Here we are in the second of three parables of Jesus response to the chief priests and the elders questions about authority. Last week, we heard about how the chief priests and elders would be second into the kingdom of God and this week it seems like maybe they aren’t getting in at all. I confess I don’t love preaching parables. Preaching always seems like a bit of a bold endeavor, and parables even more so. Here’s a lesson that Jesus himself chose to teach using a story, and now I’m going to try to explain it out to you in ten to twelve minutes. Seems a bit ambitious if you ask me.
And this parable seems like an especially funny one for explaining. Not funny, ha-ha, but funny as in confusing. So there’s a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a wine press, built a watchtower, and generally did all the things one would do to have a successful crop. Then the landowner leased the vineyard to some tenants to care for it while he was away. This was standard practice in first century Palestine. Wealthy landowners would often find others to work their land for them in exchange for a portion of the crops. What’s odd about these tenants is that they seem to get too attached to the property. Like the way my friend’s two-year-old firmly believes that any toy she is playing with is her toy, the tenants seem to think that the land they are working should belong to them. So when the landlord sends his slaves to gather up his portion of the produce, the tenants seize the slaves, beating and killing them. Again the landlord sends slaves; again the tenants kill them. Finally, the landlord sends his son, thinking, “surely they will respect my son.” Now let’s pause here for a second and think this decision through. On one hand, Jesus is telling this story to a patriarchal society. One’s entire social status is based around one’s alliance to the patriarch. So to assume that the son would have the weight of the landlord is a totally legal and reasonable belief. But the tenants have thus far not shown any great concern for the legal or rational ramifications of their actions. So why he would think that his son, a much more valuable commodity than any of the servants he’d thus far sent, would have the effect he is looking for seems sort of unbelievable.
And of course, the tenants don’t respect the son. They kill him as well, thinking that with the son out of the way they can have the inheritance.
So what, Jesus asked the chief priests and the elders, will the landowner do to those tenants? They say 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.” This seems like a harsh, but possible rational response to the problem at hand. One might even wonder why the landlord took so long to send in a stronger force to deal with his unruly tenants. It would seem after the first set of slaves were killed like it was past time to get rid of that group and go with tenants who were a little less possessive.
And of course, because we’ve read enough of these parables, we can see the trick Jesus has pulled on the chief priests and the elders here. The landlord, obviously, is God. You can hear the echoes of the creation story in the creation of the vineyard, how in the beginning, God filled the universe with everything necessary for life, just as the landlord filled the vineyard with everything needed for the harvest. And then God/the landlord turned the vineyard/earth over to tenants, who would care for God’s creation and bring it to fullness. But what did the nasty tenants do? They killed the prophets, over and over again. What is the Old Testament but the story of God’s people turning away from the messengers God has sent them. So finally, the landlord sent the son. And the tenants killed the son, so great was their desire for power. But then what happened? [Pause]
Jesus followed up their call for vengeance by quoting the book of Isaiah, asking, “Have you never read in the scriptures?” Here’s where we have an advantage over the chief priests and the elders to whom Jesus addressed the original question. Because the chief priests and the elders don’t yet know what’s to come. But we do. We know just how true this story is to our story. We know that the landlord did indeed send the son, God’s only Son, our Lord. And that in just a short time from when Jesus had this conversation in the temple, the parable would play out just as he had described it.
But what happened after Jesus was put to death? He rose again. And in doing so, he defeated death. And the words from Isaiah would ring true in a way that no one could have guessed, no one could have imagined. “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes.”
This parable paints for us a story of the indescribable vastness of God’s love. God’s relationship to God’s creation is not a tenant/landlord relationship. A landlord, someone more interested in the production of product than the prospects of the tenants, would certainly have turned those rotten, violent folk out at the first sign of disloyalty. But God the good landlord puts relationship with the tenants above production of the harvest. God so desperately wants to be in relationship with God’s people that no matter how many times they turn away, God sends another messenger. Even to the point of sending God’s own son.
And when God’s own son is put to death, even that becomes life-giving, becomes an opportunity for redemption, for relationship, for God to claim us as daughters and sons, heirs of the promise of the kingdom of God. God’s greatest gift of life, came through death on a cross. Hope came out of despair. Light out of the deepest darkness. The incredible, paradoxical foolishness of the cross is the apex of God’s love song to creation. A song so powerful that it draws everyone into its power. So powerful that power is transformed into mercy. This truly is the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes.
The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls. The cornerstone that is Christ will crush you with its mercy. I don’t mean that in some sort of trite, all trials come from God, sense. I mean that so powerful is the grace and the mercy of God that you will find yourself broken in God’s presence. You will find your guilt broken, your shame broken, your greed broken, your need for self-control. All the things that hold us captive, all the things that keep us separate, all are broken to pieces, all are swept away by the power and the mercy and the grace of God. And in that breaking, in that letting go, you will find yourself put together again, stronger, deeper, new, refreshed, restored, in the nearness of Christ.
God can make us new. God does make us new. With the strong and steady hands of the master vintner, God breaks away all that keeps us captive and we find ourselves renewed, recreated, in the light of this new relationship. The stone that the builders rejected breaks away our brokenness so that we stand with Christ at the cornerstone of God’s harvest.
The harvest is ready, prepared for those who bear the fruit of redemption. A broken feast, for broken people, a holy feast, for God’s own people. So, come to this table. Come and taste the fruit of the vineyard. Bring your brokenness to be broken away by God. Come because this is the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes. Amen.
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