He will rent the vineyard to other tenants (Mt 21:33-43)

Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew

Matthew 21:33–43

³³«Listen to another parable. There was a family man who planted a vineyard. He put a hedge around it, dug a winepress into it, and built a tower. Then he rented it to some tenants and went on a journey. ³⁴When the time for harvest came, he sent his servants to the tenants to receive the produce of his vineyard. ³⁵The vineyard workers seized his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned the third. ³⁶He sent other servants again, in greater numbers than the first time, and they treated them the same way. ³⁷Finally he sent them his son, saying: they will respect my son. ³⁸But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, “This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and we'll have his inheritance.”. ³⁹And having seized him, they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. ⁴⁰Now, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?» ⁴¹They replied, "He will strike these wretches without pity, and rent his vineyard to other tenants, who will give him the fruit in due season."" ⁴²Jesus said to them, «Have you never read in the Scriptures: 'The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?' The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. ⁴³That is why I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruits.

A man plants a vineyard. He doesn't do things by halves: a fence for protection, a winepress carved into the rock for the harvest, a watchtower to keep out thieves. Everything is ready, everything is provided. Then he entrusts this work to some winegrowers and leaves, leaving them with full responsibility for the future fruit. Time passes. The harvest season arrives, and the owner sends his servants to claim his share—what is rightfully his. But the winegrowers, rather than settle accounts, choose violence: they beat one, kill another, and stone a third. The owner, patient to the point of incomprehension, sends other servants, more of them. Same fate. Then he plays his last card, the one no reasonable strategist would have played: he sends his own son, convinced that a blood tie will be enough to inspire respect. The vineyard owners, however, saw things from their own perspective: the heir was there, and all they had to do was eliminate him for the inheritance to fall entirely within their grasp. They dragged him from the vineyard and killed him. Jesus then questioned his listeners themselves about the fate such men deserved—and their harsh verdict, though they didn't immediately realize it, backfired on them.

«"He will rent the vineyard to other tenants" — when God's trust meets men's betrayal

A parable that judges the listener before they even realize it, and that questions our own relationship to giving, responsibility, and the fruits of our labor.

This text is not a peaceful tale to be pondered from afar: it is a mirror held up to anyone who has received something without ever questioning what they did with it. High priests of yesterday, believers of today—no one is exempt from the question posed by this vineyard entrusted to them and then betrayed. This message is addressed to those who sometimes feel they own what does not belong to them, and offers them a way to rediscover the humility of the winegrower who receives before giving back.

We will begin by situating the scene and the source text before delving into the heart of the paradox that this parable illuminates. Three thematic axes will then explore the human and spiritual dimensions of the narrative: patient trust, violence that refuses to be held accountable, and the final reversal. We will then examine how this changes concretely in our lives before listening to how the Church Fathers and the liturgy have received this text throughout the centuries. A lectio divina, suggestions for meditation, contemporary challenges, and a prayer will conclude this reflection.

A trial that dare not speak its name

We are in the final days before the Passion, in Jerusalem, within the Temple precincts. Jesus has just entered triumphantly, acclaimed by the crowds, and then driven out the merchants. The atmosphere is electric. The chief priests and the elders of the people—the legitimate religious authority, those who hold the power to interpret the Law and lead worship—come to confront him directly: «What right do you have to do these things?» Jesus refuses to answer their direct question and chooses a formidable weapon: the parable. This is the third in a series of three parables addressed to this same audience, all designed to force them to examine their own situation.

The text draws on an image every Jew knew by heart: the vine as a symbol of Israel. The prophet Isaiah had already used it with striking force in what is known as the Song of the Vineyard (Isaiah 5:1-7): God plants a vineyard there with the same meticulous care—fence, winepress, watchtower—and expects grapes, but harvests only bitter fruit. In Isaiah, the disappointment comes from the fruit itself, which is bad despite all the care. In Matthew, the shift is crucial: it is no longer the grapes that disappoint, but the vinedressers who betray. The problem is no longer the nature of the vine, but the faithfulness of those to whom it has been entrusted.

This shift changes everything. Jesus is not speaking here of a people who are generally unfaithful, as Isaiah did, but of a specific ruling class to whom the responsibility for the people's spiritual care has been delegated. The high priests and elders immediately understand the allusion—they know their Isaiah. They grasp that they are the vinedressers of history. The servants sent out successively represent the prophets, martyred throughout the history of Israel: Jeremiah imprisoned, Zechariah stoned in the Temple itself, Elijah persecuted. The son, of course, is Jesus—and the phrase "thrown out of the vineyard and killed" anticipates with disturbing precision his own crucifixion outside the walls of Jerusalem a few days later.

What makes this text so formidable is its narrative structure. Jesus doesn't condemn anyone directly—he poses an open question: «What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants?» And it is his adversaries themselves, caught in the trap of their own logic of justice, who pronounce the sentence: «He will bring them to a wretched end.» They have just judged themselves without realizing it. It is only after this spontaneous response that Jesus closes the trap by quoting Psalm 118 about the rejected stone that became the cornerstone—revealing that the judgment they have just pronounced concerns them directly, the builders who are about to reject the most important stone of all.

The paradox of a gift that becomes a trap

The power of this text lies in a dizzying reversal: what is offered with the utmost generosity can become, in the wrong hands, the very instrument of rejection. The landowner doesn't simply lease a bare plot of land—he prepares everything, down to the smallest detail. The fence protects against animals and thieves. The winepress, dug in advance, anticipates a harvest still far off, like an act of trust already committed before the first grape has even ripened. The watchtower allows for surveillance and defense. Nothing is left to chance: the master has given everything, before even asking for anything in return.

And it is precisely this initial generosity that makes the winegrowers' betrayal so staggering. They are not exploited workers demanding justice—they received a complete set of tools, an entire infrastructure, the concrete possibility of making fruitful what was initially just bare land. Their refusal to return the harvest is therefore not a revolt against oppression: it is a pure and simple appropriation of what did not belong to them. The Greek word in the text, georgoi, refers to cultivators, workers of the land—not owners. Their status is clear from the outset. The tragedy arises from their refusal to accept this status.

This paradox touches on something profoundly human: the ease with which we end up confusing management with ownership. A business leader who, through sheer force of will, comes to consider the company as their own. A parent who, through raising a child, forgets that this child does not belong to them but has been entrusted to them for a time. A priest who, through serving a parish, comes to settle there as if it were conquered territory rather than as a servant passing through. The vineyard never changes hands—but the winemakers themselves can always choose to forget who they are.

The height of the paradox lies in the question of the son. The landowner doesn't send him as a last resort for lack of any other solution—he sends him, relying on what is most sacred in human relationships: the respect due to blood, to lineage, to the intimate bond with the master. "They will respect my son," he tells himself—a phrase of almost unreasonable confidence, which exposes his utter vulnerability. And it is precisely this closeness, this filial bond, that the vineyard workers turn against him: "Here is the heir, let's kill him, the inheritance will be ours." The logic of the most intimate gift becomes, in their mouths, the justification for the most absolute crime. It is here that the text touches on something truly theological: God never shields himself from his own vulnerability toward humankind. He continues to send, to the very end, even to his own Son, knowing what might happen.

The patience that refuses to give up too soon

The first theme of this text is the patience of a God who never ceases to send. Three waves of messengers follow one another: first a group of servants, then an even larger group, and finally the son. This progression is not a mere narrative detail—it tells an entire story, that of a God who, faced with each refusal, does not resign himself but persists even more. Human logic would dictate that after the first bloody failure, one would give up, change methods, and cease sending innocent people to the slaughter. God, however, persists—not out of naivety, but because his patience is never blindness: it is a deliberate choice to continue trusting despite everything.

This patience finds its most direct echo in the actual history of Israel, which Jewish and Christian tradition has always interpreted as a long succession of prophets sent and then rejected. The Second Book of Chronicles summarizes this dynamic with striking clarity: «The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent messengers to them without ceasing, for he had compassion on his people» (2 Chronicles 36:15). This phrase—"without ceasing"—says everything about divine patience: it is neither indifferent nor resigned; it is active, it begins anew constantly, refusing to let yesterday's failure determine today's rejection.

But this patience is not infinite passivity either. It has a limit, not out of weariness, but because true patience does not consist of letting evil continue indefinitely without ever naming things. The text states this with almost brutal clarity: one day, the master of the vineyard will come. There is a moment when the waiting ends, when the question posed finally finds its answer. This is a formidable lesson for anyone who tends to confuse divine patience with boundless tolerance: God waits, a long time, but his waiting has meaning; it aims at conversion, not capitulation to evil.

In our everyday lives, this persistent patience, unwavering despite repeated rejections, takes many forms. It is the parent who continues to reach out to a child who has hurt them repeatedly. It is the friend who returns to knock on a door that has already been closed to them. It is the priest who continues to visit a family that has turned him away twice. This kind of patience comes at a high price—it exposes us to further rejection, further hurt—and it is precisely this cost that makes it worthy of imitating God. Biblical patience is never comfortable: it is a risk taken, renewed, until the fruit appears or the time of judgment arrives.

Violence that refuses to be held accountable

The second theme of this text touches on something terribly relevant today: violence almost always stems from a refusal to be held accountable. The winegrowers don't simply refuse to pay—they deliberately choose the physical elimination of the one who comes to claim what is owed. This escalation—beating, killing, stoning—traces a trajectory where each step makes the next easier, almost commonplace. Once the first servant has been beaten without suffering the consequences, killing the second becomes conceivable. Once one has killed with impunity, eliminating the heir himself becomes a rational option.

This mechanism describes with almost clinical precision how all structural violence arises: not in an isolated and incomprehensible act, but in a progressive accumulation where the absence of consequences fuels the next escalation. The vineyard owner who beat a servant and faced no consequences feels vindicated in his power. He has not only escaped punishment—he has learned that violence works, that it postpones accountability, that it protects what he has decided to keep for himself. It is a mechanism found in every institution, every family, every relationship where the absence of a truth spoken in a timely manner leaves the field open to ever more serious abuses.

What is also striking in this text is the winegrowers' reasoning regarding the son: "Let's kill him, we'll have his inheritance." Their violence is not blind—it is strategic, calculated, almost rational in its internal logic. They do not kill on impulse but out of self-interest, sincerely believing that eliminating the rightful heir will pave the way for their definitive possession. This is perhaps the most chilling aspect of the text: the most serious violence is not always that which erupts without reflection; it is often that which is coldly calculated, weighing the advantages of a crime against the comfort it promises.

This refusal to be accountable directly affects the experience of every leader, every manager, every person vested with delegated authority. The temptation is never to openly refuse to be accountable—it is more subtle: constantly postponing the moment of truth, discreetly eliminating those who come to remind us of it, preferring the comfort of unchecked management to the discomfort of embracing transparency. How many ecclesiastical, familial, and professional conflicts arise precisely from this initial, seemingly insignificant refusal to be accountable, which then grows into genuine institutional violence? The text warns us: this tendency exists within each of us, and it always begins small, with an initial refusal that we believe to be inconsequential.

The upheaval that moves the vine without ever abandoning it

The third point, the one that concludes the parable, concerns the final reversal: «The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.» This sentence has historically been misunderstood and misused—it must be read with extreme theological caution. It does not say that God abandons Israel as a people, nor that he substitutes one people for another in a logic of definitive replacement. It says that the responsibility entrusted to a specific generation of leaders—these high priests and elders present before Jesus—is taken from them because of their refusal to produce the expected fruit.

The vine itself does not change its nature: it remains the people of God, it remains the covenant project initiated by Abraham. What changes is the identity of the vinedressers charged with making it fruitful—and this «nation» to whom the responsibility is entrusted is none other than the nascent Church, called to integrate Jews and Gentiles into a single, expanded people, faithful to its vocation of bearing fruit. The text, therefore, does not oppose two ethnic peoples, but two ways of inhabiting the same responsibility: one that makes the fruit due, and one that confiscates it for itself.

This reversal carries within it a dizzying lesson for the Church itself, which can never boast of having replaced the old tenants with an eternal guarantee of unfaithfulness. The parable also turns against anyone in the new people who might succumb to the same temptation as the first tenants: confusing the mission received with acquired property. The Church has not become the owner of the vineyard in place of Israel—it has become, in turn, its responsible tenant, also bound to yield the fruit in due time. The text is therefore addressed as much to us today as to the high priests of yesterday.

The rejected stone that became the cornerstone, mentioned in Psalm 118, adds another dimension to this reversal. In ancient architecture, the cornerstone is the one that bears the entire structure, the one that aligns and supports all the walls that depend on it. That this decisive stone is precisely the one the builders had deemed useless, even cumbersome, reveals a divine logic that systematically eludes human criteria of value and utility. The rejected son, put to death, cast out of the vineyard—this is precisely what becomes the foundation of the entire new edifice. The reversal, therefore, is not only that of the vinedressers: it is a cosmic reversal, where what humans reject becomes precisely that upon which God builds.

What this text changes in concrete terms in our lives

In our personal lives, this text invites us to a radical examination of what we consider our property. Our bodies, our time, our talents, our intelligence—all of this has been entrusted to us, not given to us as our absolute property. Regularly asking ourselves, "What have I done with the fruits of what has been lent to me?" is not a posture of guilt but a way of inhabiting our lives with integrity, refusing to confuse stewardship with absolute possession.

In relationships, the parable challenges our way of receiving those who remind us of our commitments. A spouse, a friend, a colleague who points out a shortcoming is not an enemy to be eliminated, even symbolically, through silence, avoidance, or a break—they are a servant sent to claim a rightfully owed fruit. Welcoming this message without crushing it requires a humility that the text precisely highlights by its absence among the vineyard workers.

In social and professional life, this narrative directly challenges all forms of delegated authority. A political leader, a business executive, an association manager always receives power that is not their permanent possession but a temporary mandate, subject to accountability. The temptation to settle into it as if it were conquered territory, to reject all forms of legitimate oversight, to neutralize those who remind people of their commitments—this temptation transcends all eras and all roles, without exception.

Finally, in the life of the Church, this text resonates with particular gravity. Every person entrusted with a responsibility in the Church—priest, catechist, member of a parish council, pastoral leader—is himself a tenant vinedresser, never the owner of the vineyard he tends. The history of the Church also knows its unfaithful vinedressers, those who have confiscated for their own benefit a responsibility entrusted to them for the good of God's people. This text calls each generation of the Church to an uncompromising self-examination: do we yield the fruit in due time, or do we seek to keep for ourselves what should have been shared and passed on?

The patristic, liturgical and martyrological echo of the text

Origen, in his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Book XVII, interprets this parable as a story of divine pedagogy throughout the ages: the landowner first sends the prophets, then his own Son, in a progression that demonstrates God's growing patience with a people he never ceases to love despite their repeated rejections. Origen emphasizes that each sending corresponds to an intensification of the revelation itself—the prophets announce, the Son fulfills—and that the tenants' rejection only serves to highlight, by contrast, the ever-greater grandeur of what was being offered to them.

John Chrysostom, in his Homilies on Matthew, Homily LXVIII, dwells at length on the rhetorical question posed by Jesus himself: «What will the owner of the vineyard do?» Chrysostom sees in this a pedagogical device of formidable power—Jesus never directly condemns his interlocutors; he leads them to pronounce their own sentence, so that they can then accuse no one but their own conscience. For Chrysostom, this method manifests divine justice in all its rigor: God never forces a confession; he waits for humanity, enlightened by its own inner light, to recognize for itself the truth of its situation.

Augustine of Hippo, in his Sermon 87 on the Gospels, develops the question of the son sent last as the culmination of a love that refuses to calculate risks. For Augustine, sending the son is not a strategic error on the part of the owner, but the ultimate manifestation of a love that goes to the very depths of its own vulnerability. Augustine emphasizes that God, in sending his Son, knew what would happen—and that this knowledge never prevented the sending. This, for Augustine, is the very heart of the mystery of the Incarnation: a love that never protects itself from the risk of rejection.

In his Catena Aurea on this Gospel, Thomas Aquinas gathers previous patristic readings and places particular emphasis on the quotation from Psalm 118 concerning the rejected stone. For Thomas, this quotation is not an incidental addition but the theological keystone of the entire parable: it reveals that the rejection of the Son by humanity destroys nothing of the divine plan, but on the contrary becomes its very foundation, in a reversal that only the wisdom of God could conceive.

The liturgy has made this text a cornerstone of Lent, traditionally proclaiming it on the Monday or Tuesday of the second week, in an atmosphere of conversion and inner reflection preparing for Holy Week. This choice is not insignificant: placed at the heart of Lent, this text invites the faithful to a personal examination of their own fidelity to the vineyard entrusted to them, just before entering the days when the Son himself will be rejected and put to death outside the city walls, exactly as the parable foretold. The Eastern liturgy, for its part, readily associates this text with the cycle of readings preceding the Passion, emphasizing the continuity between the rejection of the prophets and that of Christ.

From a martyrological perspective, this parable nourished the spirituality of Christian martyrs for centuries, who recognized themselves in it as part of the lineage of servants sent out and then persecuted. Accounts of Diocletian's persecution regularly invoke this parable to explain the continuity between the fate of the Old Testament prophets and that of Christian witnesses: they too are sent to claim the fruit of a vine—the conversion of hearts—and they too face the violent rejection of those to whom they address themselves.

In contemporary times, the theologian Joseph Ratzinger, who became Benedict XVI, revisited this text in his work Jesus of Nazareth, where he emphasized that the parable recounts not only a story from the past but also a persistent temptation for humanity: the desire to appropriate what belongs to God, to transform the gift into possession. For Ratzinger, the vine always remains God's vine—it is the awareness of this primary belonging that alone protects the vinedressers of every generation from the trap into which their predecessors fell.

Lectio divina

What this text asks us to do, specifically

Tonight, take a silent inventory of what has been entrusted to you—time, talents, relationships, responsibilities—and honestly name what you are actually doing with it. This first step requires neither elaborate prayer nor spectacular effort, only a truth faced squarely, without hesitation.

Identify someone in your life who is currently playing the role of the sent servant—the one who comes to remind you of a commitment, a debt, a responsibility you'd rather avoid. This week, choose to welcome them rather than push them away, even if their words are unsettling.

Reread, in a moment of calm, the account of a biblical sending—that of the prophets, that of the apostles—and let the patience of God, who continues to send despite rejections, resonate within you. This reading fosters a renewed confidence in situations where you yourself feel rejected.

Take concrete steps to be accountable in an area where you have responsibility, however small—family, work, parish. Being accountable is not a weakness; it is the very act that distinguishes the faithful winemaker from the one who betrays.

What this text says in an era that confuses management and ownership

Our era has pushed the temptation of unfaithful winemakers to the extreme, often without their realizing it. The culture of individual performance, the systematic emphasis on autonomy, the growing distrust of any external authority—all of this fosters a mentality where everyone easily becomes the owner of what they manage, forgetting that they are merely its temporary tenant. Environmental heritage itself illustrates this drift: the land entrusted to humanity for cultivation becomes, in many contemporary economic systems, a resource to be exploited without accountability to future generations.

The digital world offers another striking illustration of this same temptation. Social networks have created spaces where everyone becomes the manager of an image, an influence, an audience—and where the temptation to mistake this management for absolute ownership, without ever being held accountable for how it is used, manifests itself daily. How many lives today are built on the illusion of ownership that has never existed except as a temporary loan?

However, we must avoid a hasty reading that would reduce this text to a mere moral indictment of contemporary individualism. The parable does not condemn responsibility itself—it condemns the refusal to be held accountable for that responsibility. Our era, in its own way, is also rediscovering new forms of accountability: transparency demanded of institutions, a growing call for social and environmental responsibility, and citizen movements demanding accountability from their leaders. These dynamics, despite their limitations and occasional excesses, contain the seeds of something of the truth that this text has proclaimed for twenty centuries: no one is the absolute owner of what they manage, and the time for reckoning always comes, sooner or later.

The Church itself is not exempt from this scrutiny. The scandals that have plagued it in recent decades reveal, with particular gravity, this same temptation of the winegrowers: leaders who confused their mission of service with a property protected from all outside scrutiny, stubbornly refusing to be accountable as long as the structure allowed. This text, read today in this specific context, resonates as a warning of burning relevance—and as a call for a transparency that is never a luxury, but a fundamental requirement of any responsibility received from God.

Prayer

Lord, you planted this vineyard with a care I often fail to appreciate—the fence that protects me, the winepress already dug for a harvest you have always hoped for, the watchtower that watches over me long before I have produced anything. You gave me everything before asking anything of me, and yet I still, so often, behave as if it all belonged to me.

Teach me to recognize the servants you send me—that unsettling word, that friend who reminds me of a forgotten promise, that inner voice I sometimes prefer to silence. Grant me the grace never to treat them as intruders, but to welcome them as messengers of your patience.

You sent your own Son, knowing the cost, because your love never calculates the risks it takes to reach us. Teach me that same boldness in my own relationships—that way of continuing to reach out even after being hurt, that perseverance that never mistakes patience for resignation.

You who made the rejected stone the cornerstone of the whole edifice, teach me never to despise what the world deems useless or cumbersome. You who always build upon what men reject, give me eyes capable of seeing your presence where I least expect it.

Make me a faithful vinedresser, Lord—not a jealous owner of what does not belong to me, but a servant happy to yield, in due time, the fruit you have so long awaited. Amen.

Conclusion

This parable doesn't end with a cold judgment; it opens with a question that remains relevant to each of us, even today, in the silence of our own lives. The master of the vineyard continues to send, continues to hope, continues to trust despite the repeated failures of history. The only question that remains is the one we must ask ourselves tonight, without hesitation: what are you doing with the fruit entrusted to you? Return it in due time, before the question itself becomes the answer.

Practices

Take inventory, once a week, of what has been entrusted to you and not given as absolute property.

Welcome, without pushing them away, the people who come into your life seeking a fruit or a truth that you are avoiding.

Take a concrete step towards transparency in an area where you have responsibility, however modest.

Reread Psalm 118 about the rejected stone when you yourself feel left out or misunderstood.

Pray every day for the leaders of your Church, that they may remain faithful vineyard workers and not jealous landowners.

This week, choose just one relationship where you will finally face the consequences you have been putting off for a long time.

References

Antiquity and the Fathers (1st–5th centuries)

• Origen, Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew, Book XVII — reading of the parable as a story of divine pedagogy through the successive sendings of prophets and then of the Son, illuminating the gradation of revelation in the text.
• John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, homily LXVIII — analysis of the rhetorical question posed by Jesus as a pedagogical device leading listeners to pronounce their own sentence, illuminating the logic of the trial that does not speak its name.
• Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 87 on the Gospels — meditation on the sending of the son as the summit of a love that never calculates risks, illuminating the theological paradox of the vulnerable gift.

Late Fathers and the Middle Ages (5th–15th centuries)

• Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea on the Gospel of Matthew — patristic synthesis insisting on the quotation of Psalm 118 as the theological keystone of the parable, illuminating the meaning of the final reversal.

Contemporary (20th–21st centuries)

• Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), Jesus of Nazareth — reading the parable as a permanent warning against the temptation to transform a gift received into possession, directly applicable to contemporary ecclesial life.

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