The Parable of the Tenants in the Vineyard.

No good father, no good mother, spares admonition when he sees his child hurtling towards misfortune. There is always hope that he may come to his senses and convert. Jesus acts similarly. He reminds the leaders of the nation of Israel of the actions of the unjust vinedressers so that they realize the consequences of their enmity and repent (Mk 12:1-11).

The analogy was evident and understandable. After all, for every Jew, the vineyard was a sign of the nation of Israel, with whom God made his covenant. In the history of salvation, God sent his servants – prophets, so that, with their faithfulness and undaunted proclamation of God’s will, they would return the chosen nation from the errant path on which it had so often set out. The typical fate of these prophets was persecution, even death. Finally, God sent his beloved Son. In the parable, Jesus foretold his coming suffering and death. But it is through her that God’s plans of salvation will be realized. The despised, condemned, martyred, but ultimately resurrected Christ becomes the foundation stone of the new nation, God’s church. The high priests and scribes oppose repentance, the call to conversion. Their hearts become even more hardened and ripe for judgment.

The parable of the unjust vinedressers is a warning even for today. The Church is the new steward of God’s vineyard. God’s messengers are holy confessors and martyrs. However, the most important thing is the voice of God’s Son, who asks us to convert like the vineyard’s fruit as a payment for God’s gifts. The words of the Son of God are a binding call to decision and action. Indifference is the same rejection as any conscious opposition to God’s service. (According to HRBATA, J., Perly a chleb, Č. Těšín, Katolícke nakladatelství COR JESU, 1991, 222.1.)

We must admit that indifference, or even conscious resistance to serving God in our ranks, causes insufficient understanding of Jesus’ teaching. Partial knowledge retained from childhood or religious classes does not have the power to drive us directly to conversion. After all, children rarely understand the depth of a certain truth of faith in the same way an adult can when he puts this truth into his world, which he knows ideally and already has experience with. It is, therefore, no shame to pick up a catechism or other religious literature in middle age or at an age that assumes a slow end to life.

We must allow ourselves to get to know God more deeply. The life experience of the former Marxist and materialist Ignác Lepp also confirms this. In a spiritual crisis, he returned to his apartment early in the morning after a night spent drinking wine and empty debates about fashionable figures of French culture. He couldn’t fall asleep, so he started reading a novel that his family’s daughter had left behind in the living room. He was so interested in the story that he did not close it until he had read it. Only after reading the novel did he notice its title and author. It was Sienkiewicz’s novel Quo vadis.

Even the gnome Lepp confessed that this novel would not have impressed him so strongly if his ignorance of Christianity had not been so complete. In the following weeks, he delved into studying the first centuries of Christianity, familiarizing himself with the biographies of great personalities and saints. He eagerly devoured everything that could bring Jesus’ teaching and the Church closer to him. All this impressed him so strongly that he wished to become a Christian and a religious first. (Spiritual Shepherd 1994, p. 61.) The scribes and high priests hardened their hearts before God’s rebuke. Let us not follow their exam.