Sermon: “THIS VERY STONE” Rev. David Anderson
Isaiah 5:1-7; Philippians 3:12-21, Matthew 21:33-43
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Reading again from the Gospel of Matthew we listen to
these words of our Lord Jesus: “This very stone which the builders rejected has become the had of the corner...”
It was early in the morning. The day before Jesus had
turned over the tables at the temple, as He drove out all who were buying and selling in the temple area. He then went to Bethany where He spent the night, likely with Lazarus and his two sisters, Martha and Mary.
I’m not sure, but He may have gotten up very early seeking not to disturb His hosts. Matthew tells us that Jesus was hungry. Did He get up early and slip out so that Martha and Mary would not need to make Him breakfast?
In any event, it is on His trip from Bethany back to
Jerusalem that Jesus will curse the tree which had nothing but leaves to offer His hunger.
Now–you talk about nerves of iron! Jesus not only goes
back to Jerusalem, but to the temple where He had created such a stir with the whips, tables, and all. Immediately He is met by the chief priests and the elders of the people who demand to know by what authority He is doing these things.
He sets up a situation where He forces the Jewish
authorities to back down or get in trouble with the people over John the Baptizer’s ministry. Then He begins a series of parables, the first of this series we had last Sunday. Today our Lord speaks of the Landowner, vineyard, evil tenants, righteous servants and Son, and the stone rejected by the builders.
As the Lord Jesus talks about a vineyard, all of the Jewish leaders would immediately start thinking of Isaiah 5. The prophet Isaiah was inspired to speak of Israel as a “vine,” tenderly cared for by God, and yet it produced no fruit.
Now stop right here.... The disciples had just that morning watched how the Lord responded to fruitlessness: He curses it! As Jesus started this parable of the vineyard, I can just see the disciples looking around at each other with knowing looks and nods... they knew that something really big was being said.... They knew that the Jewish leaders had no idea what they were up against in Jesus.... the Son
of the Living God.
The vineyard described by Isaiah was not only fruitless, it produced in its place injustice and bloodshed.
Therefore, as Jesus cursed the fruitless tree, so God
curses fruitless Israel by removing its protection and
stopping the blessings of rain and strength to the ground.
Here we see a spiritual principle at work, one that we see over and over again in the Book of Judges. God will not bless a godless land. He will not favor a nation which practices injustice and takes innocent human life.
Such a nation God will not protect, and as we read in the Book of Hebrews, the 10th chapter, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!”
My friends, how much security in God’s favor do you think that our nation can expect when the streets run red in the shedding on innocent, preborn human life? Do you feel safe from our enemies when the institutions of law tell us that evil is good, and good is evil, and seeks to silence us when we speak against sin on the street and human vice in the public square?
God tended to our nation when it was formed as an infant, blessing it with very godly, Christian leaders. In our Lord’s words today, God’s care for Israel is suggested by the meaning of the parable itself. When God cared for ancient Israel, He took care of all the details. There were very precise horticultural procedures involved in caring for a
vineyard.
The hedge was carefully measured and trimmed. There
were measurements for the trenches, the voids spaces,
and the size of the winepress. Careful descriptions
outlined how to prune the vines, including directions on where and where not to plant vines. Ancient authorities even noted what were the best, and the worst, varieties of vines to plant or not plant.
A lot of care went into the vineyard, even as God so
carefully tended to His dear people, Israel.
But what did He get for all His loving care? Injustice! Unrighteousness! Bloodshed! Shouts of disobedience!
God could have cursed Israel to death even as our Lord
cursed the barren tree, but no! Israel was not a thing to God. Israel embodied the children of God.
God wanted the vineyard to prosper! So He sent His
servants the prophets. They beat one... killed another... stoned another...
BEAT ONE– figurative of any number of the early prophets who were faithful, but the people received them, sometimes by the “flagging of the skin,” or whipping.
KILLED ANOTHER– Amos is believed to have been killed
by the use of a club. Isaiah’s martyrdom took place under the evil king Manasseh who sawed the prophet in two.
STONED ANOTHER– Tradition says that Jeremiah was
killed by stoning.
As Jesus spins out the parable, the priests and people are beginning to recognize that they are the tenants who persecuted the past prophets of God.
They know that the Nazerene has claimed to be the Son
of God... and in several passages from the Bible we are
told that they want to stone Jesus for that claim!
Jesus continues with His parable as He turns their
attention to the Son of the Vineyard. Mark’s Gospel points to the “son’s” preexistence when Mark writes, “He had yet one, a beloved son.”
God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son. Did the tenants– the rulers of Israel– recognize that Jesus was the Son of God? The suggestion here is that they DID! So why did they crucify Him? Why do people continue to crucify Christ today through their sins that put Him on the cross!
Many don’t want the King’s Son! They don’t want the Lord of Life to be the lord of their lives!
We continue to live in a public square where the wants of the individual are valued to the exclusion of moral decency and justice according to God’s bill of rights. An increasing number of our leaders want Jesus and His followers out of the way, so that we can build America according to a godless standard.
–> A federal judge has ruled that a tiny fish on the official municipal seal of Republic, Montana, is unconstitutional because it indicates Christianity as the city’s religion.
–> A film entitled It’s Elementary is being used
extensively in public schools to promote unbiblical lifestyles, while at the same time making jabs at Christianity.
–> Of course, then there is the first grader in Philadelphia whose parents have gone to court because his teacher would not let him read a favorite story from the Bible to the class, or put up a picture he drew of Jesus to place with other pictures capturing something for which the students are thankful. The Bible cannot come into public classrooms, but students can bring in copies of Hitler’s "Mein Kompf" without any problem.
The Son of God is daily being rejected by our culture. And yet, note what Newsweek admitted in a March issue, and I quote:
“... by any secular standard, Jesus is also the dominant figure of Western culture. Like the millennium itself, much of what we now think of as Western ideas, inventions and values finds its source or inspiration in the religion that worships God in his name. Art and science, the self and society, politics and economics, marriage and the family, right and wrong, body and soul– all have been touched and often radically transformed by Christian influence.” (End of quote)
Like the Jewish leaders standing before Jesus as he told this parable, a growing number of our leaders, like Gov. Ventura who called organized religion a “sham” and a “crutch,” want to get Christ out of the way.
Note that our nation’s leaders are permitting all religious art and icons that speak of our Christian heritage to be systematically removed from our public buildings– get Christ out of the way!
Jesus knew that then, and always, the multitudes with its leaders, would reject Him and His claim over the totality of their lives within the vineyard– God’s creation.
He is the stone rejected! Still, as the author of “Histora Scholasta” mentions, there was a tradition well known at the time of Christ that speaks about the building of the second temple. According to this tradition, a stone was brought to the builders and sent back again and again, until finally it was discovered to fit perfectly in the corner.
The servants of Jesus in the Old Testament were
rejected.... Jesus was rejected... Jesus is rejected today.... the servants of Jesus are rejected today... The Bible says that as the end of time draws close, the majority of people will reject Jesus as they also persecute His followers.
And yet, friends in Christ, there are many here who have come to faith in Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit has moved year after year through the Word and through the Sacraments.
Yes, you have suffered rejections... yes, you may suffer worse in the future....
But one thing the enemies of Christ cannot do is to remove how perfectly God fits you into His eternal plan and Kingdom. Jesus, you see, is the cornerstone that knits us all together– so we are told by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians.
Jesus is the Servant King who came into the vineyard of
this world, suffered and died for our sin, and then rose bodily from the grave so that He could prepare a place for us in heaven.
May the Living Lord continue to inspire each of us not to push Him out of our lives, but to receive Him and all His benefits, so that we might have forgiveness of sins, joy, life and salvation. The way may be hard in this world, my friends, for the workman of God. Never forget, however, that what we are building will outlast the sands of time. To God in Christ Jesus be the glory and the honor and the dominion now and forever! Amen. And let the saints say, AMEN!
