By Tommy Airey, adapted from a sermon on Matthew 10:1-16

Most interpretations of Jesus’ “parable of the landowner” equate the vineyard owner with God and the workers with God’s People or humanity at large.  God is seen as “generous” and “equitable” with the people and expands the population of those who, by grace, are ushered through the heavenly gates.   The grumbling worker at the end of the story is representative of Israel at large or the Pharisees, chief priests and other Jewish leaders who confronted Jesus during his life and ministry—the lesson being that we should all be thankful for God’s equal treatment and unconditional generosity and kindness.

Infused by the scholarship of William Herzog and his former student Ched Myers, there is a more compelling and contextual interpretation of Matthew 20 flowing out of the “minority report” of the radical discipleship movement.  Fortunately, nothing in the parable forces us to assume that the vineyard owner in the parable is God!  Instead, like a political cartoon, the parable is an exaggerated representation of what life was actually like during the time of Jesus and in the culture of the very first hearers of the parable five decades later. Instead of offering us heavenly principles that permit us to rest easy, the parable functions as a jarring illustration that prods us to face reality. Continue reading “When the Landowner is not God” →