God's Tenants: Mark 12:1-9
Our repentant heart is what God desires. This is why I love Hosea 6:6. God says, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” This is also why David, who made so many mistakes, could still be called a man after God’s own heart. Perfection is unattainable for humanity. Realigning our heart to His, especially once we discover it is unaligned, is a goal we can attain.
In Jesus’ parable about the wicked tenants, a responsible landowner create something nice. When the landowner leases it to tenants, they no longer treat the landowner with respect. The projected solution is for the landowner to dispose of the current tenants and give it to people who show respect. It’s a natural conclusion.
This parable is talked about as a comparison between the Jews versus the church. The Hebrew people, who initially received God’s Word, did not become the beacon of godliness for the world as God expected. Despite God sending warning after warning in the many godly leaders and prophets, the Hebrew people continued to turn away from God’s ways and find their own path. Therefore, as we see in the story of Pentecost, God gives access to His kingdom to a new group of people. Those people become collectively known as the church.
While that interpretation is all well and good – and certainly proper from an historical perspective –there is a more personal usefulness than the historically correct interpretation. We all walk the path of temptation the Hebrew people walked. Not one of us can claim to be following God’s ways to perfection. Not one of us is immune to sinfulness. We are all guilty of doing things our own way, one that makes more sense to us in the moment. We all are collectively and individually worthy of receiving the wrath of God. Not one of us deserves by our own merit to live as God’s tenant.
This is the danger when we follow the ways that make sense to the world rather than turning to God’s Word for instruction. Worldly permissiveness leads to the corruption of life as God intended it for us. When we start basing our decisions on what feels right to ourselves, we start slipping away from the kingdom as God desires it and created it.
Fortunately, God is forgiving. In the parable, the landowner was willing to send many servants in the parable. God knows His tenants will make mistakes and He is willing to give them the opportunity to make a mistake and come back to Him. What He asks of us is to acknowledge we left His path, understand why His way is better, and then realign our heart to His. This process is frequently described as repentance, forgiveness, and change. We all make mistakes; nobody fools God in that regard. Our repentant heart is what God desires.
