The Rejected Stone Isa 5:1-7; Ps 118:19-29; 1 Cor 15:12-28; Mark 12:1-12 St Mark’s 2.4.17
Introduction
Having arrived in Jerusalem, Jesus is bringing to a climax the great controversy between God and a system that perverted the temple from a place of access into the Lord’s presence into a catalyst for social injustices (Isa 1:10-17; Jer 7:1-15; Amos 5:21-25; Luke 13:34). As we heard last week, by cleansing the temple of its money changers, cursing the barren fig tree and the word “whoever says to this mountain (temple mount), ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’” Christ foretold the end of the temple as a religious and economic hub (Matt 11). This conflict between Jesus and the leaders of Israel can only have the ending he predicted; ““it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’” (Luke 13:33). Jesus actions have already precipitated this destiny, but his teaching in the Parable of the Tenants in the Vineyard brings these coming events even clearer perspective. At a surface level this parable is easy to understand, but it calls us to follow Jesus in a way many Christians cannot accept.
Exposition
v. 1 And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the wine press and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country.”
In various places in the Old Testament Israel is compared to a “vineyard”, this is not a picture of a nice place to visit like the Swan Valley, but a symbol for a rebellious idolatrous nation which fails to produce the fruit of righteousness and so falls under divine judgement and exile (Isa 5:1-7; Jer 2:21; Ezek 19:10-14; Hos 10:1-2).
vv. 2-5 “When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed.”
These tenants were openly challenging the owner of the vineyard to enforce payment. The one unreal element about this story is that the owner keeps sending servants who are treated in ever more severe fashion until some are killed. By now Jesus’ hearers would have recognised that he was referring to Israel’s treatment of the prophets right up to the recent beheading of John the Baptist (e.g. 1 Ki 18:13; Jer 26:20-23; 2 Chron 24:20-22).
vv.6-8 “He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.”
In everyday life a landowner would never risk the life of his son for the sake of some grapes but would reclaim his vineyard by force. But the God who had made a covenant with Israel would indeed visit the vineyard through a “beloved” son. Readers of this Gospel know that Jesus is the one to whom the Father declared at his baptism and Transfiguration to be “my beloved Son” (Mark 1:11; 9:7 cf. Gen 22:2). Things are becoming uncomfortably clear to the Jewish leaders listening to Jesus; if the servants in the parable are the prophets then Jesus is claiming he is the Son sent by God as his Father. Such an outrageous claim will soon see Jesus condemned to death for blasphemy (Mark 14:61-64). The killing of the son of the landowner and his being thrown out of the vineyard foretells Jesus’ murder and excommunication from Israel. Then he asks a rhetorical question?
v. 9 “What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.”
Just as the master of the vineyard will come and kill the wicked tenants so God will terminate the old leadership regime in Israel. The vineyard will remain with new tenants who will produce fruit (Matt 21:43). The new tenants are the new people of God in Christ, the Church. Now Jesus moves on to the focal point of the parable.
v. 10 “Have you not read this Scripture: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; 11 this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes’?””
Being Bible experts Jesus opponents in the crowd knew Psalm 118:22-23 off by heart. And the more he interpreted the scriptures in terms of himself the more they were convinced in their hearts that he must die (John 5:39). This man must die because his claims to be the stone on which God builds were the claims of a blasphemous false Messiah (Genesis 49:24, Psalm 118:24, Isaiah 8:14; 28:16). The readers of Mark’s Gospel already know that the death of the Son of God was indispensible to God’s great plan for Jesus has already prophesied, “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (Mark 8:31; 14:1, 10, 43 etc. cf. 1 Pet 1:19-20; Rev 13:8).
Jesus spoke so unashamedly about his personal rejection because he knew from the scriptures this was an essential part of the identity chosen for him by the Father, he was the one prophesied by Isaiah; “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isa 53:3; John 5:39 cf. Luke 24:27). Rejection is not like other pains, unlike the sufferings illness, accident or age rejection brings a deep sharp personal pain. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was martyred by the Nazis in 1945, comments that Jesus’ “rejection robs the passion of its halo of glory.” Christ dies without sympathy, admiration or honour, he dies tragically despised and unappreciated.
Jesus is the stone rejected by the leaders of Israel as useless to their religious project. But in the new building under construction by God he “has become the cornerstone”; the whole weight of God’s new spiritual building the Church rests on the foundation of Christ (1 Cor 3:15; Eph 2:20). Soon Jesus will be rejected to the point of death, but soon after vindicated by God’s work through resurrection. But Jesus quote continues to quote the psalm about himself;
“this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes””. The works of God for the salvation of humanity are amazing because all God’s gracious acts are surprising (Mark 5:20; 6:6; 10:32; 12:11; 15:5, 44). This is pre-eminently true of how the horrors of the crucifixion are reversed by the glories of the resurrection (Mark 16:8). Jesus himself was surely filled with amazement by his resurrection (Ps 22:22ff; Heb 2:12).
As Peter testifies in the second chapter of his first letter; the early Christians experienced the atmosphere and aura of the marvellous things of Christ.
“As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house….that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”” (1 Pet 2:4-5, 9)
These words of Peter are not a set of ideas, he lived out their reality. Arrested in Jerusalem soon after Pentecost by the same power group that had Jesus put to death Peter keeps preaching the resurrection and quotes to these killers of Christ once again the prophecy of the rejected and restored stone (Acts 4:11). By this stage of his spiritual journey Peter knows that the worst thing this power club can do to him is reject his testimony and put him to death, in which case he will marvellously share in the resurrection life of Christ.
God’s saving pattern of rejection and restoration is the centre point of the parable of the vineyard because the gospel pattern of rejection and restoration is the thread woven which holds together the whole tapestry of scripture. The pattern of death and resurrection is the spiritual engine driving forward the kingdom of God (Luke 24:26; 2 Cor 1:8-11; Phil 3:10). Righteous Abel must perish, Joseph must be betrayed, the prophets must be persecuted, from Pentecost to the present the preaching of the gospel must encounter resistance so that resurrection power may be released (Luke 11:47-51; Acts 7:52). This is the bread and butter of the Bible, but so many of today’s progressive Christian leaders think they are sophisticated spiritual connoisseurs who do not need to walk this way with Christ. Instead of embracing the wisdom of God that rejection for Christ’s sake will be accompanied by resurrection power (2 Cor 4:7-12) they befriend contemporary culture either by chasing economic prosperity (Pentecostal side of the Church) or embracing modern sexuality (liberal side of the Church). Few today may accept that following Jesus will bring rejection but such things are very much on the Lord’s mind.
A friend feeling depressed because of bad treatment by Christian leaders sent me an email few days ago; “Every time I think what they are doing…and how they treating us I grieve and cry.”…. “Jesus keep reminding me of this verse (with all humility) of course The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone…” Here is my reply; “Rejection is the preparation of the Lord for the fertile soil of a broken and contrite heart where the Word is sown bringing much fruit.” If Jesus had not been rejected he could never have been “made perfect through suffering” and we could never have been saved (Heb 2:10). As the Father raised Jesus from the rejection of crucifixion into the glory of resurrection so he works our rejections for our good in Christ (Rom 8:28). Without the rejection that led me into depression as a young man I would never have come to Jesus.
God’s timing is always wonderful. A couple of weeks ago I was feeling a level of rejection that I hadn’t experienced for a very long time, I even felt a little tempted to do what I used to do as a child, which was to bash my head against the wall. Instead of focussing on myself I went down the river to pray and God gave me this amazing clear and penetrating sense of blamelessness (Eph 1:4; Phil 1:10; Col 1:22; 1 Thess 3:13; 5:23; Jude 1:24). Whose blamelessness was I sharing….? Jesus’, the blamelessness of the resurrected Son of God (Heb 7:26). However much you have experienced rejection in your life Jesus will never reject you; Jesus will restore you – if you come to him.
Now our Gospel story comes to its end.
v. 12 And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.
As Satan left Jesus in the wilderness to return at a more opportune time to destroy him, so the next time we hear of the chief priests and the scribes and the elders it is when they send armed men to take Jesus to his death (Matt 4:11; Mark 14:43; Luke 4:13).
Conclusion
Since rejection followed by resurrection life has always been the spiritual engine driving forward the kingdom of God it is the means by which the Lord grows his Church today. Yet as in Jesus’ day few religious builders want to accept this because the pain of rejection they anticipate from more senior pastors, respected spiritual experts, elders and peers is too great to embrace. Such fear of rejection is also a root cause of why so many of us do not experience the restoring power of resurrection life. Only a more intimate communion with Christ can deliver us from our fears of being rejected for following Jesus in a way that is counter to the culture both outside and (often) inside the Church.
Jesus spoke with such undisturbed prophetic clarity in the presence of his coming killers because he knew his Father would never reject him but raise him from the dead (John 16:32). On the eve of his passion Christ was already walking by faith in the blamelessness of resurrection life because he believed in the scriptures which so clearly testified of his destiny (John 17:4; Heb 12:2). This is the faith into which we are called. Peter assures us that whoever believes in the cornerstone of Christ “will not be put to shame.” (1 Pet 2:6). The power of such a promise doesn’t however come to us in the modes most of us are familiar with; the promises of God are not outworked through religious ideas or pious feelings. You will find the reality of the power of this promise woven as a thread through all the rejections you have experienced in life – in family, marriage, friendship, workplace, church…. (Rom 8:28; Eph 1:11). In the wisdom of God all these pains have over them a single wonderful eternal purpose, to align you with the one great rejection and restoration which alone can heal us and grant us eternal life; the death and resurrection of Jesus. If we obey the command of Peter, “come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious” (1 Pet 2:4-5) all that God has done for us will indeed be just as Jesus said, “marvellous in our eyes”.
Let us pray: