Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20;
Matthew 21:33-46
“Nevertheless, God Persists”
I wonder if you remember something that happened in the U.S. Senate back in 2017. A new Attorney General was being elected, and one of the Democratic Senators, Elizabeth Warren, had an objection. She didn’t think he would be an appropriate choice because of his civil-rights record, so she stood up and explained why the senators should choose someone else.
Senate leadership interrupted her, citing a rule that prohibits imputing improper motives to another senator. The Senate then voted to bar her from continuing. Afterwards, Mitch McConnell explained the rebuke with these words: “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” That final line instantly became a feminist rallying cry.
“Nevertheless, she persisted” began as a political reprimand but became a cultural symbol of resilience, defiance, and women refusing to be silenced. It now stands for persistence in the face of structural barriers, not just Warren’s moment on the Senate floor.
But what does it have to do with the Scriptures today? One possibility would be that God is calling us to persistence in the way that we live out our faith. We are presented with the Ten Commandments and reminded of our call to use our lives to love God and love our neighbours.
We must be persistent in seeking justice and working for peace in our world. We must be persistent in speaking up and advocating for the needs of the poor and the marginalized. We must be persistent because there are so many powerful people and strong voices that are working towards a different set of goals.
Following the commandments to love God and love our neighbours will require persistence. When more selfish options are before us, or when our baser instincts kick in, we will have to be very intentional about choosing love, choosing kindness, and choosing faithfulness to God and our own promises.
But as much as the commandments call us to persistence, that’s not the persistence that I noticed in the texts for this morning. It was God’s persistence that stood out, most obviously in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. Or, as I would like to rename it, the Parable of the Persistent Landowner.
Just a few weeks ago, we read a parable about another vineyard owner and the day labourers that he recruited to work for him. There was a different lesson in that parable, but there was also a different labour system at work that we should probably take a moment to understand.
By the first century, large estates were increasingly leasing out vineyards to tenant farmers rather than working them directly or hiring day labourers. This shift began in the Hellenistic period and continued into Jesus’ era. Tenancy became a major feature of agricultural life, especially in regions like Galilee and Judea where viticulture (growing grapes and making wine) was economically important.
The most common system was crop‑share tenancy — exactly what Jesus describes in today’s parable. The landowner provided the land (and often the vineyard infrastructure). The tenant farmers worked the land, tended the vines, and harvested the grapes. At harvest time, the tenants delivered an agreed‑upon portion of the crop to the owner (often 1/4 or 1/3 of the harvest). This arrangement is explicitly assumed in the parable and is well‑documented in economic‑history research.
So, the landowner’s expectation of receiving his share of the harvest is completely normal. Sending servants to collect the share was standard practice. Violence against collection agents, however, was shocking — highlighting the tenants’ rebellion. Sending the son reflects the owner’s final, authoritative attempt to claim what is rightfully his.
In many of Jesus’ parables about the Kingdom of God, there’s a character that represents God. Sometimes it’s a Master, a King, a Shepherd, or a Woman searching for a lost coin. In today’s parable, it’s the Persistent Landowner that can easily be identified as representing God. We learn something about God by paying attention to what the landowner says and does.
We should probably also pause to consider who the tenants might represent. In the text, the chief priests and the Pharisees are listening to Jesus’ parable and it says that “they realize that he’s speaking about them.” They are the ones who have received the task and responsibility of doing God’s work in the world. They are the religious leaders that God has empowered to do good works and share God’s love, and through the parable they hear Jesus implying that they are neglecting their responsibilities and rebelling against God with their selfishness and misguided priorities.
The part that I find notable in the parable, however, is that the landowner is persistent. After sending his first group of servants to pick up his share of the harvest, he doesn’t give up on the tenants. This is remarkable because they beat one of the slaves, killed another, and stoned another. They didn’t just refuse to hand over the landowner’s share of the grapes, but they violently attacked his emissaries. I think that if I were the landowner, I would have been calling the authorities or marching back in with an army to take back the vineyard by force.
But the landowner doesn’t do that. The landowner tries again. He sends more servants, a greater number than before in the hopes that the tenants will listen to them and do what is right – what they have agreed to do.
And once again, the tenants attack the servants who come to them, hurting or killing them all. But the landowner doesn’t give up. He’s going to try again with one more emissary – he’ll send his own son. Surely the tenants will respect him and do what is right – what they have agreed to do.
But, of course, they don’t. They ruthlessly kill him too, and at that point something changes for the landowner. He’s tried everything he can to restore the working relationship with his tenants, while they have refused every one of his attempts. At this point, they simply cannot remain in the vineyard to continue their violent and bad behaviour. The landowner will put them out and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will produce fruit.
The religious leaders listening to Jesus were likely recognizing that he was challenging their authority. They thought they had a pretty special relationship with God, but Jesus is saying that they are going to lose it because they have betrayed God again and again with their self-righteousness and failure to produce the fruit of love that God intended for them.
Let’s go back to the Ten Commandments that we were reminded about today. They were supposed to be a gift to the people of God, guiding them in the best ways to live in loving relationship with God and one another – making their lives peaceful, respectful, and fruitful for the good of all.
But almost immediately, God’s people began to violate them. Like human beings in every time and place, their priorities became self-interest, status, and wealth, and the commandments that asked them to love God and love their neighbours first were not welcome.
Not only that, but there were religious people who added to the commandments as well. Instead of rejecting them altogether, they warped them by adding more and more difficult details. They lost sight of their underlying purpose – to love God and our neighbours well – and turned following the commandments into status symbols for super-religious people.
Over the centuries that followed, God sent prophets to call the people, and especially the religious leaders, back to the heart of the commandments and the relationship of love that God wanted to share with them. And of course, the prophets were rejected, often beaten or killed, and rarely accepted and listened to. Finally, God sent his only son – perhaps hoping that his son would be respected, but likely knowing that he would be rejected also.
God had already sent prophets, already been rebuffed again and again. Nevertheless, God persisted.
Just like the chief priests and the Pharisees who could identify themselves in the parable, we’re invited to humbly recognize that we can be like those rebellious tenants too. We may be just as religious as the Pharisees were. We may memorize the commandments, study the Scriptures, attend worship, and call ourselves Christians.
But God doesn’t need us to know the commandments, but rather to embody them in lives of love for God and our neighbours. God is not interested in a show of religiosity, but in lives that produce the fruit of the Spirit that is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
The good news is that our God continues to be persistent. As many times as we have heard the call and failed to act, God continues to reach out to us in love. As many times as we have had good intentions and failed to follow through, God continues to prompt us again towards fruit-bearing actions in the world. As many times as we have put God in second or third place in our lives, or treated our neighbours like competitors or enemies, God continues to come to us in love, calling us to do what is right – what we have agreed to do as God’s people.
No matter what we have done or failed to do, nevertheless, God persists in reaching out to us in love and in hope that we will become God’s partners in building a fruitful future for all.
It’s not too late for us, even if we have rejected Jesus in the past. God sends him back to us once again even today, as we are invited to come to the Table that he has prepared. Jesus offers himself for our sake, his body and blood given for our lives, in the hope that with the Spirit’s help we will learn to live fruitful lives that express our love for God and our love for our neighbours.
As Jesus said of himself in the Gospel text today, quoting from Psalm 118:
‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes.’ May we give thanks today for God’s persistence and the fact that Jesus is the sure foundation of our faith and our hope.