When I see the way Jesus asks those listening to this parable to finish it for him, I remember the prophet Nathan, when he went to King David and told him a story. Nathan’s story was about a rich man who stole his neighbor’s only ewe lamb to feed his guests, even though the rich man had sheep to spare. King David, when he heard Nathan’s story, was furious with this fictional character, proclaiming a harsh judgment in his anger, until Nathan opened his eyes to the fact that he himself, the king, was in the place of the rich man, having stolen Uriah’s wife when he already had plenty of wives of his own.
Now, I don’t mean the parables remind me of one another, only that the way they turn in reflection on those in power for judgment is amazingly similar. Except those in power in Matthew’s Gospel today react very differently than King David did. David repented. When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard about this vineyard owner, they decided that, rather than reconsider how they were living, it was time to kill the messenger. Which is just what the characters in the parable had done, plotting to kill the landowner’s son in order to reap their ill-begotten inheritance.
These workers in the vineyard, though, the ones in the parable, don’t seem to know the land owner very well. They figure that once they kill the son they’ll inherit the land, since the landowner would probably never show up in that vineyard again. But the land owner is the one who dug out the stones and planted the rows of vines and set up the watchtower. He’s the one who turned the soil and made the winepress. Who had hopes and dreams for this land. Who seemed to have had no trouble trusting those workers with his vineyard in the first place after he had laid all of the groundwork for them.
But the chief priests and Pharisees hear this parable and are offered a chance to pass judgment on a thinly veiled version of themselves. And they choose the harshest judgment they can imagine, calling the servants miserable wretches and putting them to an equally miserable death. They have just made public the kind of punishment they themselves deserve, and Jesus… Jesus does this weird thing where he quotes scripture that seems to have nothing to do with the problem at hand. What does a cornerstone have to do with the vineyard owners?
Except it is the cornerstone which is they key to the problem at hand. If the church is, as we sing in the hymns, built on a rock, and that rock is Christ, what sort of judgment does Christ pass? What sort of cornerstone makes so many stumble and hands off the kingdom of God to prostitutes and tax collectors?
It seems the chief priests and Pharisees, and we ourselves, at least from time to time, have created a god in our own image, who is full of wrath and fiery judgment when it suits us to have our cause vindicated. We so easily get caught up in heavy-handed judgment when we get excited about injustice. Name-calling and shouting are just the tip of the iceberg. ‘Those miserable wretches’ certainly deserve to be put to a miserable death… until those wretches are us.
Now I know the chief priests and Pharisees seem to have had a lot more power than we feel we have, even though they were pretty much keeping the peace with Rome. They were turning a blind eye to a lot of what the colonizers were doing, as any people beaten down for generations might cut their losses when at least they’re allowed to survive. It was almost like a time of another slavery, a second-class citizenry for the people of Israel in a place taken over by Rome. Chief priests and Pharisees did the best they could to keep the peace and keep the law so they could keep their identity.
But when that sort of fear creeps in, when finger pointing is the best we can do because at least they’re not pointing the finger at us, then we find ourselves pointing the finger at ourselves, recognizing our sin without any of the sparkly “at least I’m not as bad as so-and-so”… then it’s no wonder they didn’t want to hear Jesus any more.
Then it’s no wonder why they also missed out on the character of this landowner. So afraid that he would be the same fiercely judgmental character that they had become, they forgot about the promises, the faithfulness, the cornerstone and rock of God’s mercy and forgiveness from generation to generation.
This is the rock of our faith, the cornerstone of our salvation - that Jesus Christ, true God and truly human, came to forgive sinners. Not only to forgive our individual sin, but to restore the broken relationship our entire world has with God. And to offer this forgiveness freely.
Which might drive a person crazy. You know, like when folks have death-bed conversions, last-minute decisions to follow Jesus, those of us who have been raised in the faith might get a little jealous. I mean, how come those folks get to have all the fun during their life while we’re following the law and trying so hard to be good people? How come accepting Jesus after a life of whatever we wish we had gets them into heaven anyhow, even though we avoided all of that sin stuff? Which is sad, considering we are saved to be free, saved to be able to live, not saved to have to worry about getting it right all of the time.
That’s what Paul’s letter is about. It’s another look at this cornerstone. At the foundation of our faith. We’re not building a church on our own merit, our own measure of success, our own ability to feed and clothe the village of Chatham. We’re being built into a church that started with that cornerstone of Christ, who forgives and heals and welcomes all, no matter what credentials we bring to the table. Paul has all of the credentials a person could want, has everything necessary to claim official law-abiding righteousness, and with all of these trophies and awards, he calls it all dog poo. A great big steaming pile of dog poo in the middle of the yard. Compared, he says, with knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection, all the rest of his bragging points are as good as garbage.
How’s that for a stumbling block? That we’re not good in order to get into heaven? That we’re not teaching our kids how to behave because we want God to be nicer to them? That being a ‘good Christian,’ whatever that means, is not the thing that saves us? Rather, the cornerstone is that ‘while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’ And this is what drives us crazy. Those vineyard workers were nuts, off their rocker, out of their minds, to treat the landowner’s servants and son the way that they did. The landowner was invested in the land and would come back to claim what was his. In a business world he would certainly get rid of them, but in the world where Christ is King, that son returns to work side by side with the others so that there can be a harvest.
So while in the Isaiah passage we see a vineyard owner grieving over his wild grapes that he has so lovingly tended, grieving that the children he has born to love are killing one another, we see a lot of familiar sentiment. But what we do not yet see there, what we look forward to, what we find in Jesus, is that the bloodshed becomes the blood of Christ, when he comes down to live in this mess with us. And that bloodshed changes everything. That bloodshed, the blood of Jesus, becomes an even sweeter wine than the tended grapes were expected to give. That bloodshed is the bloodshed of the new covenant, the covenant to end all bloodshed, to restore all injustice, to share the inheritance of God’s children with all of God’s children, no matter where they are or what the world calls them.
We are a new vineyard, grafted into the original vine thanks to the gracious landowner who continues to prune and to plant, to tend and to water, to feed us and shine down upon us. And we are in the position simply to receive and see what grows. To receive freely what is given freely and abundantly. To come to the table and drink it in, swallow it down, be fertilized and rooted in this mystery - that God has come to earth to become our salvation.
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