10.11.20 - Isaiah, Parable of the Wicked Tenants, and Atheist Apologetics #3

Topics: Isaiah --> Parable of the Wicked Tenants --> Atheist Apologetics #3

Content of Today’s Isaiah Reading

Isaiah was a prophet to the Southern Kingdom (Judah) from about 742 to 700 BC, which was also during the time the Northern Kingdom (Israel) fell to the Assyrians in 722.

If you recall, the Book of Isaiah is divided into three sections: First Isaiah (chs 1-39 written by Isaiah during the time of the fall of the Northern Kingdom), Second Isaiah (chs 40-55) written towards the end of the Babylonian Exile (mid 500s BC), and Third Isaiah (56-66) contain post-exilic oracles.

Today’s reading from Chapter 5 is from First Isaiah.

Isaiah 5:1-7

Let me now sing for my beloved, a love song concerning his vineyard.

My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill;

he dug it, cleared it of stones, and planted choice vines;

he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine press in it;

and he looked it to yield grapes, but what it yielded was wild grapes.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and people of Judah, I beg you judge between me and my vineyard: What more was there for me to do for my vineyard that I had not already done?

When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it bring forth wild grapes?

And now I will tell you what I will do with my vineyard. I will remove its hedge and give it to grazing; I will break down its wall and let it be trampled!

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his cherished planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, see bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry!

Like today’s reading, much of Isaiah is poetic. Today’s reading is a type of love story. The vineyard is a metaphor for Israel, the spouse of God, but the spouse has gone wayward. God gives them (the vineyard) every advantage possible to produce good fruit (good judgment and justice). Instead, their prideful ways lead to oppression, bloodshed, and cries for help. Perhaps the nation will have to experience deprivation and ruin in order for them to learn wisdom in the things that really matter.

Q: What are wild grapes?

A: Also called wild grape weeds, they are uncultivated and grow such that they can overtake other plant species and even kill trees. You can eat them but they leave a sour taste in your mouth.

Context of this week’s parable of the Wicked Tenants

In Jesus’ parable this week, he intentionally uses Isaiah’s vineyard allegory but then rewrites the story. This way, he is sure his audience will understand what he is saying, because Isaiah’s vineyard story was very well known.

Q: Jesus is still in the same place with the same audience as last week when he delivered the Parable of the Two Sons. Where is Jesus and who is his audience?

A: Jesus is speaking with the chief priests and elders in the Temple.

Matthew 21:33-43

Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people: "Hear another parable.

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey.

When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce. But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned.

Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way.

Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, 'They will respect my son.'

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’ They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?"

They answered him, "He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times."

Jesus said to them, "Did you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes?’ Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit."

Q: Who are the messengers the landowner keeps sending?

A: The OT prophets.

Q: Remember, most parables have a “twist” to the story; something that seems unrealistic or incredible, which turns out to be a key to the parable. Can you locate this?

A: The twist is this: after all the messengers are killed, the landowner says, “I’ll send my son.” That would sound kind of nuts to Jesus’ audience. Yet, God’s ways are not our ways. God’s ways show excessive generosity and love.

Q: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” What OT passage is Jesus referring to with this comment?

A: Psalm 118:22-25. This psalm was well known by every Jew because it was sung in Jerusalem every Passover. (Which happens to be the exact setting for this dialogue with the chief priests/elders.)

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

This is the LORD doing and it is wonderful in our eyes.

This is the day which the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

O Lord, we beg you, save us! (Psalm 118:22-25)

2 Samuel 7:12-13 also states that the Son of David is the one authorized to build the Temple of God. That is not only true of David’s son, Solomon, but points to Jesus as well. A “new” temple. The one Jesus says he will build in three days.

Q: What is a “cornerstone”?

A: 1) The rock upon which the weight of the entire structure rests.

2) An important quality or feature on which a particular thing depends or is based.

3) Re: Jesus, he is the cornerstone of the new Temple, the temple of salvation.

Q: What is Jesus’ message to the priests and elders?

A: That he was the Messiah, the Son of God, and the cornerstone of the promised “New Temple/New Jerusalem.”

Conclusion

We are still the Lord’s vineyard, and his Church is still the cornerstone. Baptism is the beginning of our spiritual cultivation, although there are still a few wild grapes in all of us. That’s why we have the Eucharist and Reconciliation – to nourish and restore us. The Holy Spirit lives in us and, like living water, helps us grow in goodness and wisdom. What’s more, our brothers and sisters in the Lord are the other vines in the vineyard who support and encourage us along the way.

God takes great pains to cultivate us like a precious vine. The grace for us to grow to love him more and bear fruit for his kingdom—it’s all there. We only need take hold of it and not let go.

Atheism Apologetics # 3

The three Atheist arguments we will discuss today are:

1. Atheists say religions are responsible for most of the violence and killing in the world.

2. Atheists say that some popes in history have been very bad. This proves Christianity is defective.

3. Atheists say that the God of the Christian Old Testament is cruel and authorized genocide.

1. Atheists say religions are responsible for most of the violence and killing in the world.

First of all, all tribes, indigenous populations, kingdoms, and countries and had religions over the course of human history. Therefore, anyone could say that religion was involved in all the wars of human history. By the same notion, you could say that all people who drank water were also involved in all the wars in history, so perhaps water and religion were the cause of all wars.

If we want to get specific – say, deaths involving Christian countries vs. deaths involving atheist run countries, then let’s do this:

If we combine all the deaths from the Crusades, the Inquisitions, and the witch burnings over a 500-year period during the Middle Ages, one would get a total of approximately 200,000 people. On the other hand, if we combined the deaths caused from just three atheist governments under Stalin, Hitler, and Mao within a 30-year period (1932-1962), the deaths exceed 100,000,000, which is 500 times greater. And remember, the 100 million was over a period of 30 years (over 300,000 deaths per year). The 200,000 was over a period of 500 years (400 deaths per year).

One reason for the disparity in numbers is that when atheists kill, they are following their worldview of survival of the fittest. When Christians killed, they were not following Jesus’ worldview: Christian killers were usually rogue Christian.

Conclusion: If an atheist rejects religion because he thinks it leads to violent conflict, then he would also have to reject atheism, since far more violence and deaths were performed in the name of atheism.

Side note: Some might say Hitler was a Catholic, and his mother certainly was. But his father loathed religion and said it was for stupid people. Hitler avowedly followed in his father’s footsteps and was well-known for mocking his religious teachers throughout school. By 1942, Hitler had vowed to “root out and destroy the influence of Christianity.” In Hitler’s eyes (biography by Alan Bullock), “Christianity was a religion only fit for slaves. Its teachings were a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle of the fittest.” He was a Darwinist.

2. Atheists say that some popes in history have been very bad, and this proves Christianity is defective.

First, all the Apostles were sinners. Second, Jesus allowed the one unrepentant Apostle, Judas, stay in the fold until the end, even though Jesus knew he was stealing from the disciple’s treasury and would eventually betray him. If we just consider Judas being 1 of 12 of this “original church,” that represents 8.3% of the group. Just based on this, I think it’s safe to say that 8.3% of the Church’s clergy will not be good people at any given time (using Jesus’ standard!). There are 400,000 Catholic clergy in the world, so 8.3% is 33,200. Yes, that’s very bad, although that’s probably a much smaller percentage that humanity as a whole. Also, 8% is higher than the current abuse accusations of the last 4 decades.

It is also important that we not forget that 92%, or 366,800 who are good priests and bishops dedicating their lives to God and serving others – plus they have to live with being tainted by the 8%. Is it really fair to judge and stereotype them because of the 8%?

Conclusion: If being a sinner prevented a person from being a leader, then every Christian community that ever existed would be leaderless. Yet, God instituted leaders in the Church (1 Cor 12;28, Eph 4:11-12; 1 Thes 5:12-13, Heb 13:17) simply because most would be good. Jesus did not guarantee – or even suggest – that his followers would be perfect. He only guaranteed the HS would remain with the Church and that the Church would not fall.

3. Atheists say that the God of the Christian Old Testament is cruel and authorized genocide.

1) To nonbelievers who don’t have much knowledge of the OT, I sometimes just reply with this: “Much of the OT was written by primitive people for primitive people. You need to be able to place yourself in their shoes, in their culture and language, and in the context of what was happening at that time (war, peace, betrayal…) to see what was being intended and what it meant to them. Also, when we say scripture is inspired, it means there is a truth message in the story, particularly to those people at that time, and it doesn’t necessarily mean literally.”

2) The atheists who make this specific claim (God is cruel…) typically cherry-pick single passages and leave out the context entirely. Most of these claims refer to a period of time before 1000 BC, but were written 200-500 years after they occurred. In such instances, the truth in the message (the moral point or lesson) is even less likely to be literal. Again, we are referring to Catholics since many Protestants have the added difficulty of far more literal interpretations.

To this point, the Pontifical Biblical Commission, referring to the conquest stories in the Pentateuch, says these narrations should be seen as allegories or parables presenting characters of symbolic value. The references to extermination, for instance, requires a non-literal interpretation, as in the case of the command of the Lord to cut off one’s hand or pluck out one’s eye, if they are to be the cause of scandal ( see The Inspiration and Truth of Sacred Scripture 127).

3) As we have seen in our weekly biblical exegesis, anyone who reads the entire OT could not conclude anything but God is more patient and merciful than humans ever deserve.

4) Even if we are to read some of the killing in Joshua literally, one has to understand a couple of things that nonbelievers won’t get: a) that the depravity of the cultures in Canaan was horrible with glorified sexual rituals, injustice to the poor, and child sacrifice and needed to be wiped out; and b) that any innocents who die will be treated justly in the afterlife. Nonbelievers don’t accept either of these, so there’s not much of an argument to be had.

5) The real truth is that the OT is full of dark stories but the darker stories have to do with the immoral behavior of humans; about right and wrong; about injustice. No other history focuses on this like the bible. In other histories, the victors tend to rewrite history; and in doing so, they often whitewash events to make them look better.

Why?

Two reasons: 1) because they didn’t answer to Yahweh and 2) in their minds, the ends justified the means. If victory was achieved, who cares how you got it? In fact, many people believe that today. You can tell whatever lies you need to as long as your end goal is good.

With Yahweh, the end does not justify the means. There is no whitewashing of history, especially of the kings and Temple leaders. The sins of the Jews - and Jesus’ disciples - are frankly admitted, because you can’t become a better person until you are willing to change, and before you can change you must first be willing to admit your mistakes.

Plato and Aristotle also touched on ‘the end doesn’t justify the means,’ but the idea was pioneered before them in the OT, especially in the work of the prophets. The prophets were truly change-makers. They believed in God and they believed in what God told them. It was their “radical candor” that changed human history. Israel was a thumbnail of territory that shouldn’t have made a blip on the map of human history. The reason it did was based on God’s 10 commandments, which are engraved on our Supreme Court building, and the love and forgiveness of Jesus that created the idea of justice that everyone demands today. If survival-of-the-fittest (most powerful) had won the day instead of Christianity, there would be no freedom or justice marches like we see today.

Maranatha!

Ron