December 7th, 2023
Scripture
33 “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went away. 34 When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them in the same way. 37 Then he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:
‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’?
43 “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruits. 44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
--Matthew 21:33-46
Reflection
The pesky thing about fall is all the leaves. It’s also the most beautiful thing. But without fail, each fall while I’m cleaning up my yard I step in a hole in the grass or trip over the stone boarder of my garden because I can’t see through the leaves. I stub my toe, or I twist my ankle, and once I even fell to the ground.
Our reading today is a prophetic warning from Jesus. In the context of his life, it is directed toward the Pharisees who have created so many rules around the Law of Moses that just about everyone is bound to stumble at some point. Perfection is hard for humans to attain.
At the heart of the parable is the rejection of the landowner’s messengers, and even his son (whom the tenants murder). This series of rejections is ultimately a rejection of the landowner! The tenants want the land to themselves. They have forgotten who owns it.
The Pharisees get the parable right away (at least on the surface)… if the tenants have forgotten who owns the land and they’ve killed the son, then they are wretches who deserve death! (Notice it’s the pharisees who assume the landowner will be retributive). But they don’t yet see the deeper layer - that Jesus’ story is a warning to them!
Quoting Psalm 118, Jesus says, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” Jesus, the Son, Emmanuel, God with Us, has become the chief cornerstone. It is marvelous in our eyes! Yet they missed it … the pharisees trip over it instead. They twist their ankle… they fall to the ground. They don’t see it yet, but when they realize the truth of this in fullness, it will “break them to pieces” and “crush” them (vs 44).
They sought so hard to do good, to be good… but their stubbornness and self-righteousness blinds them to the grace Jesus is trying to get them to see. They stumble over him again and again. Yet, in the end, Jesus doesn’t crush them or put them to death, but forgives them.
The judgment of humanity is thankfully in the hands of the same God who loves us since before we took our first breath. This is not to say that God’s judgment isn’t hard or pain free. Realizing the truth of love, when one has rejected it over and over, promises to be quite hard actually! But God’s love and mercy are essential.
Reading this parable during the season of Advent, we are invited to ponder all the ways we are blind to how God is showing up for us in Christ Jesus. What blinders keep us from receiving the gifts of Christ. Is it self-interest or self-righteousness? Is it a misconception of God’s character? Is it an expectation for how we want God to show up that keeps us from seeing how God actually shows up?
Perhaps as we rake the leaves this fall and early winter we will slow down and pay a little more attention to where God is right in front of us, yet so easily missed. Don’t let the cornerstone be a stumbling block… instead embrace all that Christ is trying to show you.
Fr. Tim Baer, Vicar of Grace Church in Yukon