Life Project Blog

If you have taken the trouble to read all three versions of this story, you will no doubt have noticed that they are very similar in substance. Even so, it’s always interesting to see which details made an impression of different witnesses to the same event. As usual, Matthew has the most detail, especially the detail of interest to a Jewish audience. Mark, as was his custom, had the most succinct version with least detailed description- just the facts. Luke came somewhere in the middle, and at the end, quoted “the people” instead of the Jewish leaders. Matthew has Jesus asking a question to which “they” give an answer. A crowd was present, but who was He speaking to? The Jewish leaders. Remember the context which begins in 21:23.

OK, now that we are all on the same page, let’s have a look at what has just happened in our narrative. The Jewish religious leaders may or may not have gotten every bit of the parable, but they knew Jesus had just made them look bad; that much is clear. Beginning in 21:42, Jesus makes use of a quotation from Psalm 118 that was originally a song of thanksgiving for a military victory; it was often sung in Jesus’ day by pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem. For them, the “stone that the builders rejected” referred to Israel, but Jesus applies it here in a different way, for here He applies it to Himself; He is the stone the builders rejected. Interestingly, this imagery became a very important component of the teaching of the early church, as seen in 1 Peter 2:4-8 and Acts 4:12. As such, the stone rejected is identified as the capstone, the stone that holds the entire building in place; this cones together quite nicely with Matthew 16:18-19 wherein the Apostles are seen as the “foundation” of the church with Jesus as the “capstone”. To be quite clear, if you remove the capstone (sometimes called “keystone” today) the building crumbles.

21:43 ff. demonstrates Jesus’ emphasis on the fact that the Jewish leaders have forfeited their rights to enjoy God’s favor, God’s presence, which is also to say His Kingdom, by their stubborn refusal to receive their Messiah (the stone that was rejected) and thus, Jesus will build a new temple of a new people comprised of all ethnic groups as a new holy nation: His Church. The Jewish religious leaders seem to have caught enough of His meaning to motivate them even more to silence Him for good. No, this simply would not do; they must kill Him as soon as possible! Yet, there was still the problem of the crowds who viewed Jesus as a prophet; what to do about the crowds? This was now clearly their problem, and to its solution they would turn their full attention in 22:15-40. Even so, Jesus wasn’t quite finished with them, for He has one more parable, and quite a parable it was. We’ll tackle it when we get back together next time…

Matthew 21:28-32

“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

In the life of Jesus on this earth, a lot of time has passed since the previous parables He has taught more than a year, as it happens. We are now on the day after His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, the day after He cleared the Temple. He has arrived that next morning at the Temple where the Jewish leaders are waiting for Him and they demand to know by what authority He cleared out their money-making operation in the Temple. (Matt. 21:1-27 for the full context)

This parable is perhaps the easiest in Matthew to figure out; the sinners (tax collectors and prostitutes) are the son who said ‘no’ and then did as his father told him to do. The Jewish religious leaders are the son who said ‘yes’ and then disobeyed. The father, of course, is God.

Notice that Jesus told them this parable and then asked them which son did as the father wanted, and they were so blind that they answered without noticing that they were stepping into a trap; please think about that for a moment.

Who was on the offensive in this scene; remember that it began in verse 23 where they were demanding to know by what authority Jesus had done the things He did on the previous afternoon. They had come after Him to attempt to trap Him into saying something that would cause Him to become unpopular with the crowds, and so they could accuse and kill Him. In the previous text, they were plotting, scheming and calculating, and yet here, mere moments later, Jesus asks them an obvious question about a very straightforward parable, and they blindly step into His trap. Is it possible that they, brilliant as they were, really didn’t see the trap? You might remember that earlier in this scene when Jesus asked them what the source of John’s baptism was, that they saw the trap in that question (21:24-26).

So, do you recall when the disciples asked Him why He spoke to the people in parables? (13:10)

His answer was in 13:11-17, and essentially it was this: ”Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand” (13:13b).

This may be the most obvious example of what Jesus told the disciples back in chapter 13 in the entire New Testament; the Jewish leaders did not see the obvious, for they had not been given the ability to see, because they did not want to see at all.

So, Jesus springs His trap in 21:31-32, and I’m sure it warmed the hearts of those leaders to hear they are worse than tax collectors and prostitutes…

Matthew 18:21-35

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant is one of the most familiar of all Jesus’ parables, at least for most of us. It’s the one where a servant who owed his master a great deal of money had his debt forgiven by the master when he was unable to pay. Later, while the master was away, he had another servant, who owed him a small debt thrown into prison and tortured until he paid. When the master returned and found out what that servant had done while he was away, the master had that servant killed because he had been forgiven much and was expected to do likewise.

The context for this section is set in 18:15-20 in which Jesus was instructing the disciples about how to handle brothers and sisters who sin. The climax comes in verse 21:

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” (18:21)

In His response, Jesus tells Peter the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. The crux of the matter is simple: God has forgiven us much, and when a brother or sister sins against us, we are expected to forgive them as God has forgiven us- this is a command, by the way.

Verse 35 is Jesus’ final word on the subject:

“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” (18:35)