Neofugue (@neofugue1)

In post-Christian Western society, the only value ascribed to the Christian faith is “niceness,” contrasting the example of our Lord Jesus Christ as demonstrated by the parable of the wicked husbandmen. Speaking in the temple to the high priests, scribes, and elders, Christ told them the parable: there was a Landowner who planted a vineyard with a wine press, a tower, and hedges around it, and lent it out to husbandmen. When the season of fruit drew near, He sent His servants, only for the husbandmen to beat one, kill another, and stone another. Again, He sent out more servants, only for the wicked husbandmen to do the same. At last, He sent them His only Son, but when the husbandmen saw the Son, they killed Him for His inheritance. Having told the parable, the Savior asked them, “When, therefore, the Owner of the vineyard comes, what will He do to those husbandmen?” “They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes? Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them. But when they sought to lay hands of him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet” (Matthew 21:41-46). As written in Homily 68 on the Gospel of Matthew, St. John Chrysostom writes his explanation of the parable as follows, “Many things does He intimate by this parable, God's providence, which had been exercised towards [the Jews] from the first; their murderous disposition from the beginning; that nothing had been omitted of whatever pertained to a heedful care of them; that even when prophets had been slain, He had not turned away from them, but had sent His very Son; that the God both of the New and of the Old Testament was one and the same; that His death should effect great blessings; that they were to endure extreme punishment for the crucifixion, and their crime; the calling of the Gentiles, the casting out of the Jews...For He does not plead, Himself, saying, What ought I to have done that I have not done? but brings in themselves to judge, that nothing has been wanting, and to condemn themselves. For when they say, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out the vineyard to other husbandmen, they say nothing else than this, publishing their sentence with much greater force.[1]” The Householder is God, the husbandmen are the Jews, the hedges around the vineyard are the commandments of God, the wine press is the sacrifice in the Old Testament covenant prefiguring the death on the Cross, the tower is the Temple in Jerusalem, the overseers are the chief priests, scribes, and elders, the servants are the holy prophets, and the Son of the Householder is the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Despite the Pharisees standing at the head of the Jewish people, having received the power to prepare the people to accept the Savior, they used this power to satiate their own evil desires and crucified Him. While this wickedness would eventually lead to their suicidal war with Rome and the destruction of the Temple in 70AD, the everlasting result was that the Kingdom of God was taken from them and given to another, the Church of Christ, opened to all peoples. In the parable of the wicked husbandmen, Christ tells the Jews that they are straying from the path of God, and that if they do not accept Him, the Kingdom of God will be taken from them and they will be destroyed. To be like Christ, therefore, is not to be “nice,” for to be "nice" is to be of this world. To be like Christ is to take up the Cross and follow Him, though there will be many who hateth you for it. To warn those who turn away from God to either repent or be destroyed; it is love. As is the word of God: "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning" (John 15: 26-27). [1]: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200168.htm [2]: More information on the parable can be found in Law of God, compiled by Archpriest Seraphim Slobodskoy, which aided in the writing of this post.