Today, we read a parable that Jesus tells to the Jewish chief priests, the scribes and elders, of the temple inJerusalem.  When Jesus is confronted about who He is and what is His authority, He uses this teaching moment to tell them a story about tenant vineyard farmers.

Jesus begins the story, by telling them about a man who planted a vineyard.  This man was what some call a sharecropper or tenant farmer.  Using this arrangement, large landowners would sometimes lease out their land to others, who would farm the land. Then, the lease payment would become an agreed-upon portion of the crops harvest.

The man built a hedge around the vineyard to keep animals out of it.   He dug a pit for a winepress for pressing the grapes to make wine. The man also built a tower to serve as both a lookout post and a place of shelter.  This was a very nice set up; with everything the farmer of the vineyard could possibility need to be successful.  All he had to do was to care for what was there, and preserve what was entrusted to them.

In this story, the man represents God, and the vineyard represents the world God created, a world with everything necessary for someone to be successful.