SHARE CROPPERS
When I was a very young man, my family lived and worked on a farm. We were sharecroppers for a while, and I can assure you it is not a life I would recommend to any one. Landowners would find large mostly poor families and hire them as sharecroppers, which meant basically free labor.
Farming in the fifties, when I grew up was not a well paying job.
Sometimes you would work a twelve hour day for three dollars.
You started early in the morning doing your own chores, like milking cows, feeding the hogs, feeding the chickens. Then you would harness the mules and be ready to start plowing as soon as the sun came up. Most farmers did not have tractors for the hired help, only for their own fields. By six o clock in the morning you started working and there were no breaks accept for a drink of water.
At noon you would stop for lunch and then go back to work until six in the evening, and if you were behind you would work until it was to dark to see. This was often seven days a week. At the end of the year you would settle up with the land owner, and after he took off for the expenses for the year, if there was any thing left over, you got half, which most often was very little.
It was good for the landowner but made life hard for a sharecropper and his family, they were almost slaves to the landowner.
Farming has changed a great deal since then, now most labor is done with tractors or harvest machines. People who operate them are paid much better but still it is not a high paying job. Most farms now are a very large operation; some times the farmer is
just a farm manager. The land owner may live in another country.
Most often the farmers lease large pieces or tracts of land and they pay a portion of their crop in exchange for using the land. They are “Tenant Farmers”
Tenant farming is a good way for a farmer to use lots of land for a fair price, and he may make a much better profit at the end of the year.
In our text today we see a landowner that has gone to a lot of expense to build a vineyard and then he leases it to a tenant farmer to operate for him. They make an agreement that is profitable to them both. But the tenant decides he wants it all.
The story that Jesus tells is one that the chief priest and Pharisees would understand easily, for they would be, in some case the judges for a suit brought before them to collect their due by the landowner.
The law then was that if you worked the land and the landowner did not come to collect his share for three years you could go before the judge and claim the land as you own. So it is easy to see why the tenants didn’t want the owner to collect his share, they wanted it all, the crops and the land, then they could lease it to tenants themselves, assuming they wouldn’t have to work any more just collect their rent.
We have such a law today called “Adverse Possession”.
This law says that if you work a piece of land for a certain period of time you can claim it as your own. This can be anything from a fence on someone else’s property, called encroachment, to mowing the grass. The time period can be from one year up to several years. The only hindrance is that it has to be done openly, publicly, for all to see.
So in this case the Tenant Farmers are greedy and wanted it all for themselves, so they beat and stone and even kill one of the servants sent to collect the rent. So the landowner sends more servants, more than the first time, there is safety in numbers, Right?
But the tenants are willing to kill again, and still the owner doesn’t get his share.
So he decides to send his son, surely they will pay him!
But they kill him too!
So Jesus asks the chief Priest and Pharisees how they would judge these tenants if the landowner should bring them before their court.
The landowner has every right to kill the tenants according the Jewish law and they say as much when they say the owner will deal harshly with them, and then lease to tenants who will give him his share.
Let’s listen to what Jesus was saying to the Priest and Pharisees in plain English, if you will. And we should also realize that what he said applies to us as well. We don’t think of our selves as priest and Pharisees, but we are. The parallel to those then and us now simply cannot be ignored.
We might want to, but the words Jesus spoke then apply to us, as if he is accusing us. We don’t like that do we? Neither did they! Not one bit, they would have arrested him on the spot if they thought they could have and the crowd had been on their side. But listen to what he said. In my words, not his.
My father, the Lord God almighty, has created this world and all that is in it. He has made the sun and the stars in the sky and the entire universe as far as the eye can see and even beyond to things
which you cannot see.
He has prepared it to his liking and he has leased it to each of you equally, to share. He is due his share and you have killed the prophets that he sent to collect. Now he has sent his son, and still you do not want to give him what is rightfully his.
You will kill his son as well, (he is talking to you and me here too.)
Now what do you think he will do now?
These are my words but you see the significance, and the parallel to what he said.
We are the tenants of this world, we are responsible for it. We are to take care of it, to till the soil, to raise the crops and care for all the things in it. We are responsible for the environment.
To care for the animals, the birds and the fish in the oceans. He has given all things to our care and we are to give him his share of what he has given us each personally. We must also look after each other as if we were all family, and we are.
What kind of tenants are we? Good ones or bad ones? What will happen when he comes to collect?
I hope we will hear him say “well done my good and faithful servant”. My greatest fear is that we have fallen far short of what is expected of us. If he pays us according to what we have earned, after expenses, there may not be much left.
We tend to be more concerned with our own needs. Translate that to wants and desires. We take care of ourselves and our immediate family and if there is any left, after taxes, we give some to the church. We may even have a favorite charity to which we occasionally contribute a few dollars, but only if it is tax deductible. Besides there are any number of environmental organizations. Some for clean air, some for clean water, and some for green earth, even animals rights groups, and there is the governmental watchdog, The Environmental Protection Agency.
We pay our taxes so they can protect us from ourselves, or rather all those big corporate polluters. We’ve done our part haven’t we?
I’m sure that all those Priest and Pharisees thought so too!
After all they were the keepers and makers of the law. They were very pious people, the Elite, church leaders, well respected. They were a special people, not just some one off the street
They thought very highly of themselves. Sound familiar, maybe it should, it sounds like a lot of us.
We simply cannot ignore the fact that we are the tenants of this world, and Jesus was speaking to us as well.
We think that we are a special people, Jesus died for us, so does that exempt us, I don’t think so. In fact it makes us all the more responsible. We call ourselves servants of the lord, so we are to be about the masters business aren’t we?
We are a special people, we are a called people, a chosen people, and we are a redeemed/purchased people.
We are also a sinful people and only by Gods grace are we able to attain heaven, which is what we all are striving for. We most often think the scripture is about some other people in some other time,
Like a third person and we are standing with the speaker.
But we must realize that we are the ones the scripture speaks to, not just some egotistical people from a long time ago. When we think we are the one being spoken to, it makes us uncomfortable, like a child being scolded. We just don’t like it.
But Jesus is speaking to us, encouraging us to a higher standard.
He has and will continue to forgive us our failures, and he expects the same from us. So let us remember who we are and whose we are and remain a faithful servant to him, who created us in Jesus Christ our Lord,
AMEN
