sends, instead of payment, there’s escalating violence. With the first servant, the tenants beat him up. Then the second, they beat him up and treat him shamefully. With the third, they wound him and cast him out. 

Each of these servants was sent by the owner with a message from the owner. But that doesn’t matter to the tenants. Their behavior tells us that they have no regard for the authority of the servants or even of the owner. 

So finally, the owner sends his son. There is no more authoritative representative of the owner than the son. He is the one who will inherit the vineyard. 

But instead of listening to the son in his authority, the tenants see this as an opportunity to remove the heir and inherit the land themselves. They kill him to steal it. So the authority of the son doesn’t matter because the heart of the issue is that the tenants want the authority and ownership for themselves. 

Let’s look at what the people and places in this parable represent. The owner is God. The vineyard is Israel. There are many Old Testament passages symbolizing Israel as a vineyard, like Isaiah 5. The son is the Messiah and the tenants are the people. 

The religious leaders know that Jesus is telling this parable against them. So when they are essentially accused of rejecting God’s Son, they respond with “Surely not!” They’re offended. They can’t believe Jesus would say that about them. We’re not wicked like the people in this story. We would never do that.

Their reaction, however, reveals that Jesus has hit close to home. There is a deep seeded rebellion in their hearts that’s trying to keep itself hidden. 

But Jesus doesn’t back down. He looks directly at them and quotes from Psalm 118. It’s the same chapter that the people quoted from during the Triumphal Entry. But this verse says, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” The builders reject the very thing that’s needed for a right foundation. And Psalm 118 prophesied that that would happen. 

In fact, we see the religious leaders acting out this parable in this very moment, seeking a way to get rid of the son. They do the very thing that they deny. 

This story answers the question the religious leaders ask in Luke 20:2, “Who gave you this authority?” Jesus’ authority comes directly from God. 

Do you think the religious leaders truly cared or believed this? I don’t think so. They would have rejected whatever answer Jesus gave them. Because the parable shows that they want the son’s authority for themselves. And they will kill him to try to get it. 

It’s easy for us to listen to this story and shake our heads at the religious leaders, to think what terrible people they were, and to try to distance ourselves from them. But remember, the audience’s rebellious hearts are revealed by their response to Jesus’ story. And our responses to the things that we experience in life can reveal what’s going on in our hearts as well. 

How do we feel when things don’t go our way? How do we react when our kids or our spouse or our coworkers or our boss make decisions that we don’t like? What happens when we realize we are not in control? Are there parts of the Bible we wish weren’t there? And have you ever said or thought, “I would have done it differently?”

That is our rebellious heart revealing itself. Just like the religious leaders, we reject the son because we want to be in control. We want to be the owners, not the tenants.

So we try to do things to maintain that illusion of our control. We live life by our own rules, our own morality. We do what we think is right. We put ourselves and our own needs first. We ignore the parts of the Bible that we don’t like. We gossip about and undercut the people that we don’t like. We shout at people who get in our way. 

Our key truth for today is that we rebel against Jesus’ authority. 

It’s at the very center of our sin problem. We keep trying to put ourselves on the throne where we don’t belong. 

And this problem doesn’t go away when we trust Jesus as our Savior. In fact, it should make us more aware of it because we can admit to ourselves that we are hostile to the very one that we need for salvation.

So that tension that we feel when things don’t go our way, that’s a reminder of our rebellious tendencies. When that tension comes and you’re frustrated and you’re angry and upset, don’t push it away or ignore it or say, like the audience here, “Surely not!” 

Instead, use that tension to remind you that you are not the owner of the vineyard, you’re the tenant. God is the owner and you have been given responsibility for it, but you are accountable to him. Don’t try to take his authority from him. 

Today as you go, when frustrations come up and things don’t go your way, use that as a reminder that Jesus is in charge, that he is the owner, he is the authority. You are not. And it’s not your job to rule the world, but instead to submit to Jesus’ authority.