NOTES for Luk 20:1-18
There is a certain fatalism in the parable of the vineyard tenants: the chief priests must kill the Son who was sent, just as their ancestors killed and persecuted the prophets. But there is a way out of this fatal circle, for every listener to a parable can identify himself with one character or another and see how he must act in order to follow his chosen path. In this sense, each of us freely chooses his own path, while the parable merely points out the existing alternatives and the way out of the situation. Here too the question is posed squarely: the chief priests can either identify themselves with those who killed and persecuted the prophets, or refrain from doing so and gain the opportunity freely to recognize in Jesus the Anointed One, the Christ. But they prefer not to take risky steps and simply to remove the Jesus who offended them. If only we knew how to use parables for their intended purpose and see in them not a statement of a future tragedy, but a challenge, one more occasion to choose...