Cornerstone Series

The arrangement between the landlord and tenant was also a familiar concept to Jesus’ audience and they understood how the arrangement was supposed to work. The role of the tenants was to tend the vineyard to that it would produce a bountiful harvest. Yes … their labor benefited the landlord but it also benefited the tenants as well. While it was in the interest of the landlord that the tenants work hard and produce a quality product, it was also in the best interest of the tenants as well. They got a percentage of what they made. The more grapes they produced, the more wine they sold, the more money the landlord and the tenants received. As the quality of grapes that they produced improved, so would the quality of the wine that they produced, and the more they could charge for their product … so everyone benefitted from this arrangement, amen?

At the end of His parable, Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” I always found that strange and was never really sure what that particular scripture had to do with this particular parable. What do cornerstones have to do with vineyards? And it got me to thinking … which is what parables are supposed to do, amen?

Well, let’s get back to the purpose of a cornerstone for a moment. The cornerstone is the starting point for the foundation of a building. It determines the position of the stone next to it and the stone next to it determines the position of the next stone and so on. If the cornerstone is off by a few degrees, the next stone will be off by a few degrees and the mistake will continue to magnify on down the line and the foundation of the whole building will be off. Everything lines up according to the very first stone … the cornerstone.

When God led the Israelites to the Promised Land, He began building a nation. The cornerstone was to be their relationship with God … who was the Alpha … the beginning … Who was and is before there was anything and from whom all things came into being. In Genesis we can read how God laid out the foundations of the cosmos and then the earth. He created a garden which He gave to Adam and Eve to tend … just as He gave the Israelites the Promised Land … a garden for them to tend. In exchange for tending the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve wanted for nothing. God gave Israel a fertile land, a prosperous land to tend and in exchange, like the tenants in Jesus’ parable, they would be well-taken care of.

But the Israelites … like the tenants in Jesus’ parable … had gotten off-track and were lost. We’ve all heard of the saying, “When the cat’s away the mice will play.” Remember, the owner was in another country. He’s counting on the tenants honoring their part of the covenantal agreement that they made. They could live on the land, they could farm the land, and they could profit off the land … but the land was still his and he had a right, not only to a portion of what they made, but to all of it if he wanted to because the land belonged to him. He could throw them off at any time and hire a whole new bunch of tenants … tenants who would be grateful to be given such a fantastic opportunity. But what’s the landlord going to do, right? He’s off somewhere, distracted, taking care of business … and the tenants have the mistaken notion that they can do whatever they want without suffering any substantial consequences.