Matthew 21. 33-46: The Son of the Vineyard Owner

Jesus' parable in Matthew 21 (verses 33-46) tells his own story. Set in a vineyard, the son of the vineyard owner is killed by wicked tenants who are unwilling to give the owner the portion of the harvest that is owed. It doesn't take much to understand the story as a prediction of Jesus' fate. Below is an unidentified image (I'm still trying to identify it) from a medieval manuscript that illustrates the story. 

            

(Left) Unidentified manuscript illustration of Matthew 21:33-46. (Right) Christus in der Kelter. Gebetbuch des Ulrich von Montfort. c. 1515-1520. Vienna: Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. 2748, fol. 49v.

It also doesn't take much to understand the implications of the vineyard and Christ's relation to it as a Communion symbol. 

One of the symbolic images for the death of Jesus is the winepress. In those images (above right) Jesus is shown trampling grapes while bearing the weight of the winepress. The implication is that the crushing and juicing of grapes offers a parallel to Jesus' death and subsequent remembrance in the cup of communion. There are other vineyard images that should bring to mind the role and actions of Jesus' life and death. 

In the two images here, the wine press is the screw type that applies pressure from above in order to crush the grapes. In the parable illustration you can see the winepress through the open door of the watchtower. In the illustration with Jesus, he treads on the grapes even as the winepress crushes him. Note that it is the first person of the Trinity who turns, powers, the screw that presses on Jesus. Isaiah 63 and Revelation 14 both refer to the winepress with a tone of punishment or retribution. Here, though, it is not retribution that Christ models, but sacrifice, giving himself to death at the hands of the tenants or the winepress.

In regions that have no winemaking tradition, these images might be harder to understand. And, of course, the artists from these regions depict the equipment they saw in their own winemaking industries, and they make Jesus look like themselves. 

This week on Art&Faith Matters on Facebook...red or white?

Matthew 25.14-30: It's the Dog

The gospel reading for Proper 28(33)/Pentecost 24A is a parable. Specifically, it is the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30). The master entrusts three servants with eight talents before he goes on a trip. When the master returns, he asks for an accounting of the money. Two of the three servants have multiplied the master's money. The third, described as worthless, is cast out.

Various artistic versions of the subject include additional figures (a bookkeeper, for example) and interesting settings (contemporary with the artist's time, for example). Swiss artist Eugene Burnand has used only the four men mentioned in the text and has set the parable in a classic, but timeless, setting. Between the three columns evenly spaced behind the men, are lightly drawn leaves, branches and landscape.

The three servants face the master. One servant holds a fully filled bag in his hands, presumably the original talents given him along with the additional profit he turned. A second servant stands behind him. We don't see his hands or his accounting or much of anything from him. The third servant, however, telegraphs his suspicion - or perhaps resentment? - of the master by watching from under a lowered brow as he stands with his arms crossed over his chest.

The master stands at the left of the composition with his right hand outstretched, preparing to reach for the money that is coming to him. The artist has made the master slightly taller than the first servant, but the gulf in the relationship is painted as horizontal rather than vertical. The composition doesn't reinforce a hierarchical imbalance of power as it would have if the master towered over kneeling servants.

One rather unique detail of Burnand's telling of the story is the dog in the composition. The dog is between the master and the servants. It appears that the dog has walked in with the master, whose left hand rests on the dog's head. The dog has stopped slightly ahead of the master and is looking up and back and the older man. Why is the dog there? Is the dog just another "good and faithful servant" to the master? "Fido" does, of course, share a root with the word for faithful. Is the dog there as a character reference for the master? The dog is looking up at the master with an expression that seems to be one of calmness and trust rather than cowering and fear. Remember the advice to never trust a person who doesn't love dogs, but always trust a dog when they don't like a person. Is this dog there to say that this master - for all his demands for profit and casting out into places where teeth are gnashed - can be trusted?

Image above: Eugene Burnand (1850-1921). The Talents. For Musee-Eugene-Burnand, click here. 

For thoughts related to the reading from Hebrew scripture, click here.

For an additional image of Deborah, click on the Art&Faith Matters Facebook link below.

Luke 15.1-10: Woman's Ten Coins

One of Jesus' parables about lost things, the gospel reading for Proper 19C/Ordinary 24C (Luke 15:1-10) takes us into the world of women. In the second of the three parables, we find a woman who has lost a coin (between a shepherd who has lost a sheep and a father who has lost a son). For many depictions of the story the title could just as easily be "The Sweeping Woman". In those superficial illustrations the woman stands - or sometimes bends over for a closer look - as she works with her broom hoping to uncover the coin in the dirt floor. There is very little interpretation, though the illustration is fine, if repetitive.

Our assumption is that the woman is poor and that is why even a single coin is so important. We can imagine that she carefully tends her little hoard of coins, counting them often to double check that they are still where she left them, keeping them safe in a bag or other container in a safe place in her home. Her home is usually shown as simple and dominated by earthtones with baked brick walls and dirt floors. The woman's clothing is a plain tunic of fairly coarse material. Eugene Burnand's image (left) is typical in those details. Burnand has chosen not to show the sweeping woman but rather the woman who has had a successful search. She stands on the balcony of her home, and in her left hand she holds the long-sought coin, sharing her joy with friends and neighbors. We can imagine that what happens next is that the woman takes the coin back inside her house and carefully places it in its container with the other nine coins, tucked safely away.

But perhaps there is another way to consider this coin and this woman. What if the coins aren't kept tucked away? What if the coins are on display almost every day of this woman's life? In William Holman Hunt's painting "Bride of Bethlehem", the woman's coins are on display across her forehead and in her jewelry. This practice, where jewelry serves as the woman's "bank account" is common in Palestine, Turkey, Armenia and other areas in the Middle East. In some cases "coin" refers to flat disks of coin-sized silver rather than actual money coins. The pure silver could be exchanged for its value in money. Though there are also examples where actual coins are drilled and used on headdresses and jewelry. An Arab proverb says "Bracelets are for the difficult times." Presumably because one can sell them.

What if the ten coins are ornaments on the headdress of the woman in Jesus' parable? Certainly they would still be important, especially if she has only ten on her headdress - unlike the woman in Hunt's painting - but these coins would be part of her life, not just a stash that is hidden away. Perhaps she takes off the headdress at night and discovers broken threads or an open wire jump ring and an empty place where there should be a coin. And then she begins her search for the coin - remembering where the errands and tasks of her day have taken her and retracing her steps - perhaps even sweeping the floor - until the coin is found.

Imaging the ten coins as part of a headdress doesn't change the point of the parable - that the woman would look for a single coin, even if she had others. But it might change the way we imagine the woman and her life.

You can read a veritable inventory of women's jewelry in Isaiah 3:18-20ff.
Top: Eugene Burnand. The Lost Coin. Drawing. Illustration for "Les Paraboles", published in 1908. http://www.eugene-burnand.com/Parables/Parables.htm
Bottom: William Holman Hunt. The Bride of Bethlehem. 1884. Oil on canvas. Private collection.

For thoughts on lost sheep, click here.

This week on Art&Faith Matters' Facebook page...Could the coin pictured here have been one of the ten coins mentioned in the parable? 

Matthew 13.31-32: The Whole Story

Botanical illustrations as old as four thousand years have been found in Mesopotamia and Egypt. These illustrations, often used as decorative elements on tombs and buildings, offer details of local plants. Aristotle, Theophrastus, Pliny the Elder and Krateuas are among the early writers and scholars who studied plants for medicinal and agricultural purposes. Botanical illustrations are objects of beauty and objects of science.

But they may not tell the whole story. Below are two beautiful illustrations -  on the left is Brassica nigra, on the right is Sinapis alba.

Both are commonly known as mustard plants. The leaves are different, but both have characteristic yellow flowers and small seeds. Without a doubt, the illustrations are beautifully rendered, capturing the leaves, flowers, roots, and structure of both mustard plants with great accuracy and covering several stages of development among the parts of the plant. There are young leaves and mature leaves. There are flower petals and whole flowers.

But this drawing that analyzes the parts doesn't show what Jesus saw. Jesus' parable (Matthew 13:31-32) is about potential - that from a small seed could come a plant big enough that birds nest in its branches. That's what the kingdom of heaven is like.