"Parable of the Wicked Tenants" -Walking the Palm Sunday Path

Today's gospel is the story companion to Jesus's riddled question that stumped his enemies in Mark Chapter 11. The chapter just before today's gospel is Mark's version of the Palm Sunday text that we heard last week. And then after riding through the streets on a colt, Jesus goes to the temple and what does he do? That's right, he overturns the tables of the moneychangers and says, '""Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'?" But you have made it a den of robbers." (Mark 11: 17). Jesus's last days in Jerusalem focus heavily on teachings about authority, accountability, and solidarity - all of which are represented in today's gospel reading. And, boy, aren't those topics relevant for us today.

Mark's chapters 11and 12 tell stories that establish Jesus's messianic authority. First Jesus rides into Jerusalem with great fanfare (Mark 11:1-11), signaling his Davidic royalty. Then he, seemingly on a whim, curses a fig tree to wither and die (Mark 11:12-14), which points to Jesus's authority over creation. Then Jesus rages through the temple, driving out commerce and cleansing it through teaching (Mark 11:15-19). Here Jesus demonstrates his authority as a Jewish leader and scholar. And Chapter 11 ends with Jesus confronting the scribes, who deny his authority, by asking a binding counterquestion, demonstrating Jesus's intellectual mastery.

Theologian Mark Keown notes that "Mark's Jesus doesn't wait for another question but takes the initiative"¹ by weaving well-known imagery of a vineyard and tenants into one of just two Markan parables. Mark's Jesus echoes Isaiah 5, which would have been well known to his listeners, to portray God as the man/vineyard owner and the Israelites as the vineyard. Jesus implicitly calls temple leaders corrupt as he identifies them as the tenants. The many slaves who are abused or murdered by the tenants could be the many prophets (John the Baptist would have been fresh on the mind). In the thinly veiled metaphor, Jesus links himself to the slain son of the landowner, who is killed for serving the will of his father in search of justice. In the parable, Jesus is the "beloved son" (Mark 12:6), the exact term that we heard from God in Jesus's baptism and the Transfiguration. But then Jesus offers an ominous warning that God, as the grieving landowner, has had enough and "will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others." (Mark 12:9) In other words, Israel is not safe in the hands of its leadership and God is doing something about it.

This parable is violent and graphic and hard to reconcile with a merciful and compassionate God. But its meaning for the original Markan community was likely tied to its historical context. Let's remember that Mark was our earliest gospel writer, writing in about 70 CE, living in the wake of the destruction of the Second Temple. This was a time of extreme devastation for our ancient Jewish ancestors. I often think of Gaza when I think of the destruction of the Second Temple. It was recent memory for Mark's audience that Jesus was brutally killed and resurrected, the temple obliterated, and Israel defeated by Rome yet again2. Audiences would have been searching for who to blame for the devastation and this parable points the finger squarely at political leadership. It's possible that the Markan community might have understood themselves to be the "others" of which Jesus speaks, as they were an outlying group of Jewish Jesus-followers who were largely considered not legitimate Jews by the establishment.

I also think it's worth exploring the relationships in the parable. From my brief research, in order to reasonably expect to inherit property upon death of the heir, the tenants must have either been relatives or have had the vineyard willed to them. For me, this realization changes the impact of the parable a bit. Perhaps the owner generously offered the vineyard to his family members in need, making their brutal rejection of the contract even more painful. Unlike the slaves/messengers, the heir is not a stranger but someone in the tenants' own family. It makes sense that the owner would expect the tenants to respect him. But the heir was murdered by his kin, and it would have been even more egregious that the heir's own family desecrated his body. Lastly, the ominous warning about the owner destroying the tenants is heartbreaking, as he is compelled to lay waste his own flesh and blood. The familial connections in the passage deepen the meaning of the parable for a Mark's Jewish audience whose identity rests on ancestral ties.

Remembering that the Bible was written for an oppressed people by an oppressed people and knowing that Mark's audience was struggling to survive in the shadow of the destruction of the Second Temple, this parable needs to be viewed from the bottom up. Meaning, from the perspective of the vineyard itself, which was a well-known metaphor for the people of Israel. The tenants refuse to share the sweet fruit of righteousness. They value power over right relationship and greed over justice. The grapes do not thrive under their watch but become part of a brutal story of which they did not choose. Who is accountable for the vineyard's egregious and violent mismanagement? The tenants. And by quoting Psalm 118, which we sang earlier, Jesus gestures to the temple leaders. Jesus boldly and publicly shames the priests and scribes by naming them as tenants of God's creation and then naming himself as God's son, far above the tenants in the social and divine hierarchy. Jesus portrays the priests and scribes as callous, murderous criminals, thereby turning their identities as holy men upside down. He holds them accountable.

Lastly, I think today's gospel also reiterates a Markan theme of leaders who do nothing for fear of the crowd. In the temple cleansing scene from Chapter 11, the priests and scribes do not kill Jesus "for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. (Mark 11:18) At the end of today's gospel the leaders "feared the crowd. So they left him and went away." (Mark 12:12) Later, Pilate "wishing to satisfy the crowd" (Mark 15:15) hands Jesus over to be crucified. In these passages, the crowd holds a great deal of power. There is authority in solidarity. The crowd is an important character throughout Jesus's teaching, ministry, and Passion. The crowd exhausts him, energizes him, feeds him, gives him rest, protects him, and condemns him. There is tremendous strength in the crowd of otherwise disempowered people.

And we can point to the holy crowd today, too. Just look at all the folks in Minnesota. A January article in the Atlantic states that, "If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it "neighborism"-a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from. The contrast with the philosophy guiding [federal leadership] couldn't be more extreme ... The people of Minnesota have forced the [federal] administration into a strategic retreat-one inflicted not as rioters or insurgents, but as neighbors."3 The crowd, when pulled together by love and acting in solidarity, becomes a force stronger than hate, greed, and intimidation. The crowd takes enormous risk to follow Jesus, presumably leaving livelihoods, possibly families, and publicly praising Jesus on the streets, in spite of Jesus's flagrant opposition to the empire.

But we can also see what happens when the crowd allows their power to be weaponized to commission evil. Pilate and the temple leaders are acutely aware of this dynamic, as are political leaders today. Both ancient leaders and current ones go to great lengths to control what the crowd believes. Just this week, our president said in the State of the Union that "I'm very proud to say that during my time in office ... there has been a tremendous renewal in religion, faith, Christianity and belief in God"⁴, for which he credits Christian nationalism, the antithesis of the "neighborism" of Minneapolis. I agree that there has been a renewed interest in faith communities, but not because of hate-filled ideology. The crowd craves more love, not less. The call to love our neighbors is no longer a murmur among friends but a battle cry within the crowd.

Friends, we are the crowd. We are the followers of Jesus who walk the Palm Sunday path alongside him, laying down our cloaks and praising him with ordinary lives. We are the crowd who is feared by temple and political leaders. We are the lowly, suffering survivors who have witnessed healing miracles and who oppose empire through love. We are the pulsing, surging, "neighborism" that is God's dream for the world. How will we use this tremendous power? To whom will we give authority? Who will we hold accountable? These are the questions of our time and we are equipped to answer them. We really are.

You may have noticed that I altered the lectionary text for the 1 Corinthians reading to accurately convey the plural you - Paul is speaking to the crowd. He reassures us that "for in every way you [all] have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind ... He will also strengthen you [all] to the end" (1 Corin. 5-8). Friends, let those who are today's wicked tenants be afraid of our crowd. Let them retreat from the fruits of our overabundant neighbor love. Let them underestimate our collective power. And let us continue to actively, publicly, nonviolently resist perversions of Jesus's heart-breaking story that empire tries to wrestle from us. Because this is our story, too - one that God empowers us and compels us to tell together, as neighbors, as God's beloved vineyard, as the crowd who follows Jesus to the cross.

Amen

¹ Keown, Mark J. Jesus in a World of Colliding Empires, Volume Two: Mark 8:30-16:8 and Implications. Wipf & Stock, 2018. 71

² Beavis, Mary Ann. Mark. Ada, OK: Baker Academic, 2011. 175

³ Serwer, Adam. "Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong." Atlantic Monthly (Boston, Mass.: 1993), January 27, 2026.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/ 01/the-neighbors-defending-minnesota-from-ice/ 685769/.

⁴ NBC News. "State of the Union Address Highlights: Trump Clashes with Democrats in Speech Declaring a 'golden Age' of America." NBC News, February 24, 2026.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/live-blog/trump-state-of-union-speech-2026-live-upd  ates-rcna258811.

"Parable of the Wicked Tenants" -Walking the Palm Sunday Path