Jesus, the Cornerstone
April 6, 2025. Luke 20:9-20. Rev. Edward Skutshek
Today’s Gospel lesson begins with a parable aimed at the Jewish leaders who had congregated around Jesus that day. Every parable Jesus tells has its context, a question that must be answered. A few days before the Jewish leaders had witnessed Jesus ride into Jerusalem on a colt. The people shouted “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 19:38). Inspired by Jesus’ presence the people chanted these words of Psalm 118:26.
Some of the leaders present demanded that Jesus rebuke his disciples and command them to stop talking. They were acclaiming Jesus as the Messiah. He was riding into town just the way Malachi said the Messiah would. Stop this!! Jesus response: even if he silenced his disciples, the stones on the road would begin shouting the words of Psalm 118:26.
Jesus next went to the Temple and pronounced judgment on the priests and the whole Sanhedrin for allowing God’s house to become a marketplace. Spaces in the Temple dedicated to prayer and worship were converted into a marketplace. Passover lambs and other sacrificial animals were offered for sale. A brisk business was conducted at foreign exchange tables. Coins from all over the world could be converted to Temple shekels so annual Temple taxes could be paid by Jewish pilgrims from foreign lands. (Luke 19:45-48). The words of Jeremiah 7:11 were thereby fulfilled.
The Lord said: Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord. Christ had embodied God’s grief and dismay over the state of His house. His Son made God’s anger manifest.
These same leaders came to Jesus and questioned his authority in these matters. The priests believed that only they had authority over these matters. They were the religious elite; they ran the Temple and the city. Nothing of a religious nature could happen under their watch unless they gave permission. They believed that any legitimate Messiah would recognize their authority and work with them.
Jesus promised to address their question, if they first answered a question from him: “John’s baptism —was it from heaven, or of human origin?” (Luke 20:4) Jesus had placed them on the horns of a dilemma. If they declared that John’s baptism came from God, then Jesus’ proclamation and his actions were sanctioned by God. John had declared that he was preparing the chosen people for the coming of the Messiah and clearly and unequivocally pointed to Jesus as the Messiah. If John’s baptism was from God, the leaders would have to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. They would have to declare that he had the right to ride into Jerusalem on the colt and to clear the Temple. They would have to acknowledge his authority over them. For these reasons they could not declare that John’s baptism came from God.
If they declared that John initiated his baptism, the ire of the people would be kindled, for they believed John was a prophet. The Jewish leaders feared the crowds. The crowd was easily swayed. An angry crowd could quickly become violent and turn on the Jewish leaders. No matter how they answered, the leaders believed they would be impaled. So, they stubbornly refused to answer.
Jesus was not going let the question of his authority go unanswered. He revealed his authority and the authority of the Jewish leadership in a simple story of a vineyard. The people who surrounded Jesus would have all understood his parable’s reference to a vineyard. A very similar description is found Isaiah 5:1-2 and verse 7.
I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit……
The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.”
Jesus’ parable of the Tenants casts a bright light on the history of God’s chosen people. The Apostle Paul in Romans 9:4-5 described the nation of Israel as follows: Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised!
God’s most passionate desire was for his people to bear fruit, that is to believe in him, obey his statutes and wait for the coming of the Messiah. God gave His nation leaders who would nourish the people with God’s word, lead them in worship, and care for their souls. The Old Testament scriptures reveal that most all of Israel’s leaders (priests and kings) who did just the opposite.
We see the disobedience shortly after their observance of the first Passover, when God led them from Egypt to Mt. Sinai and gave them the Ten Commandments. Moses left them to see God on the mountain. The vacuum created by Moses’ absence was filled with idol worship. Aaron, the first priest, fashioned a golden calf. God himself testified: “They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
Despite their idolatry God forgave them. They asked for a king, and God gave them three kings in a row: Saul, David and Solomon. They unified the twelve tribes into a kingdom and restored the worship of God. Solomon built God’s Temple in Jerusalem. Following King Solomon’s death, the kingdom was split into two kingdoms the southern kingdom of Judah and northern Kingdom of Israel. Most of the kings of Judah and Israel that followed worshiped other gods. Some of the kings of Judah even erected statues of Baal and Ashara poles within God’s Temple in Jerusalem. King Ahaz of Judah went so far as to offer his own children as burnt offerings to Baal (2 Chronicles 28:3). The kings and priests of both Judah and Israel prostrated themselves to foreign gods and led their people to follow their example. Imitating their leaders, the people of Israel and Judah built their own shrines and high places and offered sacrifices there to their foreign gods. This line of kings and priests are the tenants in today’s Gospel lesson.
God did not leave His people in their sordid state. In every generation He sent prophets to His people. The prophets exposed their sin and idolatry and called the people to repent, to turn around, and come back to God. The people to whom they were sent rejected God’s Prophets and treated them with contempt. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah and Ezekiel were the servants in today’s parable. They had been treated with contempt and some even killed.
In the 5th Chapter of Isaiah, God asked this question: What more could have been done for my vineyard, than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? (Isaiah 5:4). God’s response to Isaiah was to abandon the vineyard and thereby assure its destruction. (Isaiah 5:5-6). God did abandon His people. The city of Jerusalem and its crown jewel, the Temple, were destroyed, the people were decimated and a remnant taken into exile in Babylon.
However, in today’s parable the vineyard’s owner relented, he resolved to send his one and only son to plead with the tenants to inspire and convince them give the owner the fruit that was due him. The parable disclosed that the sight of the vineyard owner’s son did not inspire, contrition and repentance; rather, the son’s presence spawned jealousy, covetous thoughts and murderous desires. They reasoned that the son was their only impediment to ownership of the vineyard. Evil thoughts and desires blossomed into murder.
The parable of the tenants was a mirror for the chief priests and the teachers of the law that reflected the situation they faced and their course of action. In their eyes Jesus was a self-proclaimed counterfeit Messiah, and a real threat to their authority over the people, the city of Jerusalem and the Temple. Jesus’ destruction would assure that their vineyard would stay under their control. So, like the tenants in the parable, they began to plot Jesus’ death.
Even as they were plotting how to kill Jesus, he gave them a warning. The tenants in the parable acted as if the owner of the vineyard would not judge them for the murder of his son. However, the parable assures us and them that the judgement would come and it would be swift and final. Jesus wanted the chief priests, teachers of the law and everyone else to interpret the parable differently. He wanted them to see it in the light of Psalm 118. In all four Gospels the people shouted Psalm 118:26, on Palm Sunday thereby acclaiming Jesus the Davidic King. Psalm 118 speaks of a man who comes in God’s name. The man is sorely pressed by the nations around him and his own people. In Psalm 118:17 the man who comes in God’s name declares: “I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done.” Jesus had declared that he would die but be raised to new life on the third day. He would proclaim what God had done.
Psalm 118:22-23 declares: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvellous in our eyes.” Jesus declared that he is the son in the parable and will be the stone that the high priests, teachers of the law and the mob will judge, reject and kill. Jesus warned the chief priests and the teachers with a warning that echoed Simeon’s prophecy to Mary recorded in Luke 2:34-35 “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.”
The parable of the Tenants took on flesh with Jesus’ arrest on Maundy Thursday, and his secret trial before the Sanhedrin that same evening. This kangaroo court found Jesus guilty of blasphemy for declaring he was the Son of God and sentenced him to death under God’s law. Powerless to carry out the sentence, the religious leaders took Jesus to Pilate for judgement. He sentenced Jesus to death under Roman law. Jesus was crucified, died and was buried in a tomb. This stone was thoroughly rejected. The stone was hidden in the ground. It was out of sight, and thus out of mind. Mission accomplished! However, on the third day, he was resurrected from the dead. Jesus saw the light of life. God would take this rejected stone and make something beautiful from it, the church.
Jesus’ teaching in the Parable of the Tenants inspired the Apostle Peter. You have all heard the saying: “No good deed goes unpunished.” Peter had healed a crippled man at the Temple in Jesus name. He was arrested by the Sanhedrin and put on trial for this. Inspired by the Holy Spirit he declared: “Then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is “‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:10-14). Peter declared the stone they rejected was alive and well and working in the world.
Peter revealed Psalm 11:23-24 in action in his first letter to the churches. He wrote: “As you come to him, the living Stone —rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:4-5) Peter revealed the church as a grand edifice always under construction. New members of the body of Christ, living stones, are carefully laid and incorporated into God’s building by the master builder Jesus Christ. The stones incorporated into the building are at the same time made into a royal priesthood, ordained to love and serve God with all their hearts, souls, minds and strength and their neighbors as themselves. This building project began with Jesus’ resurrection and continues until today. We are the handiwork of that same master builder, living stones and holy priest in the Church of Jesus Christ.
It is easy to leave this parable in the past. The Jewish religious elite had hardened their hearts against Jesus. They refused to see him as the cornerstone of God’s new work in the world. It is history, a good thing to remember during the season of Lent as we move into Holy Week and Easter. We do this to our peril. We must remember that as much as things change, they remain the same.
There are still people who reject the corner stone, the building which has arisen and the royal priesthood who offer spiritual sacrifices to God. There are committees, legislatures and courts in our nation’s capital and each province and territory that want to chip away at the church and tear it down. They are subtle in their tactics but have the church’s demise in view. Take away the charitable deduction from the churches that uphold the sanctity of life in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and the royal priesthood will fold and abandon the church. They took prayer to our Triune God out of public schools, provincial legislatures and local government offices and chambers. They refuse to license professional schools that demand chastity of unmarried students and define marriage as between a man and a woman. Many inside and out of the church point to shrinking and aging congregations and declare the church is irrelevant and will die.
What does Jesus say: “Don’t be afraid of them or what they say. They think that they can treat me and my church with impunity and that there will be no repercussions for them. Persecutors will always be with you. They will trip over me. I will make them stumble, fall and rise. Their evil thoughts will be manifest. In the end those that reject me will be judged.
Remember, I am your cornerstone. I am your master builder. You are my church. The gates of Hades will not overcome my church. Keep being my holy priesthood. Keep on offering spiritual sacrifices, love one another in my name. I call you to love your enemies and to do good to them. So, reach out to your persecutors in my name and in so doing, through you, I may pull some of them off the road to perdition to be incorporated into God’s building as another living stone.”
Amen.
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