Parable of the Tenant Farmers
Matthew 21: 33-46, Mark 12: 1-12
The religious priests and scribes of this time, roughly 33 AD, had access to mirrors, or if they were commonplace is unclear. Mirrors are said to have first been created around 4000 BCE so that the priests may have been familiar with the reflective surfaces, but they were not commonplace as they are now in our Westernized context.
In any case, Jesus provided a different kind of mirror to the priests and scribes in this passage. He was ahead of time with this type of verbal reflective surface that allowed the priests to see into themselves in his storytelling.
Jesus called them out for rejecting what God had given them throughout history and now rejecting God's Son, Jesus himself.
When there is a mirror held up to you, usually like or do not like what you see, there is a reflection shown to you that you decide how to feel about. In our parable today, the Priests did not like the reflection shown to them, and they hardened their hearts toward Jesus. Once again, they rejected what the Master had sent them. They rejected God until they found themselves outside the Kingdom of God.
Those faithful to what God creates sends, and gives will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
The heart posture matters here. The priests and scribes were prideful and staunch in their stance as the religious leaders of their time. They refused to humbly validate a narrative that was sourced outside of their control. This hardened, and prideful heart posture ultimately led them astray from God and his desire for their lives. Jesus makes this clear.
We aren’t the priests described in the story, but we can relate perhaps to the fact that our heart posture towards Christ matters. We could go through the practice of holding up a mirror to our own lives, attempting to see what would come up in the reflection, what Christ might call us out for.
The heart posture matters here. Where is your heart right now? Prideful and hardened to Christ? Humble and repentant? Looking in the mirror will identify this and hopefully it will lead you to repentance and intimacy with the Son who God sent to us.
