I got to sit in my old Sunday School class--Carolyn is the teacher now.  She did a fantastic job.  I learned two new Biblical facts that I didn't know.  Carolyn has a wonderful style of presentation--she is an English and Drama major, and staged and presented wonderful plays in her years as a teacher at Pryor High.  A talent she now uses to draw everyone in the room into everything she is saying.  She makes it interesting.  I seldom hear a preacher who can do better.

The Pharisees had asked Jesus where He got the authority to speak the things he was saying--and who had given Jesus that authority.  And of course Jesus didn't answer the question, but asked them a question instead.  (Matthew 21:33-45)  And then gave a parable about a man who had a vineyard and entrusted it to his servants to care for it, tend to it, protect it, and harvest the grapes.

There were multitudes of people there at the time, listening when Jesus spoke.  But the parable didn't apply to them.  Jesus was speaking directly to his accusers, and he did it in such a way as to answer their question without using the words they were hoping for.  Words to hang Him with.  The words that they were hoping for.  They really didn't want to know who gave him the authority to speak.

But there was no doubt that the Pharisees knew that He was speaking to them, and that Jesus was accusing them of the evil that Isaiah had written about hundreds of years before.  Jesus quoted scripture from the fifth chapter of Isaiah.

Isaiah told the Israelites that he (God) planted a vineyard (representing Israel), and when He left the country, the servants (the Pharasees in this instance) killed everyone (the prophets) He sent to collect the rent, the grapes.  So He sent his Son, and they killed Him as well.  It is a much longer story, but Jesus knew the Pharisees had studied the scripture he was quoting.  And knew that Jesus was talking about them being the ones (the evil servants) that would kill the Son.

The Pharisees were enraged--but could do nothing because Jesus hadn't directly accused them, but everyone there knew that He actually had--with a story.  A parable.  Which some say is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.  Jesus was a master at parables.