But the tenants seized his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Again, the owner sent more servants;
but they were treated in the same way. Finally, he sent his son, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’
But when the tenants saw the son, they thought, ‘This is the one who is to inherit the vineyard. Let us kill him,
and his inheritance will be ours.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
Now, what will the owner of the vineyard do with the tenants when he comes?” They said to him,
“He will bring those evil men to an evil end, and lease the vineyard to others, who will pay him in due time.”
And Jesus replied, “Have you never read what the Scriptures say? The stone which the buil­ders rejected has become the cornerstone.
This was the Lord’s doing, and we marvel at it. Therefore I say to you: the kingdom of heaven will be taken from you, and given to a peoplewho will produce its fruit.
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard these parables, they realized that Jesus was referring to them.
They would have arrested him, but they were afraid of the crowd, who regarded him as a prophet.

REFLECTION:
Jesus must have thought that he has failed in his mission. He had seen that Judah was not like Galilee and the cheering crowds
that gathered in his province were nowhere to be found in Jerusalem. His words, his miracles, and his compassionate acts
failed to change the hearts of those who thought they have the control of the situation, even the control of God.
In this parable of the ungrateful tenants, Jesus reinterpreted the prophecy where God lamented for his vineyard, Israel, that did not bear fruit.
But his listeners did not understand. They forgot the fact that they were only stewards not the master.
Indeed, the son was killed just outside the city of God. But the Master did not send his great army to raze everything to the ground.
Rather, he would go on to the end showing his true face, giving his people the chance to change.
That is the story of the Gospel. The same story is being told even now because we still live as if we own everything.
The Lord is giving us a chance for conversion. The world is the Lord’s. We are but his stewards.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2020