March 5, 2026, Lent Midweek 2

Mark 12:1–12

Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the winepress, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went away. ² When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. ³ But they seized him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴ And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. ⁵ Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. ⁶ He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ⁷ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ ⁸ So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. ⁹ What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. ¹⁰ Have you not read this scripture:

‘The stone that the builders rejected    has become the cornerstone;^[a]11 this was the Lord’s doing,    and it is amazing in our eyes’?”

¹² When they realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd. So they left him and went away.

Costly Grace, Compromises, Complicity

What lengths would you go to in order to protect that which you think is yours? And how do you justify it?

Especially, if it wasn’t really yours in the first place?

Let’s see if we can parse this parable in a more modern setting.

The tenants – they’re people who are working hard. They see the fruits of their labor. And they know that someone else has a claim on those fruits.

But they decide that the claim is invalid. After all, they did all the work. No matter that the investment of someone else enabled them to do the work in the first place. They look only at their part in the process and devalue the contribution of others.

So, they decide that they will not honor the social contract. Anyone who comes to claim that portion that belongs to the landowner will promptly be sent packing – with some bruises to boot!

Now, I bet not all the tenants were on board with beating the first agent. I bet they rationalized, saying, “Well, I wasn’t there when the others decided to send him away. And I never laid a hand on him. It’s not my fault” I bet it got easier each time to rationalize sending away the landowner’s agents. Eventually, those who compromised their values, and were complicit by their silence and inaction, began to believe that they were in the right, that the landowner was charging too much rent or that he didn’t deserve anything because he wasn’t even around.

Each little compromise increased their complicity and made it easier to look away, easier to ignore how silence is implicit participation in the system. And for some, it is easier to participate overtly in the system.

Do we see ourselves in these tenants? We should. No, we’re not killing the landowner’s son – at least not directly. Jesus told this parable directly against the chief priests, scribe, and elders – those who were plotting to put him to death. It’s a direct analogy: Landowner is God, the tenants are the religious leaders, the slaves are the prophets, and the son, of course is Jesus.

And as we well know, it’s world where there are those who believe they are owed everything, that they should own everything. And they will stop at nothing to claim what they think is their due.

Not much has changed in 2000 years.

There are those who will stop at nothing to protect what they think they own, creating unjust systems to boost their power and increase their wealth.

There are those who benefit from those systems. By their silence they become complicit with the first group. As long as they can protect what they believe is rightly theirs, then sure, let’s not rock the boat. Even worse, they believe the false narrative that pits the not-haves against other not-haves.

They compromise their values to protect their way of life, to maintain their security. And deny their complicity in the system.

This parable calls out compromise and complicity with unjust systems. It call us to embrace the way of the cross.

It calls us to costly grace. A way of life that prioritizes love, justice, inclusion, and mutuality.

It calls us to ask hard questions:

How does the church enable the current political realities? I’m not talking about Christian Nationalist churches. They have chosen compromise and complicity for the sake of power.

No, I’m talking about the rest of us, who struggle to follow Jesus. Where have we ignored our complicity, where do we compromise as a community of faith in order to not rock the boat, or bring the wrath of government down on us?

Where do we hold tight to that which we think is ours by right, embracing scarcity instead of following Jesus’ example of generosity born from confidence in the abundance of God?

This parable calls us to examine our own complicity, to confess it, and to turn from it to the values of the Kingdom of Heaven. To stand at the foot of the cross, receiving the costly grace bought by Jesus’ blood. To stand with Jesus in solidarity of the least of these.

We are called the way of love. It’s counter-cultural, risky, and costly.

It’s nothing less than Jesus gave.