There’s a great sketch from That Mitchell and Webb Look where David Mitchell and Robert Webb are playing SS officers from World War II. ‘Haz, I’ve just noticed something’ says Mitchell ‘the badges on our caps, have you looked at them? They’ve got skulls on them. Have you looked at our caps recently. The badges on our caps, have you looked at them? They’ve got skulls on them. Have you noticed that our caps have actually got little pictures of skulls on them… are we the baddies?’
This funny little sketch is addressing an important point. For the most part, nobody ever thinks they’re the baddies. Whether on a geopolitical scale, like soldiers in a war, or on a domestic scale, like in a family conflict, for the most part we tend to see ourselves as being on the side of good. Hardly anyone self-identifies as one of the baddies. Even when a person or group admits to doing something problematic, it’s usually because it was for the greater good. It is very rare for someone to admit that they have done something out of malice or cruelty. Mostly, when we doing something bad, we convince ourselves that it was justified.
In this week’s gospel reading, we’re back inside the temple precinct, just a few days before Jesus’ death. He is talking about vineyards again. This time it’s the story of how tenants went and murdered the vineyard owner’s son. The vineyard is always a reference to Israel. The chief priests and pharisees are hanging about keeping an eye on Jesus, who is brazenly conducting a workshop on their property without permission. And then comes this banger of a line.
‘When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them.’
This was hardly rocket science. They worked out that the guy who came in yesterday and overturned the tables, and who came in today with his Occupy Jerusalem movement thinks they are a pack of lying, murdering slimeballs who are worse than tax collectors and prostitutes and who are about to have a big rock dropped on them. It was pretty hard to miss. One can almost imagine these temple bureaucrats asking themselves ‘are we the baddies?’
On Friday a couple of grandparents superglued themselves to the Perth office of Chevron. They wanted to protest Chevron’s contribution to climate change, and to draw attention to the futility of a ‘gas led recovery’ from the economic turmoil of the pandemic.
I suspect, for the people who work in the Chevron office, this protest by grandparents was a little bit like Jesus action in the temple precincts in the days before his death. Who are these people? What are they doing here? What do they think they are going to achieve? And is this somehow pointed at us? We’re just ordinary people going about our business, why are being targeted in this way? Are… are we the baddies?
I suspect that some of us feel the same way when we are confronted with information about the dispossession of Aboriginal people from their lands – the lands on which we now live. Sometimes there is an aggressive, almost violent response to any claim that there should be acknowledgement, apology and even reparation. I suspect this emotional response arises because it involves us acknowledging that yes, in fact, we might be the baddies.
While we today might recognise the corruption present in the Temple at the time of Jesus and Herod Antipas, doubtless the Levites at that time didn’t perceive themselves as evil. They didn’t get up in the morning thinking ‘ah wonderful, another day of betraying my people and exploiting the covenant for personal gain’. That’s not how religious and political systems work. The success of the system requires that most people, most of the time, think that they are doing good. Even if they are unsure about certain elements of the system, they need to think that overall it is a good thing. And the biggest threat to a domination system like the Temple and its conspiracy with the Roman occupiers are people who question its legitimacy. People who pick around the edges and try to reform elements of it are fine – useful even. But those who dare to state the whole system is wrong present a real and present danger and must be crucified.
In Jesus’ story, the tenants in the vineyard have utilised the land, and owe a portion of it to the landowner. The landowner first sends three slaves, but the tenants beat one, kill one and stone one. So he sends more slaves and they do the same thing. At last, the landowner sends his son, thinking that the tenants will respect his son. But they kill the son too.
‘Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? says Jesus. They said to him, "He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time."
Clearly, Matthew’s intention is to identify the temple authorities as the murderous tenants, and Israel as the vineyard with God as the vineyard owner. It is extraordinarily bold, seditious and somewhat rash to tell that story in the temple precinct with all the scribes standing by watching. But it had to be said, even if, as we know, it resulted in the execution of the storyteller.
While it is tempting to identify ourselves entirely with Jesus and his followers, I think we would also do well to identify with the scribes and pharisees – the temple bureaucrats. Yes, sometimes we are doing the truth-telling and provocative protesting inside the belly of the beast. But sometimes, too, we are the baddies. Sometimes we are complicit in systems that corrupt and dominate. Jesus not only offers us the opportunity to declare truth and transform the world around us, but the invitation to see the truth of our own thoughts and actions, and to be transformed by the Spirit ourselves.
The Lord Be With You