The Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Matthew 21:33-46) is in essence the story of Jesus’ ministry, arrest and death. He is the son that is killed by the tenants to whom the landowner entrusted his property and he is the cornerstone that, although rejected, becomes the stone which holds all the others up; the keystone, the crucial link, the vital connection.
However, while this is the story of Jesus, it is also the story of the Israel of his day; a chosen people who were not fulfilling their purpose despite multiple messengers, most recently John the Baptist, having come to warn them of their need for change.
When Abraham was called by God he was told that he would become a great and mighty nation and that all the nations of the earth would be blessed in him. The nation founded through his obedience to God’s call was to be a blessing to all nations. The people of Israel were reminded periodically of this call, as in Isaiah 49:6 where we read:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
The prophecies collected together in Isaiah also show the kind of place that Jerusalem was intended to become; a place to which all nations could come to hear from God:
“Many nations will come streaming to it, and their people will say,
‘Let us go to up the hill of the Lord, to the Temple of Israel’s God.
He will teach us what he wants us to do;
we will walk in the paths he has chosen.
For the Lord’s teaching comes from Jerusalem;
from Zion he speaks to his people.” (Isaiah 2. 2b & 3a)
Instead of that vision coming to pass, by the time of Jesus, the Temple had become a symbol of Jewish identity with all sorts of people excluded from worship unless they conformed to the detailed requirements of the Mosaic Law. The Temple and the worship in it prevented the free access to God that God wished to see for people of all nations.
In Jesus’ ministry, crucifixion and post-resurrection commission to his disciples, we see him tearing down barriers that prevented sight of God and raising up those whose position in society excluded them from worship. In his ministry Jesus expressly went to those who were excluded from Temple worship, including them both by accepting them (and teaching that they will enter the kingdom of God ahead of the religious leaders) and by healing them so they could actively return to the Temple worship. When he died the curtain separating people from the most holy place in the Temple was torn in two, showing that access to God was now open to all. Jesus also prophesied that the Temple itself would be destroyed and that when this happened his disciples should take his message of love to all nations.
As an Iona Community liturgy puts it, Jesus was ‘Lover of the unlovable, toucher of the untouchable, forgiver of the unforgivable, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, writing heaven’s pardon over earth’s mistakes. The Word became flesh. He lived among us, He was one of us.’ As Christ’s followers today, we inherit the task of putting into practice what Jesus has achieved through his life, death and resurrection. We are the people today who are called to work towards that Isaianic vision of nations streaming to learn what Israel’s God wants them to do, settling disputes among the great nations, hammering swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks, and never again preparing to go to war.
Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, notes that: “The stone that the builders rejected didn’t find a place in the wall somewhere by being thoughtfully included like a last-minute addition to a family photo. The rejected stone became the cornerstone, the keystone – the stone that held up all the others, the crucial link, the vital connection. The rejected stone was Jesus, as our Gospel reading makes clear. In his crucifixion he was rejected by the builders – yet in his resurrection he became the cornerstone of forgiveness and eternal life.
That’s what ministry and mission are all about – not condescendingly making welcome alienated strangers, but seeking out the rejected precisely because they are the energy and the life-force that will transform us all. Every minister, every missionary, every evangelist, every disciple should have these words over their desk, their windscreen, on their screensaver, in the photo section of their wallet, wherever they see it all the time – the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”
He says this is important because, if we’re “looking for where the future church is coming from, we need to look at who or what the church and society has so blithely rejected. The life of the church is about constantly recognising the sin of how much we have rejected, and celebrating the grace that God gives us back what we once rejected to become the cornerstone of our lives. That’s what prophetic ministry means.”
With these words, Sam Wells turns the story on ourselves, just as Jesus did with the chief priests and the Pharisees of his own day, who heard his parables and realized that he was speaking about them. In the eternal relevance of Jesus’ parables, Jesus tells this story to us in order that we realise he is speaking about us. As church and society, there are many people that we reject and exclude, so, as Sam says, we need to look at who or what the church and society has so blithely rejected, to constantly recognise the sin of how much we have rejected, and celebrate the grace that God gives us back what we once rejected to become the cornerstone of our lives.
I saw this happen in practice one year at St Martin-in-the-Fields when Jesus and the disciples in our Palm Sunday Passion Drama were members of the weekly 45-strong asylum-seekers group that meets at St Martin’s every Sunday afternoon, many of them experiencing homelessness and destitution in London – including a Kurdish Iranian, a Ugandan, a Dominican Republican, a Bangladeshi, a Kenyan, a Zimbabwean and a South African. One, a Ghanaian, spent two years travelling to the UK, crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa in a boat and waiting for many weeks in the Calais Jungle. In our Passion Play, at the last supper they gathered around Jesus – played by Sam, a young Afghani refugee - waiting on his every word, knowing from their own lives what it means to hope and pray for salvation.
Sam Wells described what happened to those of us watching this Passion Drama:
“The British public sees asylum-seekers as a threat or at best an administrative burden. The churches tend to see them as objects of pity and mercy. On Palm Sunday they were none of these things. They were prophets, preachers, provocative witnesses to the gospel, challenging us at St Martin’s, used to thinking of ourselves as edgy and politically engaged, with the question of where we each stood in the passion story. This was the first time our International Group has led us into worship. In the past, members of the group have joined our fellowship by acting as wicket-keeper or demon opening bowler in our cricket team, or as waiter for our hospitality events. But on Palm Sunday they were swept up into the passion narrative itself. And they changed the whole way we thought about the story we thought we knew.
Sam from Afghanistan sums up St Martin’s because he is the asylum-seeker who played Jesus in the drama and was water boarded for our salvation. He sums up St Martin’s because we aren’t about condescendingly making welcome alienated strangers, but instead about seeking out the rejected precisely because they are the energy and the life-force that will transform us all. Sam sums up our community not because he gratefully received our pity but because he boldly showed us the heart of God.”
The choice that Jesus puts to us in this parable is either one of standing with those who persistently reject the cornerstone or becoming those who seek out the rejected precisely because they are the energy and the life-force that will transform us all and, thereby, becoming a light to the nations. Which do we want to be and which will we choose to be?
I saw this happen in practice one year at St Martin-in-the-Fields when Jesus and the disciples in our Palm Sunday Passion Drama were members of the weekly 45-strong asylum-seekers group that meets at St Martin’s every Sunday afternoon, many of them experiencing homelessness and destitution in London – including a Kurdish Iranian, a Ugandan, a Dominican Republican, a Bangladeshi, a Kenyan, a Zimbabwean and a South African. One, a Ghanaian, spent two years travelling to the UK, crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa in a boat and waiting for many weeks in the Calais Jungle. In our Passion Play, at the last supper they gathered around Jesus – played by Sam, a young Afghani refugee - waiting on his every word, knowing from their own lives what it means to hope and pray for salvation.
Sam Wells described what happened to those of us watching this Passion Drama:
“The British public sees asylum-seekers as a threat or at best an administrative burden. The churches tend to see them as objects of pity and mercy. On Palm Sunday they were none of these things. They were prophets, preachers, provocative witnesses to the gospel, challenging us at St Martin’s, used to thinking of ourselves as edgy and politically engaged, with the question of where we each stood in the passion story. This was the first time our International Group has led us into worship. In the past, members of the group have joined our fellowship by acting as wicket-keeper or demon opening bowler in our cricket team, or as waiter for our hospitality events. But on Palm Sunday they were swept up into the passion narrative itself. And they changed the whole way we thought about the story we thought we knew.
Sam from Afghanistan sums up St Martin’s because he is the asylum-seeker who played Jesus in the drama and was water boarded for our salvation. He sums up St Martin’s because we aren’t about condescendingly making welcome alienated strangers, but instead about seeking out the rejected precisely because they are the energy and the life-force that will transform us all. Sam sums up our community not because he gratefully received our pity but because he boldly showed us the heart of God.”
The choice that Jesus puts to us in this parable is either one of standing with those who persistently reject the cornerstone or becoming those who seek out the rejected precisely because they are the energy and the life-force that will transform us all and, thereby, becoming a light to the nations. Which do we want to be and which will we choose to be?
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Ed Kowalczyk - Cornerstone.
