Luke 19:11 and Luke 20:9

LUKE 19:11—"As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately."
 
LUKE 20:9—"He began to tell the people this parable: 'A man planted a vineyard, and leased it to tenants, and went to another country for a long time.’"

Comment:

I'm not sure that either of these verses has any great significance except to lead us into two of Jesus' most powerful and challenging parables—the parable of the talents and the parable of the absentee vineyard owner. According to the structure of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus has been engaged in a great journey across the country, from his native Galilee through Samaria and eventually into the City of Jerusalem. Luke uses the journey as a kind of clothesline, on which he hangs the various teachings and parables Jesus shares in the course of the trip. Now he is nearing Jerusalem and the final days of his ministry.   It would appear from Luke's comment in 19:11 ("They supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately") that the followers Jesus had gathered about him by this time were not entirely clear on just what his message meant. Jesus senses that they understand that God will come and reward them; so he tells them the powerful parable of the three servants entrusted with “talents” (vast sums of money) by their owner before he leaves on a journey. On his return he punishes the one servant who has simply kept the talents so that he could return them. He rewards richly the two servants who took the talents they had been given, invested them, and are able to return a great profit. The implication is clear: We will not be rewarded for simply sitting and waiting on God, so that at the end of a lifetime we have no more than what we were initially given. We are rather expected to invest our talents, take risks, learn lessons, so that by the ends of our lives we are able to "show a profit" in terms of our spiritual accomplishments and lessons learned.   The second parable, introduced at 20:9, warns that God may not be as distant as we think. God is intimately involved in our lives, even though we have no evidence of his presence in the vineyard with which we are entrusted. But messengers—emissaries—from God do appear, as guides or divine ideas—opportunities for us to “pay forward” the good we have received. If we fail to seize on every opportunity to "pay the rent" on the richness of our lives by giving freely according to the guidance of God, we will have serious consequences to face. Jesus is specifically addressing (by implication) the scribes and Pharisees following him, who represent a religious system that disregards spiritual guidance and destroys those—like John the Baptist—who attempt to give voice to the divine ideas that would create a more just and joyful world. But the message is clear for each of us as we move through the challenges and opportunities of our lives. Nothing is truly ours; we are agents of the divine, and to forget that is to risk losing the good we are free to enjoy as we share it with others.   Blessings!

Rev. Ed