Matthew 21:33-46
[Jesus
said:] 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.
Reflection
God notices
and God cares. Jesus is our cornerstone,
and our lives are built on him; no one else.
That is the premise of this sermon anyway. If I put titles on my sermons, which I have never done, but if I did, I would have titled this one, “God notices and God cares.” And I am certain that there are several people who would have read that title and disagreed.
Many survivors of the German consecration camps would have been uncomfortable with the title “God notices and God cares.” An example of their discomfort can be felt in an awkward and humorless joke that floated among survivors. Do not worry if you do not find this joke funny. It is not intended to be. It goes like this: “An Auschwitz survivor goes to heaven, meets God, and tells God a Holocaust joke. God does not laugh and says, ‘I don't find that joke funny at all.’ The survivor shrugs and replies, ‘Guess you had to be there.’"
I do not think I have ever heard a joke that held so much pain. I do not think I have ever heard a joke that cries as this one does. The joke remembers the cries of those in the chambers of death who whispered Psalm 13 on their lips as the fear set in:
“How
long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider
and answer me, O Lord my God! (Psalm 13:1-3)”
Even so, I still declare that God notices and God cares.
“How can you say that?” the woman said to me as her world fell apart around her. She was trying hard to raise her three small children. She was a single parent because her husband had died in a terrible accident. And she broke down in soft, quiet tears in the middle of the grocery store as she told me that the doctors had discovered terminal cancer in her body. To top it all off, the bills were bleeding her dry.
“Bill collectors do not care that you are dying,” she said. “Bill collectors do not care that your children need their house and need their mother for the short amount of time that we have left.”
They do not notice. They do not care.
And I know that it feels like God does not care in these situations, but God does care. God notices and God cares. Jesus is our cornerstone, and our lives are built on him; no one else.
Now, I have no need to defend God. God does not require me to make sure that God keeps a good name. Yet, I still insist that the problem in both situations is not God. The problem in both situations is the caretakers. In both situations there are caretakers who do not care.
Both situations are the parable of the wicked tenants. In this parable, Jesus teaches us about a landowner who planted a vineyard and the vineyard was leased to tenants to trim, grow, and harvest. There were grapes and wine to be shared, but when the landowner sent trusted servants to gather the produce, the tenants resorted to violence. The Bible says, “the tenants seized his [servants] and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them in the same way” (Matthew 21:35-36)
The problem was not God. The problem was a problem of alignment with God’s ways, or rather failure to be in alignment with God’s ways. The tenants, who were supposed to be tending these grapes and this wine so that they could be collected and shared, simply claimed it all as their own. The produce was supposed to be gathered and shared, but the tenants simply do not care. They took over the vineyard that they did not plant, and they claimed it all as their own and they did not care. They beat. They murdered. They even dug a big hole and threw one of the servants down it so that they could crush him with a stone. They were greedy. They felt entitled. They did not care.
The one person in this story who did care is the landowner. He sent people to try to make things right. The Bible says that he even went as far as sending his own precious Son to make things right. He said to himself, “‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him” (Matthew 21:38-39).
You can blame God all you want for the terrible things of this world. Truly, go ahead. God’s shoulders are big. God can hold God’s own. God can hold your anger. God can hold your tears. But do not think for a second that God did not care when his own son was put to death by the same sort of people who still do not care. When Jesus hung on that cross, nailed to that thing by people who did not care, he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). He cried out, not in desperation for himself, but in solidarity with all the other people who have cried out those same words, desperate in a world full of people who simply do not care.
Allowing his son to join all those who are forgotten and beat down and pushed aside, I can confidently declare to you that God notices and God cares. God sent God’s own son to be there with us in our suffering and tragedy. Jesus is right there. And because of that, Jesus is our cornerstone, and our lives are built on him; no one else.
God notices and God cares.
God noticed those in the concentration camps and suffered and died with them. God noticed the woman of three little ones who would soon be in God’s presence, struggling to provide a life for her children. And God notices all those who refuse to share the abundance of the vineyard.
God notices the helpless and those who are supposed to help.
God noticed those who perpetuated evil in Nazi Germany.
God notices the faceless institutions that simply do not care as long as their wallets thrive.
God notices and the Bible insists that “when the owner of the vineyard comes…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” (Matthew 27:40-41).
After all, justice demands that the world not mold and transform itself into a human image, being shaped by our own faulty and selfish desires. Justice demands that we allow ourselves to be molded and transformed into the image of God; an image that we were intended to look like from the very beginning.
Jesus is the image of God that the followers of Jesus hope to resemble. And if that means that our old, terrible, uncaring selves need to suffer a “miserable death” so that we can be a “new creation” then that is what God needs to do (Matthew 21:41 and 2 Corinthians 5:17).
Jesus is our corner stone. All the measurements of our rebuilt lives will be based on him. He will be our support. He will be our strength. He will be the corner of our lives. We will trust in him.
God notices and God cares. Jesus is our cornerstone, and our lives are built on him; no one else.
It was David who cried out to the Lord, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul” (Psalm 13:1-2).
When his enemies surrounded him, when they sought his death, when they did not care, it was King David who cried out those words. But it was also David who took comfort in all that God had done in the past. David remembered the goodness of the Lord, even though it felt like God did not care. God has always cared in the past. Today is no different.
David finishes Psalm 13 by singing, “But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me” (Psalm 13:5-6).
It was her neighbor who resembled Jesus in the end; the woman with three littles who was dying from cancer and was about to lose her home. Her elderly neighbor, whose wife had died several years ago, did not have the kind of money that it would take to save her home. However, he did have an empty home that needed three children and mother. Through this man, a man who the three kids now lovingly call “Pops” as they sit on his lap to listen to bedtime stories, God noticed and God cared.
God notices and God cares. Jesus is our cornerstone, and our lives are built on him; no one else.
