absent landlord

173:4.1When the chief Phar­isees and the scribes who had sought to en­tan­gle Je­sus with their ques­tions had fin­ished lis­ten­ing to the story of the two sons, they with­drew to take fur­ther coun­sel, and the Mas­ter, turn­ing his at­ten­tion to the lis­ten­ing mul­ti­tude, told an­other para­ble:

173:4.2“There was a good man who was a house­holder, and he planted a vine­yard. He set a hedge about it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watch­tower for the guards. Then he let this vine­yard out to ten­ants while he went on a long jour­ney into an­other coun­try. And when the sea­son of the fruits drew near, he sent ser­vants to the ten­ants to re­ceive his rental. But they took coun­sel among them­selves and re­fused to give these ser­vants the fruits due their mas­ter; in­stead, they fell upon his ser­vants, beat­ing one, ston­ing an­other, and send­ing the oth­ers away empty-handed. And when the house­holder heard about all this, he sent other and more trusted ser­vants to deal with these wicked ten­ants, and these they wounded and also treated shame­fully. And then the house­holder sent his fa­vorite ser­vant, his stew­ard, and him they killed. And still, in pa­tience and with for­bear­ance, he dis­patched many other ser­vants, but none would they re­ceive. Some they beat, oth­ers they killed, and when the house­holder had been so dealt with, he de­cided to send his son to deal with these un­grate­ful ten­ants, say­ing to him­self, ‘They may mis­treat my ser­vants, but they will surely show re­spect for my beloved son.’ But when these un­re­pen­tant and wicked ten­ants saw the son, they rea­soned among them­selves: ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and then the in­her­i­tance will be ours.’ So they laid hold on him, and af­ter cast­ing him out of the vine­yard, they killed him. When the lord of that vine­yard shall hear how they have re­jected and killed his son, what will he do to those un­grate­ful and wicked ten­ants?”

173:4.3And when the peo­ple heard this para­ble and the ques­tion Je­sus asked, they an­swered, “He will de­stroy those mis­er­able men and let out his vine­yard to other and hon­est farm­ers who will ren­der to him the fruits in their sea­son.” And when some of them who heard per­ceived that this para­ble re­ferred to the Jew­ish na­tion and its treat­ment of the proph­ets and to the im­pend­ing re­jec­tion of Je­sus and the gospel of the king­dom, they said in sor­row, “God for­bid that we should go on do­ing these things.”

173:4.4Je­sus saw a group of the Sad­ducees and Phar­isees mak­ing their way through the crowd, and he paused for a mo­ment un­til they drew near him, when he said: “You know how your fa­thers re­jected the proph­ets, and you well know that you are set in your hearts to re­ject the Son of Man.” And then, look­ing with search­ing gaze upon those priests and el­ders who were stand­ing near him, Je­sus said: “Did you never read in the Scrip­ture about the stone which the builders re­jected, and which, when the peo­ple had dis­cov­ered it, was made into the cor­ner­stone? And so once more do I warn you that, if you con­tinue to re­ject this gospel, pres­ently will the king­dom of God be taken away from you and be given to a peo­ple will­ing to re­ceive the good news and to bring forth the fruits of the spirit. And there is a mys­tery about this stone, see­ing that whoso falls upon it, while he is thereby bro­ken in pieces, shall be saved; but on whom­so­ever this stone falls, he will be ground to dust and his ashes scat­tered to the four winds.”

173:4.5When the Phar­isees heard these words, they un­der­stood that Je­sus re­ferred to them­selves and the other Jew­ish lead­ers. They greatly de­sired to lay hold on him then and there, but they feared the mul­ti­tude. How­ever, they were so an­gered by the Mas­ter’s words that they with­drew and held fur­ther coun­sel among them­selves as to how they might bring about his death. And that night both the Sad­ducees and the Phar­isees joined hands in the plan to en­trap him the next day.