Eugene Peterson suggested that parables are narrative time-bombs. These simple-looking stories lodged inside people's hearts and imaginations, slowly tick-tick-ticking away until finally, BOOM, they exploded into a new awareness when the real meaning behind Jesus' homely stories about farmers and seeds and sheep and bread-making finally sunk in. Well, if all of the parables were like narrative time-bombs, then I think it's fair to say the Parable of the Tenants was like a proximity-fuse grenade! In this case, it did not take very long before this parable blew up in the faces of those listening to Jesus. In the end we are told that the Pharisees and other religious leaders in Jerusalem that day knew at once that "Jesus was speaking against them." It made them furious and they were ready, right then and there, to arrest him and be done with this meddlesome Nazarene once and for all. Clearly Jesus got their attention!