God Forbid

   In an English 103 class several decades ago, the professor was discussing a literary work, and he used the word “denouement.” Not wanting to put my ignorance on public display, I made a note to check the word rather than ask the professor to define it. Later, I traced the etymology of the word through the French back to the Latin meaning “un-” + “knot.” Aha. I began to see many uses for that word. Recently, I watched a Columbo episode and saw the moment the pesky detective figured out who the culprit was—the denouement.

   In Jesus’ parable of the vineyard, he came to the denouement. St. Mark said, “What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come, and he will destroy the tenant farmers, and he will give the vineyard to others.” (Mark 12:9)

   Matthew said the scribes shouted out this answer, perhaps before Jesus’ summary (Matthew 21:41), and Luke said that when the audience heard this answer, they shouted “God forbid” (Luke 20:16; Μὴ γένοιτο, Me genoito—”may it not be,” or “God forbid,” a phrase found frequently in the New Testament). It may be that the official delegates saw the implications of Jesus’ parable and recoiled—or it could have been their way of saying that Jesus had it wrong.

   While this parable has an eschatological application, it also has an existential one: one’s behavior has consequences. Lesson: the tenant farmers’ vile behavior brought their death—the denouement—true then, true now.

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: “Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?” T