Jesus was sent to this world to covert
our hearts and minds from a life of sin to a life in God. God the Father sent
His only begotten Son to this world for this purpose, because God so loved the
world that we might not perish and might have eternal life as we believe in him
(John 3:16). God did this because He really loves us, regardless of our
sinfulness, and wants us to come to Him. And the only way to God the Father,
whose desire is to have us closer to Him, is through the Son (John 12:44; 13:20;
14:6), as our Good Shepherd to follow (John 10:11,14). But, the wickedness of
the leaders of the God’s house of prayer killed the Son that the Father in
heaven sent, by conspiring the Roman civil authority to crucify him.
Before Jesus, God sent various prophets
to turn our sinful hearts back to God. However, these prophets were persecuted
(Matthew 23:24). Jesus was like a stone that builders rejected and cast out
(Matthew 21:42; Psalm 118:22). But, the Father, who sent the Son, Jesus, who
became the rejected stone, will make him a cornerstone (Matthew 21:42; Psalm
118:23), as it is the Father, who raised the Son from his death on the third
day.
The parable of the tenant vineyard
worker (Matthew 21:33-46), in conjunction with Isaiah 5:1-7, reflects this
progression of unrepentant sinfulness and its consequence.
Jesus told this parable specifically to
the hypocrite religious leaders of the time, who turned the Temple, the God’s
house of prayer, on earth, into the house of thieves (Matthew 21:13) to point
out their sinfulness, by juxtaposing them to the tenant vineyard workers, who
hijacked the vineyard and stole the inheritance of the vineyard owner’s son,
upon killing all of the vineyard owner’s servants and his son.
Through parables spoken by prophets and
Jesus, God teaches us a lesson of acknowledging our own sinfulness and need of
repentance to reconcile with him. Some
learn the lesson and turn their sinful hearts and minds from sin and back to
God. But, others refuse to convert and choose to remain in sin.
In this regard, this is a striking
contrast between Jesus’ parable of the tenant vineyard workers to the hypocrite
religious leaders (Matthew 21:33-46) and prophet Nathan’s parable of the rich
man and the poor man’s ewe lamb to David (2 Samuel 12:1-13).
Nathan was a prophet to David, the King
of Israel, offering spiritual advice to him as God commanded.
David humbly listened to and obeyed the
word of God, as spoken to him by Nathan (2 Samuel 12:7). However, once
experiencing sensual temptation upon seeing a bathing scene of Bathsheba, a
beautiful wife of Uriah, a David’s royal guard, David was succumbed into double
mortal sins: conspiring of murder and adultery
(2 Samuel 11).
The Nathan’s parable comes to David to
point out David’s sinfulness.
In response to David’s sinful acts of
stealing Uriah’s beautiful wife, Bathsheba, by conspiring to have Uriah killed,
God spoke to her through Prophet Nathan, in the parable of the rich man and the
poor man’s ewe lamb. In this parable,
the rich man, who had a great flocks and herds, took the poor man’s only ewe
lamb and slaughtered to serve for his guest’s dinner. The poor man basically lost all he had, as he
loved his only ewe lamb so much and took a great care of her. To this parable,
David became very angry at the rich man and uttered that the rich man should to
be put to death, while the poor man should be compensated four-fold for his
loss. David was so angry because the rich man had no regard for the poor man.
Obviously, David grew so indignant out
of his compassion for the poor man. This shows that David was a man of kind
heart. However, until Nathan reminded David that the man he became angry at for
his ruthless and pitiless act was a metaphoric projection of David himself for
arranging to have Uriah killed in order to have Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, as his
own.
David could have killed Nathan, if he
were a narcissistic man, as pointing out his sins could have irritated him.
However, David humbled himself and acknowledged his great sins and repented (2
Samuel 13:13), and this is also reflected in Psalm 51, which David wrote.
David’s humble response and repentance
in response to the Nathan’s parable (2 Samuel 12:1-13) draws sharp contrast
with the hypocrite religious leaders’ response to the Jesus’ parable (Matthew
21:33-46).
In the parable of the tenant vineyard
workers (Matthew 21:33-40), Jesus juxtaposed the sins of the religious leaders
to the wickedness of the tenant vineyard worker in the parable and projected
this back to them.
As these leaders corrupted the Temple by
their own narcissistic ambitions, turning the God’s sacred house of prayer into
a den of thieves (Matthew 21:12-13), the tenant vineyard workers turned a
fertile vineyard into a field of abomination (Matthew 21:33-39). The religious leaders
were entrusted by God to take a good care of the Temple as the God’s sacred house
of prayer. However, instead of doing the will of God to take care of the
Temple, these hypocrite leaders abused their free will and run amok with the
Temple as a den of thieves.
David also forgot about the will of God
when he was seduced by the bathing scene of Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:2-5). It was
when he was abusing his free will without the consideration for the will of
God, carried by a powerful sensual temptation.
The hypocrite religious leaders were also living only with their free
will, ignoring the will of God, to hijack the Temple to do whatever they willed
to do.
Though both of them committed serious
sins, the difference between David and the hypocrite religious leaders is that
former repented but the latter refused to repent, when they were given
opportunities to turn their hearts and minds from sins to God through the
parables.
Like David, even a humble person can
lose our sight on God and the will of God when there is a certain temptation
and slip into an abuse of free will. When we abuse the God-given gift of free
will, we do whatever we will, without any regard to the will of God, the will
of the very one who gave us the free will. Psychologically, narcissists tend to
practice the abuse of free will in their own relentless pursuit of the objects
of what they will.
It was grace of God that came to David
as the parable that Nathan spoke. The words in the parable were of God to give
David a chance to use free will to wake up to his own sinfulness and repent.
And David did so and was forgiven by God (2 Samuel 12:13).
On the other hand, the hypocrite religious
leaders used free will not to repent, even though they realized that Jesus’
parable was sharply pointing their sinfulness. Instead of acknowledging their
sinfulness and repenting, they continued to abuse free will to decide to
silence him (Matthew 21:46).
It was the narcissism of them that made
the hypocrite religious leaders refuse to repent. Rather, they decided to
arrest Jesus and kill him – just as metaphorically said in the Jesus’ parable,
as the wicked tenant vineyard workers not only killed the landowners’ servants
but also the very son of him and stoke his inheritance. So, Jesus became the
stone that the builders rejected (Matthew 21:42; Psalm 118:22).
Because David was not narcissistic, all
he needed was God’s grace through the parable to let him turn free will to be
used for the will of God.
Psychological studies, such as Williams
& Leopendorf (1990), Kenis & Sun (1994), and Paulhus & Williams (2002), indicate that
narcissism makes it difficult to have remorse. For us to repent, we must have
remorse, as repentance is contingent upon remorse.
In response to grace of God, through the
teaching message of the parables, David felt remorse over his sins and
repented, while the hypocrite religious leaders did not but decided to attack
the agent of the grace. This comparison of David and the hypocrite religious leaders
indicates that narcissism, which is a stumbling block of remorse, impairs our
abilities to repent and reconcile. As the above-cited studies indicate,
narcissism is what let us continue to abuse free wills until we hijack what God
has leased us and destroy His servants and Son, as the wicked tenant vineyard workers
did with the vineyard and the landowner – as the hypocrite religious leaders
did with the God’s sacred house of prayer and His son, Jesus Christ.
But, as God has turned the rejected
stone into the cornerstone (Matthew 21:42, Psalm 118:22-23), God already raised
the Son, who was killed by the devil of the narcissism of the hypocrite religious
leaders, from the dead. Though the world that God so loved and sent His only
Son (John 3:16) has been plagued by the evil of our narcissism, especially
among the ministers of the Church, God will renew the world, as prophesized in
the Book of Revelation. In this cleansing process toward the end of time, those
who refuse to overcome their narcissism and refuse to repent will face due
judgement. God will take away what they have hijacked and clung to, as also
prophesized in Isaiah 5:1-7.
A lesson from the comparison of the
above two parables is that narcissism and free will make a deadly combination,
as it can disable us to have remorse over our own sinfulness and repent. As we
refuse to repent but continue to sin, pursuing objects of what our free will
dictates without any regard to God and His will, we will eventually lose
everything – even salvation at the end.
As we use God-given free will to fight
our narcissistic disposition, we can keep ourselves from becoming narcissistic.
Therefore, using the free will to overcome our narcissistic tendency is a
necessary condition to our salvation. For this, as David did for his repentance,
we need God’s grace. In order to be merited by God’s grace, we must turn our
hearts and mind to the Word of God, which may come in parables (Psalm 78:2).
The Word of God, especially in the parable
spoken by God’s servants, prophets, and His Son, Jesus, are vehicles of God’s
saving grace to help us stay on the right course so that we can use free will
to do the will of God. And this is how we journey into salvation. Even we
stumbled by temptations, God still gives a chance with parables, as He did to
David. But, it is ultimately up to us in deciding what to do with free will: to
remorse and repent or not to do so.
For God’s grace to make its intended
effect, it needs our free will to turn to God. Psychologically, our battle with
Satan is our war against narcissistic disposition, which is what we gained upon
the very first abuse of free will, committed by Adam and Eve.
Kernis, M. H. & Sun, C. (1994). Narcissism and reactions to interpersonal
feedback, Journal of Research in
Personality, 28(1), 4-13
Paulhus, D. L. & Williams, K. M.
(2002). The dark triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and
psychopathy, Journal of Research in Personality, 36, 556-563
Williams, N. & Lependorf, S.
(1990). Narcissistic pathology of
everyday life: the Denial of remorse and gratitude, Contemporary Psychoanalysis,
26(3), 430-451
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