One of the parables of Jesus Christ, cited in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, tells of evil winegrowers. In the presentation of all three authors, it sounds almost the same, with only a slight difference in details. Jesus Christ told this parable in the temple, being there the day after His triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Let us recall its text, since it has a deep meaning that has not lost its relevance in our days.
Parable that survived the time
The parable of winegrowers says that a certain owner, planting a vineyard, took care to enclose it with a fence, erect a tower and set up a whetstone ─ a tank for receiving grape juice. Having entrusted further work to his workers ─ winegrowers, he retired. When it was time to harvest, the master sent servants to the vineyard to bring him the fruits of the labors of his workers.
But the winegrowers, according to Jesus, stoned them and drove them out with dishonor. The owner tried to send other servants, but the same story repeated with them. Finally, he sent his beloved son to the vineyard, hoping that they would be ashamed of him and act properly. However, instead, the evil vine-growers killed him, hoping that, having dealt with the heir, they themselves would become the owners of the vineyard.
Having completed the parable of the evil vine growers, Jesus asked the people gathered around Him, among whom were the high priests and elders. He asked what, in their opinion, the landlord would do with these workers, and he received the answer that he would bring the villains to fierce death, and that the care of the vineyard would be entrusted to more worthy servants.
Interpretation of images of the owner, vineyard and fence
Many Christian theologians and holy fathers of the church devoted their works to the interpretation of the above parable of winegrowers. Based on their work, it has become a tradition to endow the images used in it with the meanings disclosed below.
By the owner of the vineyard, Jesus means God ─ the Creator of the world and all that exists in it. The vineyard is nothing but the Jewish people themselves, who are entrusted with the preservation of faith. Subsequently, the image of a bunch of grapes or vines firmly established itself in Christian symbolism, becoming the personification of the community of people who made up the earthly Church of the Lord.
The fence is the Law of God received by the chosen people through Moses. At the very beginning of the forty-year journey through the desert, the Lord on Mount Sinai informed His prophet, who headed the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, a set of instructions concerning religious and public life.
Image of sharpener, tower and winegrower
Sharpened ─ it is an altar, and grape juice ─ blood spilled on it. The ancient Jews traditionally sacrificed various animals and birds, whose blood was believed to help cleanse people from committed sins. In this case, the interpreters of the parable see a prophetic prediction of the blood shed by Jesus Himself on the cross.
The tower is nothing more than a temple built in Jerusalem. At the time Jesus spoke the parable of the winegrowers, the Second Temple stood in the capital of the Jewish state, the construction of which began in the period following the return of the Jews from Babylonian captivity (516 BC), and ended only two decades before Christmas Of Christ. The first temple was built by King Solomon in 950 BC. e. Its destruction in 598 BC. e. was the beginning of the Babylonian captivity of the Jews, which lasted almost 60 years.
By grape-growers, Christ means the high priests and all the elders of the Jewish people. It is to them that He turns his accusatory speech. On the pages of the Gospel, they are called scribes and Pharisees and are characterized as people, although they possessed knowledge of the Mosaic Law, but for the sake of their own interests reduced service to God only to the formal fulfillment of precepts, while ignoring the essence of the doctrine. Subsequently, the word "Pharisee" became a household word, meaning hypocrisy and bigotry.
The symbolic meaning of the absence of the master, his servants and fruits
The absentee of the owner, according to the interpreters, is the time elapsed since the Lord led the people He had chosen out of Egyptian slavery. According to the Holy Scriptures, this historical event dates back to about 1400 BC. e. Therefore, in the parable, the Lord refers to a term spanning almost a millennium.
Servants sent to winegrowers ─ prophets who are known to have been persecuted by high priests or killed. Throughout its history, the Jewish people and their rulers have repeatedly retreated from the fulfillment of the Law given by God, and even more than once fell into paganism. In these cases, the Lord singled out from among them the most worthy people (prophets), through whose mouth he exposed the lawlessness that had been done. Many of them were killed or suffered various persecutions.
The fruits that the owner expected to receive from his employees are the spiritual growth of the people and their knowledge of God. Leaving Egyptian captivity, the people of Israel were full of remnants of paganism, and the duty of the priests was to educate him in the spirit of the Laws of Moses.
The image of the owner’s son, his murder and subsequent retaliation
By his son and heir, Jesus undoubtedly refers to Himself sent by the heavenly Father to save people. One of the fundamental tenets of Christianity is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which represents the three hypostases of the One Deity. In it, God-the-Father, God-the-Son, and God-the Holy Spirit are unbroken and inseparable. The incarnation of the second hypostasis is Jesus Christ.
The killing of a son is a prophecy about His own coming execution on the cross, which He was to endure in redemption of all the people of the world who were struck by original sin and as a result doomed to eternal death.
The coming of the master himself is interpreted as the Second Coming of Christ, when every person will be rewarded according to his deeds. On this day, the archangels of God will sound the bell and call people to the Last Judgment of Heavenly Father.
The meaning of the parable of winegrowers
As mentioned above, many theologians devoted their works to this gospel story. From the interpretation of the images given in the parable of the evil winegrowers, it becomes clear that in his own words, Jesus Christ denounced the high priests, elders, and those who were not happy about their duties, all those who were entrusted by God with the responsibility of preserving and enhancing the faith. Passing off their own words as the will of God allegedly revealed to them, these people beat and killed the prophets sent by the Lord to instruct them. Having done their dirty deed, they also planned reprisal against the Son of God Himself.
It is characteristic that, having heard from the mouth of Jesus a parable about winegrowers, the priests and elders present at the same time understood its meaning, and nevertheless involuntarily denounced themselves by exclamations that the workers to whom the vineyard was entrusted were villains. Thus, they sentenced themselves, speaking of the inevitable retribution that the Lord will bring down upon them.
Note that in most interpretations of the parable of evil winegrowers, it is indicated that, speaking of the anger that the master will bring down on his evil workers, Jesus allegorically predicts the destruction of Jerusalem committed in 70 by the Roman troops, and the incalculable disasters of the Jewish people resulting from it.
Pentecostal Sermons
Like all other passages from the Gospel, this parable is heard during worship, and then explained from church pulpits. According to a tradition established many centuries ago, a sermon on evil winegrowers is customary to be given on Week 13 at Pentecost.
In order to avoid errors in understanding this dating, we note that in Church Slavonic the word “week” does not mean a seven-day period from Monday to Sunday (it is called a “week”), but only a Sunday. He is the seventh in a row, and his ordinal number, as you know, is not divisible by anything except for itself or for one. Hence the word "week". Therefore, it should be understood that a sermon on evil winegrowers sounds from church pulpits on the 13th Sunday after the Trinity ─ holiday, also called Pentecost.
Birth of the Church of Christ
The holiday was established in honor of the descent of the Apostles of the Holy Spirit on the fiftieth day after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Since this event is traditionally considered to be the birth of the Church of Christ on earth, it is important for all its members that day to ponder the meaning of the parable of the evil growers again.
The paintings and engravings created for this plot by various artists help to more clearly present what Jesus Christ told in the walls of the temple the day after His entry into Jerusalem. Some of them are presented in our article.