September 2nd, 2023

The season of Pentecost continues, and we are currently at what is usually called the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (with the Gospel reading from Matthew 16:21-28, and it follows the previous week). Most currently, with the writings on this website, we are going through the entire Gospel according to Matthew, as it was laid out many centuries ago, and one text follows the previous one.

Within these past chapters, there has been an increased tension between Jesus and the religious leaders. In the section below, there is a desire on the part of the chief priests and Pharisees to ‘seize’ Jesus (21:46). Right after the text below, there is the desire by the Pharisees to take counsel and ‘trap’ Jesus in a word. This is a seizing by means of words.

The text below is mainly a set of parables that Jesus gave at this point. A simple explanation of a parable has been ‘a worldly story with a heavenly meaning’. Somewhat more important is the point that the parables of Jesus drive the believers closer to him and the non-believers farther away. At the start of the text, Jesus is talking to the chief priests and the elders of the people (see 21:23). The verbs in bold print (the historical presents—when a verb should be in something like the past, but it appears in the present) also appear at points of confrontation and help to point out the heightening of this tension. These are the things with which Jesus had to deal, especially as the God-man when he was dealing with the sins of his people.

Words are important. Words have been important from day one, literally. And to help keep that emphasis on the words, the following text is in a somewhat-literal translation (and is from Matthew 21:28-22:14):

[Jesus said]: “Now what to you does it seem? A man had children, two; and having approached the first, he said: ‘Child, go today; work in the vineyard.’ Now he, having answered, said, ‘Not I want.’ Now later, having repented, he went out. Now having approached the other, he said likewise. Now he, having answered, said, ‘I, Lord; and not he went out. Which of the two did the will of the father?”

They say, “The first.”

He says to them, the Jesus: “Amen, I am saying to you that the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going before you into the kingdom of the God. For he came, John, toward you in a way of righteousness, and not you believed him. Now the tax-collectors and the prostitutes believed him. Now you, having seen, not repented, later, to believe him.”

“Another parable, hear. A man there was, a house-despot, who planted a vineyard, and a fence, it, he put around, and he dug in it a winepress, and he built a tower, and he let out it to tenant farmers, and he went abroad. Now when it came near, the time of the fruits, he sent out the slaves of him toward the tenant farmers, to receive the fruits of him. And having taken, the tenant farmers, the slaves of him, the one, on the one hand, they flogged, the one, on the other hand, they killed, the one, on the other hand, they stoned. Again, he sent out other slaves, more than the first, and they did to them likewise. Now later he sent out toward them the son of him, saying, ‘They will respect the son of me.’ Now the tenant farmers, having seen the son, they said in themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and let us possess the inheritance of him.’ And having taken him, they threw out, outside the vineyard, and they killed. Therefore, when he comes, the lord of the vineyard, what will he do to the tenant farmers, those?”

They say to him, “Bad men, badly, he will destroy them, and the vineyard he will give out to other tenant farmers, who will give over to him the fruits in the times of them.”

He says to them, the Jesus, “Never did you read in the writings, ‘A stone which they rejected, the builders, this became into head of corner; from Lord became this, and it is marvelous in eyes of us’? On account of this I am saying to you that it will be taken from you, the kingdom of the God, and it will be given to a nation making the fruits of it. And the one having fallen on the stone, this, he will be broken into pieces; now on whomever it falls, it will crush to powder, him.” And having heard, the chief priests and Pharisees, the parables of him, they knew that, concerning them, he says; and seeking him, to seize, they feared the crowds, since into a prophet, him, they had.
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And having answered, the Jesus, again he spoke in parables to them, saying, “It was compared, the kingdom of the heavens, to a man, a king, who made a wedding celebration for the son of him. And he sent out the slaves of him to call the ones having been invited into the wedding celebration, and not they wanted to come. Again, he sent out other slaves, saying, ‘Speak to the ones having been invited, “Behold, the dinner of me I have prepared, the oxen of me and the fattened animals having been slaughtered, and all things ready; come into the wedding celebration.”’ Now the ones not caring, they went off, one, on the one hand, into the own field, one, on the other hand, on the emporium of him. Now the rest, having seized the slaves of him, they insulted, and they killed. Now the king became angry, and having sent the armies of him, he destroyed the murderers, those, and the city of them he burned. Then he says to the slaves of him, ‘On the one hand, the wedding celebration, ready, it is; on the other hand, those having been invited not were worthy; therefore, go upon the exodus-through of the ways, and as many as you find, call into the wedding celebration. And having gone out, the slaves, those, into the ways, they assembled all whom they found, both evil and good; and it was filled, the wedding celebration of reclining ones. Now having entered, the king, to behold the reclining ones, he saw there a man, not having been dressed in a dress of wedding celebration. And he says to him, ‘Friend, how did you enter here, not having a dress of wedding celebration?’ Now he was silenced. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Having bound him, feet and hands, throw out him into the darkness, the outer; there will be the wailing and the gnashing of the teeth.’ For many are called, now few, chosen.”