{"id":6116,"date":"2017-10-01T18:52:57","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T00:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/?p=6116"},"modified":"2017-10-01T18:52:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-02T00:52:57","slug":"the-vineyard-of-the-lord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/the-vineyard-of-the-lord-6116.htm","title":{"rendered":"The Vineyard of the Lord"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Vineyard of the Lord<\/em>, Lukas Cranach the Younger (1515-1586)<\/p>\n

The Gospel for October 8 (Trinity XVII) is the parable of the Vineyard.<\/p>\n

The first reading is from Isaiah 5:<\/p>\n

Let me sing for my beloved
\na love song concerning his vineyard:
\nMy beloved had a vineyard
\non a very fertile hill.
\n2 He digged it and cleared it of stones,
\nand planted it with choice vines;
\nhe built a watchtower in the midst of it,
\nand hewed out a wine vat in it;
\nand he looked for it to yield grapes,
\nbut it yielded wild grapes.
\n3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem
\nand men of Judah,
\njudge, I pray you, between me
\nand my vineyard.
\n4 What more was there to do for my vineyard,
\nthat I have not done in it?
\nWhen I looked for it to yield grapes,
\nwhy did it yield wild grapes?
\n5 And now I will tell you
\nwhat I will do to my vineyard.
\nI will remove its hedge,
\nand it shall be devoured;
\nI will break down its wall,
\nand it shall be trampled down.
\n6 I will make it a waste;
\nit shall not be pruned or hoed,
\nand briers and thorns shall grow up;
\nI will also command the clouds
\nthat they rain no rain upon it.
\n7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
\nis the house of Israel,
\nand the men of Judah
\nare his pleasant planting;
\nand he looked for justice,
\nbut behold, bloodshed;
\nfor righteousness,
\nbut behold, a cry!<\/p>\n

Psalm 80 continues the image:<\/p>\n

8 You brought a vine out of Egypt;
\nyou drove out the nations and planted it.
\n9 You cleared the ground for it;
\nit took deep root and filled the land.
\n10 The mountains were covered with its shade,
\nthe mighty cedars with its branches;
\n11 it sent out its branches to the sea,
\nand its shoots to the River.
\n12 Why then have you broken down its walls,
\nso that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?
\n13 The boar from the forest ravages it,
\nand all that move in the field feed on it.
\n14 Turn again, O God of hosts;
\nlook down from heaven, and see;
\nhave regard for this vine,
\n15 the stock that your right hand planted.[b]
\n16 They have burned it with fire, they have cut it down;[c]
\nmay they perish at the rebuke of your countenance.
\n17 But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand,
\nthe one whom you made strong for yourself.
\n18 Then we will never turn back from you;
\ngive us life, and we will call on your name.<\/p>\n

And Jesus uses it in the Gospel (Matthew 21)<\/p>\n

Hear another parable. There was a householder who planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. 34 When the season of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants, to get his fruit; 35 and the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first; and they did the same to them. 37 Afterward he sent his son to them, saying, \u2018They will respect my son.\u2019 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, \u2018This is the heir; come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.\u2019 39 And they took him and cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?\u201d 41 They said to him, \u201cHe will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cranach in 1582 painted the Protestant interpretation of this metaphor.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The painting once hung\u00a0in Martin Luther\u2019s parish church of St. Mary\u2019s in Wittenberg. Cranach created this painting in memory of the Reformer Paul Eber, who lectured on theology in Wittenberg. Paul Eber, his wife, and\u00a0 and his thirteen children kneel on the right, The ones in white died in infancy.<\/p>\n

It is riposte\u00a0to a statement that Pope Leo X had made in response to Luther\u2019s posting of his Ninety-five Theses. The pope excommunicated Luther, tossing him out of the Church, in Exsurge, Domine<\/em> exclaiming famously, \u201cThe wild boar from the forest seeks to destroy the vineyard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lord’s Vineyard is defined as the central motif of the composition by a surrounding fence, which separates it from the landscape behind. A path divides this vineyard into two sections: Catholic left and Protestant right.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

14.4.2009: from Lucas Cranach the Younger, ‘Vineyard of the Lord’ (1569), Stadtkirche St-Marien, Wittenberg.<\/p><\/div>\n

On the left side, the vineyard has withered from neglect and mismanagement. The pope, cardinals, bishops, priests and monks are hard at work \u2026 ripping out the vines and throwing rocks into the well. They are destroying the Good News of Jesus Christ with their false doctrines of the worship of Mary and the saints, purgatory, penance, indulgence, etc. They have ripped out the true salvation story contained in the words and person of Jesus Christ, who is the Vine to whom we are connected by faith. The monks are getting drunk and pulling up the vines.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But on the Protestant right, the vineyard is flourishing under Lutheran cultivation. Twelve reformers associated with Wittenberg, ranging from Martin Luther (d. 1546) to the young Matthias Flacius Illyricus (d. 1575), clear the land and prune and irrigate the new, healthy plants.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Luther in his black doctoral gown with a rake and other Reformers take care of the plants by watering them and pulling out the weeds. John Bugenhagen, Luther\u2019s confessor and a contributor to the Augsburg Confession is in the center wearing a light-colored robe as he tills the soil.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Phillip Melanchthon, author of the Augsburg Confession,\u00a0 is drawing the pure waters of the Scriptures (ad fontes).<\/p>\n

In the foreground a procession of clerics, lead by the pope, has stepped beyond the fenced area to meet with Christ and the apostles. The Pope seems to be offering Jesus money to gain admission to heaven, and Jesus is refusing it. Perhaps it is an allusion to Tetzel’s (alleged ) couplet\u00a0“As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul out of purgatory springs” (Sobald der Pfennig im Kasten klingt, die Selle aus dem Fegfeuer springt), which he is supposed to have used to preach the sale of indulgences which would release souls from Purgatory.<\/p>\n

Jesus, like the owner of the Vineyard, is carrying a bag with money with which he will pay the true workers in the vineyard, i. e., the Reformers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the frame and epitaph.<\/p>\n

In case the meaning of the painiting escaped you:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Vineyard of the Lord, Lukas Cranach the Younger (1515-1586) The Gospel for October 8 (Trinity XVII) is the parable of the Vineyard. The first reading is from Isaiah 5: Let me sing for my beloved a love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2 He digged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1505,1508,1506,1507],"class_list":["post-6116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cranach","tag-reformation","tag-vineyard-of-the-lord","tag-weinberg-des-herrn","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6116"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6139,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6116\/revisions\/6139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}