The Jewish religious leadership often takes a shellacking from Jesus’ hand. Mark 12.1–12 is a good example. It is a parable about a landowner, his vineyard, and some tenant farmers who kill his son. The parable so angered “the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders” (11.27) that they “looked for a way to arrest [Jesus] because they knew the parable was about them.” What made them so mad? Although Jesus’ parables are not usually allegories—in which each character symbolizes someone else—this one seems to be. The landowner is God; the farmers are the religious leaders; the … Continue reading Do We Respect God’s Son? (Mark 12.1–12)