You brought a vine out of Egypt;
                           you drove out the nations and planted it.
                                  You cleared the ground for it;
                           it took deep root and filled the land.
                                  The mountains were covered with its shade,
                          the mighty cedars with its branches;
                                  it sent out its branches to the sea,
                          and its shoots to the River.
                          Why then have you broken down its walls,
                          so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?
                          The boar from the forest ravages it,
                          and all that move in the field feed on it. (Psalm 80:8-13)

Before Israel became a "vine out of Egypt," Noah planted the first vine. "He became drunk, and he lay uncovered in his tent." (Gen. 9:21) In the strange and awkward narration following, it is said that Ham saw his father's nakedness and that the other two sons of Noah covered their father's nakedness. After Noah recovered from his hangover, he cursed Ham, with the result that some Christians have believed that all Negroes, as descendants of Ham, are forever cursed. This murky narrative raises suspicions that Ham may have been the victim of tensions within the family. (For an analysis of this possibility, see "Curing the Curse: Genesis 9 in Girardian Perspective" by Steve Haynes.) Human culture is reconstituted after the Flood by the planting of a vineyard on the earth God has just blessed under the sign of the rainbow. This planting is immediately followed by a disintegration of human community and the expulsion of one of its members. Shem and Japeth seem to have been fully convinced that the expulsion of Ham was right and proper. It just so happened that this expulsion gave them a bigger share in the inheritance of the vineyard planted by their father. It is a good thing for Noah and his remaining sons that God had just promised not to destroy the earth again "for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth." (Gen. 8:21)

The vineyard is an image of culture, not just for Israel, but all of humanity. Since cultivation of the vine is an important element of prosperity (or lack thereof), it is not surprising that this image would be used over and over again to reveal the proper relationship between Israel and the God who delivered this people from Egypt. The act of deliverance on God's part is likened to the planting of a vineyard. The Israelites have become a people because they have been planted by God and because God continues to take care of them, as Isaiah celebrates in his famous oracle:

            My beloved had a vineyard
            on a very fertile hill.
            He dug it and cleared it of stones,
            and planted it with choice vines;
            he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
            and hewed out a wine vat in it. (Is. 5:1-2)

The people of Israel, however, did not just read about vines and vineyards in Holy Books, as some of us today do. They actually planted vineyards and tended them. Proverbs 31: 16 extolls the virtuous, industrious wife who buys a vineyard and cares for it conscientiously. The vineyard, then, was not merely a figurative image for how the people were to relate to God. It was a place where some people acted out their relationship with God. The Torah includes some specific commandments on how the care of a vineyard was to embody God's care for all people. There is a touching piece of legislation to the effect that a man who has planted a vineyard but not yet had the opportunity to reap its fruit, should be excused from battle and allowed to return home. (Deut. 20:6) The implication is that one is entitled to the reward for one's work in the vineyard. Other commandments, however, make it clear that the vineyard may not be treated as an airtight possession. The vineyard is not tended only for the benefit of its owner but for all people. Lev. 19: 10 states that any fallen grapes should not be picked up but left for the poor to come and pick them up. Deut. 24: 21 legislates in the same way. The prophet Zechariah offers a deeper admonition that one's care of a vineyard be the basis of caring for others by prophesying that on the Day of the Lord: "you shall invite each other to come under your vine and fig tree." (Zech. 3:10)

In his song of the vineyard, Isaiah goes on to say that, in spite of God's care for the vineyard: "he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes." (Is. 5:2) At is best, the yield of wild grapes is caused by sheer laziness rather than maliciousness, as Proverbs has it: "I passed by the field of one who was lazy, by the vineyard of a stupid person; and see, it was all overgrown with thorns; the ground was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down." (Prov. 24: 30) Unfortunately, the dilapidated state of a vineyard often has more sinister origins that come from the heart of the social structure. Jeremiah complains that:

        Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard,
        they have trampled down my portion,
        they have made my pleasant portion
        a desolate wilderness. (Jer. 12: 10)

Likewise, when Isaiah goes on to denounce the "wild grapes," he spells out the wildness in terms of society-wide covetousness. God "expected justice but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry! Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land!" (Is. 5: 7-8) Job also makes the same complaints of social injustice through the treatment of workers in the vineyard. The poor are forced to glean in the fields of scoundrels, while they themselves lacked clothes and were starving as they carried their sheaves. (Job 24: 6-10)

A sidelight, in the literal sense of a light off to the side, is offered by the example of the Rechabites. Jeremiah is instructed to invite members of this clan to an apartment in the temple and offer them wine. They refuse on the grounds that they have been ordered by their ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab, not only to drink no wine but to eschew ownership of any vineyard or field that can be sown. (Jer. 35: 1-11) That is to say, the Rechabites have withdrawn from the unjust society in which vineyards become objects of contention and oppression. Jeremiah goes on to proclaim the word of the Lord to the effect that the members of this clan obey a very strict set of regulations while the rest of Israel refuses to obey the much more modest commands issued to them by God. (Jer. 35: 12-17) One can argue that the Rechabites have not done much to solve the systemic injustice in Israel by their withdrawal. However, they offered a counter-model to those who not only owned vineyards but used them to further their own greed at the expense of others. Only God can subvert the system from within and overturn it. The only thing that humans can do is withdraw and model a different way of life as the Rechabites did.

The story of Naboth's vineyard is the culmination of human greed overcoming gratitude for the gifts given by God that should, in turn, be handed on to others. (1 Kings 21: 1-16) The only reason given for King Ahab's desire to possess Naboth's vineyard is that it is next to his own property. That is, it is across his boundary line. He is among those denounced in the oracle of Isaiah who wishes to "join house to house, [an] add field to field." That Naboth really cares about this vineyard because it is an ancestral inheritance seems only to fuel Ahab's desire for it. It is otherwise hard to imagine a king taking to his bed in a huge pout over the intrinsic value of one vineyard. Jezebel berates his husband for his behavior. She is not taking him to task for desiring somebody else's vineyard, of course. She is berating him for not asserting his kingship by taking it. Jezebel takes matters into her own hands. She demonstrates that she understands the dynamics of mimetic violence all too well. The acquisitive mimesis on Ahab's part has the potential to lead to violence. The same goes for the acquisitive mimesis on the part of the people who live in Naboth's town. She assumes, rightly, that there are people sufficiently subject to envy that if Naboth is conspicuously placed in a prominent position, these people will make false accusations in order to get rid of him. Jezebel also realizes that the occasion for the false charges and the subsequent killing need to be done in a sacred context, so she advises her plotters to proclaim a fast and then appoint Naboth a leader. When the accusations are made, all the tension from mimetic rivalry focuses on Naboth and all the people in the town stone him. With the result that Ahab acquires the vineyard. Ahab, of course, is denounced by the prophet Elijah for what he has done. Ahab then repents and God accepts the repentance. But then Ahab turns around and starts a war with Amon because he believes that Ramoth-gilead belongs to him and he hasn't done anything about it. He ignores the warning of another prophet, Micaiah, and is killed in the battle. (1 Kings 22)

When Jesus uses the vineyard as the central image of some of his parables, he is using an image which has accumulated much weight in the tradition of his people. He can hardly begin a parable by saying: "There was a vineyard" without people thinking of the Torah legislation and of the way the prophets used it to bring home the word of God. Not only that, but some of Jesus' listeners would have been the owners of vineyards or workers in them. For them, the vineyard was not just an illustrative symbol but a reality around which their social tensions actually revolved.

All three synoptic gospels include the parable of the evil workers in the vineyard. Not only that, but they all place the parable in a prominent place, soon before the arrest of Jesus, so that the parable presages the violence inflicted on Jesus Himself. Matthew, however, includes another parable about a vineyard. Its placing gives it, too, the same degree of emphasis. The first of the two parables, the parable of the laborers hired for the day, comes right after the story of the rich young man who is asked to follow Jesus but turns him down because his possessions are many. That is, a story and its accompanying logions about riches are added to the traditional associations of vineyards and human acquisitiveness. This is also the last parable in Matthew before Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. The parable is directly followed by the third and last prophecy of his passion and then the wrangling of his disciples as to who will sit at the left and right hand of Jesus in glory. This placing, then, puts this innocuous-sounding parable in an explosive position.

The Parable of the Vineyard Laborers (Mat. 20:1-16) is easy to understand. One should be grateful for the opportunity to work for a livelihood and not be envious over what others receive. The catch is that it is easy to understand why the workers who toiled all day feel the way they do and it is hard to understand why the owner of the vineyard acts the way he does. For people who either hired workers for their vineyards or who worked in them, the vineyard was not merely a symbol of a spiritual truth. The landowners were trying to make as large a profit on their vineyards as they could and the workers were at the mercy of the landowners who hired only as many as is profitable. That an owner might return to the market place in the middle of the day to look for more laborers makes some sense if the harvest is going really well. To take time to hire workers for just the last hour of the day seems hardly worth the trouble as far as increasing the yield of the harvest is concerned. To pay a full day's wage even to those who were brought in at the last hour is sheer madness. How could the owner justify such a thing to his shareholders in the corporation?

If I shy away from presenting Jesus as a first century social reformer anticipating the likes of Eugene Debs, it is only because Jesus is far more radical than a mere socialist. In this parable, Jesus has driven a wedge into the human heart that feeds on envy that, in turn, feeds a social system that requires the exploitation of people in order to run efficiently. The economic practices expected of an owner of a vineyard are exploded by a totally irrational generosity. It becomes clear that for this owner, maximizing profit is not a high priority. The only things that seem to matter are employing as many people as possible and giving everybody who works wages that offer a livelihood.

One might be tempted to say that the workers should be aware only of what they receive from the owner and not worry about what others receive. But the owner pays out the wages in such a way that those who worked all day can't help but know what the last workers received. The owner could easily have paid the workers hired at the beginning of the day first and sent them off so that they would be none the wiser about how he paid those who began work late in the day. This tactic could have saved a lot of social tension. But the owner is not content with being generous in this secret way. Rather, he challenges the first workers to share in his generous perspective. He purposely makes sure they know how he pays the last workers so that they have to make a decision as to whether or not they will rejoice in the good fortune of those workers who were hired at the end of the day, or if they will be discontented because they did not receive more. Only if they receive the same wage as the latecomers and know that this is the case, do they have the opportunity to participate in the owner's generosity to the workers. These workers do nothing of the kind. Of course, if these workers had received more than the agreed-on daily wage, they would have been happy with the owner's generosity. On the other hand, if those hired only for the last hour had received only a small fraction of a day's wage, then the first workers would have been more than happy with the normal daily wage. Again, what matters to the workers who put in the full day's work is, not that they receive a large amount of money, but that they receive more than the other workers. Economically, the owner's odd style of payment has not hurt those workers who worked all day and received a full day's wage. It is the owner who has made the sacrifice of his own economic substance. All that the first workers have lost is the satisfaction of receiving more than others.

One would like to think that the Parable of the Vineyard Laborers just pokes a little fun at human acquisitiveness and then go on our way. If we go on the way of reading Matthew's Gospel, however, we journey through Jesus' entry into Jerusalem and the subsequent cleansing of the temple. Before long, we run headlong into the Parable of the Wicked Vineyard Laborers (Mat. 21:33-46). These two parables dealing with a vineyard and its workers' relationship with the owner, then, form a chiasmus with the entry into Jerusalem sandwiched in between them. This way of structuring this portion of the Gospel suggests that the envious attitude of the workers in the earlier parable leads to the murderous attitude of the workers in the second. That is to say, an unwillingness to rejoice in God's generosity to others leads straight to violent rebellion against God.

The Parable of the Wicked Vineyard Laborers has already received prominent attention in Girardian writings, not only from Girard himself but also from Raymund Schwager. The Old Testament allusions are particularly noticeable as the parable opens with a description of the owner's careful planting of the vineyard that clearly refers back to the Song of the Vineyard in Isaiah 5. This time, the workers do not grumble about payment. It seems not to matter how little or how much the workers are paid. They want the vineyard for themselves and no amount of wages will suffice to quench that desire. Like King Ahab, they feel they have to have the vineyard for themselves simply because they do not have it. In the first parable, the owner gave of his own economic substance in order to be generous to his workers. In this second, darker, parable, the owner spends his own substance literally by sending his own son, his own flesh and blood. Here, the owner has made a tragic miscalculation in believing that the workers will respect his son. What the workers want is, of course, the very substance of the owner. It is precisely because he sends his son, his substance, that the workers realize that they have the opportunity to take the vineyard for themselves. If one is not willing to affirm God's generosity, then one will take it from God Himself. Not surprisingly, the chief priests and scribes were offended by this parable. These priests and scribes prove Jesus' point by wanting to arrest him. They only hold off from doing so because they have not yet drawn the crowds over to their side. Like Jezebel plotting the death of Naboth, they realize they had to do just that.

The parables just looked at deal with the workers in the vineyard and they invite us to put ourselves in their places and see ourselves mirrored in their attitudes. In much of the Old Testament, however, the image of the vineyard itself is used as a metaphor for the people. That is, we are to imagine ourselves being the vineyard. We are the vineyard planted by God in Isaiah's song and we have the choice as to whether or not we will grow properly, which requires the discipline of being pruned and shaped by the owner of the vineyard, or we can choose to grow wild and yield wild grapes. Since we have, indeed, chosen the latter course, Jesus invites us, once again, to be the vineyard. The invitation is issued to us at the Last Supper.

Jesus was not just passing a cup of wine around the table. The disciples had recently heard these two parables about workers in a vineyard. And, of course, the Old Testament use of the image would be weighing on them as well. Now, Jesus is passing around the fruit produced by the laborers who grumbled, not over their own wages, but over the wages of others. Moreover, Jesus was passing round the fruit of the laborers who ganged up on the vineyard owner's son. The disciples are asked to drink the fruit of these murderers. And they do. And they are told to continue to drink this fruit produced by murderers in memory of their master. By drinking the wine, the disciples receive the substance of the fruit of the vine. What was once a grape has become part of the body of the person who drinks the wine. When we drink this wine in memory of Jesus, we also become the fruit produced by murderers.

Jesus said: "I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples." (Jn. 15:5-8) To us who are inclined to kill for the sake of gaining God's substance for ourselves, Jesus responds by offering us God's substance as a gift. He also warns us that there is no other way in which we can have God's substance. We are called to work in God's vineyard. But it is not enough to be a laborer in the vineyard. We are also called to be the vines nourished by the True Vine. Everybody receives the same nourishment from the vine of which we are branches. That means we must wish for all other branches to be nourished as much as the True Vine wishes it. The vineyard of the Lord will not be complete until Ham and all his descendants are welcomed back into our shared inheritance.