The Gospel for the Fifth Sunday in Lent (March 28, 2004)
Luke 20:9-19
And he went on to tell the people this parable, ‘A man planted a vineyard and leased it to tenants, and went abroad for a long while. When the right time came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get his share of the produce of the vineyard. But the tenants thrashed him, and sent him away empty–handed. But he went on to send a second servant; they thrashed him too and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty–handed. He still went on to send a third; they wounded this one too, and threw him out. Then the owner of the vineyard thought, “What am I to do? I will send them my own beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him.” But when the tenants saw him they put their heads together saying, “This is the heir, let us kill him so that the inheritance will be ours.” So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. ‘Now what will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and make an end of these tenants and give the vineyard to others.’ Hearing this they said, ‘God forbid!’ But he looked hard at them and said, ‘Then what does this text in the scriptures mean: The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone? Anyone who falls on that stone will be dashed to pieces; anyone it falls on will be crushed.’ And the scribes and the chief priests would have liked to lay hands on him that very moment, because they realised that this parable was aimed at them, but they were afraid of the people. -- The New Jerusalem Bible. 1995, c1985. Doubleday: Garden City, N.Y.
A Study
"So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others."
After all ... there will be justice. Having been given the opportunity to acknowledge the Son, and not only rejecting him, but killing him, these ungrateful servants will endure the full wrath of the Law. The flawed logic that they employed, that killing the heir would somehow deliver the inheritance to them, is baffling to the modern reader but must have turned upside-down those steeped in Torah. If the listeners didn't "get" the setup for this story, they were beyond any intellectual reach.
Jesus, having been (expectedly) denied in his own home, is telling again, in real time, how Jerusalem deals with her prophets. But he also this time speaks not as a prophet, but as the One for whom the prophets spoke. There is a wide chasm between between the two, and the chief priests and scribes are livid that Jesus would try to strap on God's sandals.
A Reflection
"Snow blindness" leapt into my mind as I thought about this story. Not an apt metaphor for the desert! But consider the chief priests who had been running the well-oiled temple machine for decades, as an inherited franchise. Everywhere they looked and everything they saw served only to confirm that which they had already decided was the true truth, the immutable, unchanging, invariant. Just as a person standing on a plain covered in snow will eventually be able to see nothing but snow, regardless of what else might pop into view.
Stage magicians use this human frailty to peform their stunts. We humans will always "fill in the blanks" to make the world rational -- at least rational in our expectation sets.
When the chosen people of Jesus' time refused to choose Jesus, it was [at least partly] because they had for so long lived as they were living and had become accustomed to the way that things had always been.
We must always be ready for the new and the different. Jesus doesn't call us to be the same. He calls each of us to be different: to love fully and freely, and to sacrifice self for others. Only by giving up our selves to His service will we be delivered into the full freedom He has prepared for us.
And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants
departed this life in thy faith and fear,
beseeching thee to grant them continual growth in thy love
and service; and to grant us grace so to follow the good
examples of all thy saints, that with
them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom.
7:42:37 AM 
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