Sermon 12th October 2008
Today our Associate Vicar, John Itumu, preaches about Jesus, the rejected stone, from the Gospel of Matthew 21:33-46
As we heard last Sunday, Jesus endeavoured to relate his teaching to the lives of the listeners – he didn’t just do abstract teaching. He preferred to use memorable and short, sometimes graphic stories called parables. He was a master story teller. Public teaching in his day was a crowded and competitive ground with hundreds of wandering rabbis, teachers – and all of them were men of exceptional abilities. Jesus however taught with exceptional results. Stories seize our imagination and help us to reflect. No wonder one of the gospels (Mark1:22) reports that people recognized immediately that he was different from other rabbis.
And so this landowner prepares a vineyard (parables were drawn from local examples that listeners could identify with) and rents it out to some farmers. Historians tell us that that a vineyard was a long term investment with someone having to wait for at least four years before fruit could be picked. The farmers/tenants would have been required to pay the landowner a fixed proportion of the proceeds.
And so at harvest time this landowner sends his servants to collect his fruit and the tenants repeatedly reject all of them. They respond dramatically with beating, stoning and even killing them. Twice he does this but with the same result. The landowner finally even sends his own son, in the hope that the response will be different but to no avail. They kill him too. Now this parable clearly verges on the absurd.
And we might ask; how stupid was this landowner to send his servants repeatedly and not take notice of their mistreatment? Why did he not taken action at the first instance? Did he not think the same fate could befall his son? Why? These and other questions emerge as we try to make sense of the account. However please remember, it is only a parable, a riddle. His listeners, the Jewish leaders, would have immediately recognized this imagery as between God and his people Israel; actually God and them! V45 records that when they heard this parable, they knew he was talking about them.
There is also a famous story in the OT (2 Samuel 7) which they would have particularly made connections with. It is where God through a prophet called Nathan had made a promise to King David, their ancestor. David wanted to build a temple for God - to put the Ark of the Covenant (the box where the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments resided).
God had said to David, through Nathan, that he would not be the one to build a temple for him. His offspring, his successor would build a temple, right wrongs and establish a kingdom. But even more importantly, this kingdom would last for ever. This meant that generations of Davids, yet unborn would carry this promise. V16 Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me.
This lasting guarantee to David made the Jewish community to be a community of hope. A hope that believed, confessed and trusted that God would keep his promise of righting the world and all this through a historical agent, a human being. They had been waiting, a long time for this deliverer, a messiah. For many years they been exiled in Babylon and now after coming back home were under the colonial yoke of the Romans. They desperately needed their kingdom back. Who was going to be the deliverer?
Well Jesus was the deliverer, but remarkably different. He hadn’t asked his people to rise up in arms against this oppressive regime. He had come to usher in a different sort of a kingdom whose membership criteria were repentance and faith in him. And in this parable he doesn’t leave any doubt that he was the last in the prophetic line up lasting many generations. The Jesus is the rejected son. Certainly many, the crowd, according to v46 perceived him as a prophet. But the chief priests and Pharisees didn’t like this and they sought a way to arrest him.
Just a few days before, he had presented himself as a king, riding on a donkey and with people singing hosanna…; which was in fulfilment of a prophecy by Zechariah some 500 years before. He had then violently driven out moneychangers and sellers from the temple precincts quoting prophet Jeremiah (7:11) and declaring the temple ‘his house’. Little did they know that his action symbolized the judgment to come and which actually happened when the temple was destroyed by the Roman forces after defeating the Zealots in AD70 under the command of Titus Flavius.
It needs to be said also that this vineyard language was already familiar to Jewish hearers listening to Jesus. They had heard it all before. It was read to them in the synagogues:
Psalm 80:8
You transplanted a vine from Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it
Jeremiah 2:21
I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock. How then did you turn against me into a corrupt, wild vine?
Ezekiel 19:10
Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard, planted by the water…
This was familiar language!
This parable condemns the Jewish leaders’ failure to seriously engage with the teaching of Jesus, even to recognize him as ‘the one’ to whom all the Torah prophecies pointed. In the history of Israel, God had used prophets to communicate to his people. And in this parable is a clear message of God’s repeated appeal to his people, through his prophets. Not once, not twice but they all receive similar response, rejection. In short Jesus is saying to the Jewish leaders and his listeners very bluntly, you have rejected me.
And to conclude the parable, he introduces yet another twist to it – often seen as a parable within a parable; only this time he quotes directly from the Jewish scriptures Psalm 118:22-3. The story of a rejected son becomes that of a rejected stone.
He tells them;
The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this
and the doing is marvellous in our eyes
This phrase is one of the most repeated in the bible, Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17, Acts 4:11 and 1 Peter 2:7. Such repetition by different authors must mean that it is significant enough to warrant the mention. In fact this phrase has even attracted interest from beyond Christendom. In the passage Jesus makes it very easy and obvious for his listeners to see the connection: The rejected son -->The rejected stone –> all these refer to the same person, Jesus. The compound parable comes full circle. Jesus is the rejected one.
The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
Yes the Chief priests and Pharisees may have rejected him but God nevertheless has purposed that Jesus becomes the cornerstone. The cornerstone of what? The cornerstone of the foundation of their lives; that on which all humanity stands. The key-stone on which human beings should build their lives; that which holds all things together. If they have rejected the cornerstone, how would they build their lives? How foolish for them to ignore such a basic requirement for their lives! Jesus, the rejected son – the rejected stone!
So I ask a question that is probably rather obvious; is Jesus the one who your life is built on? Do you know this Jesus? I ask this because that is what we are about here in the parish of Herne Hill. We have a parish motto which states that …our aim is, in God’s strength to bring Jesus to the centre of our lives and to the heart of our community.
Allow me a few comments about this Jesus before I stop. We live in an age of religious pluralism. People love to discuss religion, even hear about the religious experience of others. It's fascinating. Sometimes we even learn something to incorporate into our own life.
Suppose you found yourself in such a discussion and made a contribution in the line of: Well Jesus was a Jewish teacher and wonder-worker. He lived in Palestine about 2000 years ago and taught a way of love and truth. His wisdom was unsurpassed. Even in his dying he never gave in to the lower instincts of anger and revenge. His teachings and example can have a tremendous influence in your life.
What do you think the response would be?
Tolerance. Compassionate interest, perhaps. Certainly nods and smiles of respect. And then a comment like, well, if it works for you, fine. You have your inner experience. I have mine. Lets go for lunch.
But what if in the same discussion you used the words of Paul when he debated with Stoic philosophers at the Aeropagus in Athens (Acts 17)
He said:
We are God’s offspring…and he commands that all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed – Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.
Now that is disrespectful of other religions, it is unacceptable and impolite dialogue, even an uncivilized opinion for the times we live in. And friends, that is why Jesus is offensively unique in this pluralistic age. He is not in competition with anything. He is not one of the ways to the truth. He is the way, the truth and the life. He has no equal. He is the beginning and the end. And on him our lives and wellbeing depend. He is the cornerstone! He has made an escape for us from God’s judgement by offering to die in our place. V44 …but anyone on whom this stone falls will be crushed.
Now I am aware all this might sound naïve and arrogant. Last Monday, the Pope criticised our modern culture that glorifies pursuit of wealth with reference to the current global wave of bank collapse. He got interesting rejoinders one which dared him to show how the word of God could pay for heating and fuel bills, because only then could this person accept God as the surest reality.
But Jesus, as C. S. Lewis famously wrote, with the kind of things he did and said makes him either the Son of God (God made flesh) or else insane or evil, and certainly not a great human teacher. He is the cornerstone. The choice is yours and mine.
To those who have never considered this Jesus seriously, I warmly invite you to do so. You will be pleasantly surprised, as I was years ago to realise that it was the missing link in my well lived life. He won’t drop money to pay fuel bills but he will fill you with inexpressible joy. He will fill you with contentment. You think you’ve had a good life so far? He will usher you into a life that will really be worth living. He says in John 10:10 that he came so that you and I may have life to the full. He does not disappoint. That is something worth exploring.
To those who have made a commitment to Jesus, I leave you with the question, is Jesus still the cornerstone of all the facets of your life? Is he the cornerstone on a Sunday afternoon/Thursday morning; at work, with friends, while travelling? Attending church is a profitable thing, but no guarantee that Jesus is the cornerstone of one’s life and this is worth a thought. Let us pray.
As we heard last Sunday, Jesus endeavoured to relate his teaching to the lives of the listeners – he didn’t just do abstract teaching. He preferred to use memorable and short, sometimes graphic stories called parables. He was a master story teller. Public teaching in his day was a crowded and competitive ground with hundreds of wandering rabbis, teachers – and all of them were men of exceptional abilities. Jesus however taught with exceptional results. Stories seize our imagination and help us to reflect. No wonder one of the gospels (Mark1:22) reports that people recognized immediately that he was different from other rabbis.
And so this landowner prepares a vineyard (parables were drawn from local examples that listeners could identify with) and rents it out to some farmers. Historians tell us that that a vineyard was a long term investment with someone having to wait for at least four years before fruit could be picked. The farmers/tenants would have been required to pay the landowner a fixed proportion of the proceeds.
And so at harvest time this landowner sends his servants to collect his fruit and the tenants repeatedly reject all of them. They respond dramatically with beating, stoning and even killing them. Twice he does this but with the same result. The landowner finally even sends his own son, in the hope that the response will be different but to no avail. They kill him too. Now this parable clearly verges on the absurd.
And we might ask; how stupid was this landowner to send his servants repeatedly and not take notice of their mistreatment? Why did he not taken action at the first instance? Did he not think the same fate could befall his son? Why? These and other questions emerge as we try to make sense of the account. However please remember, it is only a parable, a riddle. His listeners, the Jewish leaders, would have immediately recognized this imagery as between God and his people Israel; actually God and them! V45 records that when they heard this parable, they knew he was talking about them.
There is also a famous story in the OT (2 Samuel 7) which they would have particularly made connections with. It is where God through a prophet called Nathan had made a promise to King David, their ancestor. David wanted to build a temple for God - to put the Ark of the Covenant (the box where the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments resided).
God had said to David, through Nathan, that he would not be the one to build a temple for him. His offspring, his successor would build a temple, right wrongs and establish a kingdom. But even more importantly, this kingdom would last for ever. This meant that generations of Davids, yet unborn would carry this promise. V16 Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me.
This lasting guarantee to David made the Jewish community to be a community of hope. A hope that believed, confessed and trusted that God would keep his promise of righting the world and all this through a historical agent, a human being. They had been waiting, a long time for this deliverer, a messiah. For many years they been exiled in Babylon and now after coming back home were under the colonial yoke of the Romans. They desperately needed their kingdom back. Who was going to be the deliverer?
Well Jesus was the deliverer, but remarkably different. He hadn’t asked his people to rise up in arms against this oppressive regime. He had come to usher in a different sort of a kingdom whose membership criteria were repentance and faith in him. And in this parable he doesn’t leave any doubt that he was the last in the prophetic line up lasting many generations. The Jesus is the rejected son. Certainly many, the crowd, according to v46 perceived him as a prophet. But the chief priests and Pharisees didn’t like this and they sought a way to arrest him.
Just a few days before, he had presented himself as a king, riding on a donkey and with people singing hosanna…; which was in fulfilment of a prophecy by Zechariah some 500 years before. He had then violently driven out moneychangers and sellers from the temple precincts quoting prophet Jeremiah (7:11) and declaring the temple ‘his house’. Little did they know that his action symbolized the judgment to come and which actually happened when the temple was destroyed by the Roman forces after defeating the Zealots in AD70 under the command of Titus Flavius.
It needs to be said also that this vineyard language was already familiar to Jewish hearers listening to Jesus. They had heard it all before. It was read to them in the synagogues:
Psalm 80:8
You transplanted a vine from Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it
Jeremiah 2:21
I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock. How then did you turn against me into a corrupt, wild vine?
Ezekiel 19:10
Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard, planted by the water…
This was familiar language!
This parable condemns the Jewish leaders’ failure to seriously engage with the teaching of Jesus, even to recognize him as ‘the one’ to whom all the Torah prophecies pointed. In the history of Israel, God had used prophets to communicate to his people. And in this parable is a clear message of God’s repeated appeal to his people, through his prophets. Not once, not twice but they all receive similar response, rejection. In short Jesus is saying to the Jewish leaders and his listeners very bluntly, you have rejected me.
And to conclude the parable, he introduces yet another twist to it – often seen as a parable within a parable; only this time he quotes directly from the Jewish scriptures Psalm 118:22-3. The story of a rejected son becomes that of a rejected stone.
He tells them;
The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this
and the doing is marvellous in our eyes
This phrase is one of the most repeated in the bible, Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17, Acts 4:11 and 1 Peter 2:7. Such repetition by different authors must mean that it is significant enough to warrant the mention. In fact this phrase has even attracted interest from beyond Christendom. In the passage Jesus makes it very easy and obvious for his listeners to see the connection: The rejected son -->The rejected stone –> all these refer to the same person, Jesus. The compound parable comes full circle. Jesus is the rejected one.
The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
Yes the Chief priests and Pharisees may have rejected him but God nevertheless has purposed that Jesus becomes the cornerstone. The cornerstone of what? The cornerstone of the foundation of their lives; that on which all humanity stands. The key-stone on which human beings should build their lives; that which holds all things together. If they have rejected the cornerstone, how would they build their lives? How foolish for them to ignore such a basic requirement for their lives! Jesus, the rejected son – the rejected stone!
So I ask a question that is probably rather obvious; is Jesus the one who your life is built on? Do you know this Jesus? I ask this because that is what we are about here in the parish of Herne Hill. We have a parish motto which states that …our aim is, in God’s strength to bring Jesus to the centre of our lives and to the heart of our community.
Allow me a few comments about this Jesus before I stop. We live in an age of religious pluralism. People love to discuss religion, even hear about the religious experience of others. It's fascinating. Sometimes we even learn something to incorporate into our own life.
Suppose you found yourself in such a discussion and made a contribution in the line of: Well Jesus was a Jewish teacher and wonder-worker. He lived in Palestine about 2000 years ago and taught a way of love and truth. His wisdom was unsurpassed. Even in his dying he never gave in to the lower instincts of anger and revenge. His teachings and example can have a tremendous influence in your life.
What do you think the response would be?
Tolerance. Compassionate interest, perhaps. Certainly nods and smiles of respect. And then a comment like, well, if it works for you, fine. You have your inner experience. I have mine. Lets go for lunch.
But what if in the same discussion you used the words of Paul when he debated with Stoic philosophers at the Aeropagus in Athens (Acts 17)
He said:
We are God’s offspring…and he commands that all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed – Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.
Now that is disrespectful of other religions, it is unacceptable and impolite dialogue, even an uncivilized opinion for the times we live in. And friends, that is why Jesus is offensively unique in this pluralistic age. He is not in competition with anything. He is not one of the ways to the truth. He is the way, the truth and the life. He has no equal. He is the beginning and the end. And on him our lives and wellbeing depend. He is the cornerstone! He has made an escape for us from God’s judgement by offering to die in our place. V44 …but anyone on whom this stone falls will be crushed.
Now I am aware all this might sound naïve and arrogant. Last Monday, the Pope criticised our modern culture that glorifies pursuit of wealth with reference to the current global wave of bank collapse. He got interesting rejoinders one which dared him to show how the word of God could pay for heating and fuel bills, because only then could this person accept God as the surest reality.
But Jesus, as C. S. Lewis famously wrote, with the kind of things he did and said makes him either the Son of God (God made flesh) or else insane or evil, and certainly not a great human teacher. He is the cornerstone. The choice is yours and mine.
To those who have never considered this Jesus seriously, I warmly invite you to do so. You will be pleasantly surprised, as I was years ago to realise that it was the missing link in my well lived life. He won’t drop money to pay fuel bills but he will fill you with inexpressible joy. He will fill you with contentment. You think you’ve had a good life so far? He will usher you into a life that will really be worth living. He says in John 10:10 that he came so that you and I may have life to the full. He does not disappoint. That is something worth exploring.
To those who have made a commitment to Jesus, I leave you with the question, is Jesus still the cornerstone of all the facets of your life? Is he the cornerstone on a Sunday afternoon/Thursday morning; at work, with friends, while travelling? Attending church is a profitable thing, but no guarantee that Jesus is the cornerstone of one’s life and this is worth a thought. Let us pray.
posted by Parish Administrator at 1:04 pm
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