The Vineyard Caretaker

THE VINEYARD CARETAKER

Mark 11:27-12:12

In high school I was on the track team – I was a sprinter. Our coach would make us sprinters run long distance as well as run sprints for practice. We hated running long distance, it was so boring, it was so tedious, we felt it was against our nature. But still we had to run a three mile loop that the coach had assigned to us every practice.

We soon discovered that we could cut the three mile loop in half if we cut though a couple of vineyards. I was a simple matter of taking a right turn and running about 200 yards through one vineyard hopping a barbed wire fence and then running about another 200 yards through the next vineyard. We all decided we would take the shortcut the next day.

Now if you have never been in a vineyard, understand that the grape vines can be quite thick and quite tall. They run in these long rows. The vines in this vineyard were over five feet tall and fairly dense, they grew on a wire trellis – it was like running between huge hedges.

It seemed like simple matter of a quick shortcut, except for the vineyard caretaker who lived in a house in the vineyard. On our run the next day we turned into the vineyard excited about our brilliant shortcut. The vineyard caretaker laid in wait until we were about 100 yards into the first vineyard, then the side door of his house burst open, the caretaker stepped out, shotgun in hand. He wasted no time – KABLAM! Fortunately we were some distance from the caretakers house, but, that rock salt he hit us with still hurt like the dickens.

It is amazing how fast you can run, and how easily you can leap over a barbed wire fence when someone behind you is reloading a shotgun. After a few more tries of running through the vineyard, we figured out the range of his shotgun and were able to stay out of its reach (yes, as dumb high school kids we tried again and again). Still, every time we took the shortcut, I ran through that vineyard as though my life depended on it.

The vineyard caretaker probably knew he couldn’t keep us out of the vineyard, but if he kept us moving we couldn’t eat any grapes. He was doing his job, keeping the vines safe so the owner could have a good profit at harvest time. Unlike the vineyard caretakers in Jesus’ parable, this man did his job, he represented the owner, he kept us on the run - the caretakers of the vineyard in Jesus’ parable did not represent the owner. In fact they not only didn’t represent the owner, they tried to usurp the owner and take his rightful place.