Matthew 21:33-46

October 27, 2006, PR201, Princeton Theological Seminary

“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves 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. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘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. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 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.” 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’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

Jesus often taught in parables, and for good reason. He was telling his listeners some difficult truths. They were the kind of truths that could not be expressed directly. They were better understood if they were painted in word pictures. Our text today paints a picture for us, as many parables do. Actually, it paints three pictures for us (funny how that worked out), and I would like to describe those pictures to you now.

In the first picture, a man owns a vineyard that he loves dearly. He builds a fence, a wine press, and a watchtower. He hires farmers to watch over the vineyard, all in the hopes of producing a bountiful harvest. When the time for harvest comes, he eagerly sends out his slaves to collect the fruit of the vineyard. He can’t wait to see what his beloved fields have produced.

As you just heard, this picture also includes the tenants killing the slaves, along with a second group of slaves that the landowner sends. Finally, in a reckless act of love, the landowner sends his son, who is also killed. If we didn’t recognize the allegory before, we certainly do now. This picture is of Jesus, lovingly sent by his father. Lovingly sent, indeed, but rejected by the tenants of Israel. Jesus is hauled out of Jerusalem just as the son was hauled out of the vineyard, and both are killed at the outskirts.

The tenants, when they saw the son, thought of the riches they could gain by killing him and stealing his inheritance. They didn’t understand that this was their last shot; they needed to give the son the fruit if they had any chance of coming back next season – or even of surviving the landowner’s anger. So too, Jesus was gravely misunderstood. The very chief priests and elders who listened to his story sought to silence him because of how dangerous he was. They had no idea who they were actually rejecting.

Let’s move to the second picture. This picture is one of a stone. The stone doesn’t look so good – it looks like it too has been drug outside the city gates and killed (if you can kill a stone). Yes, friends, this is a second parable and a second allegory, and the stone is also Jesus. The rejection that we saw in the first picture is still there, but in this picture we see something new. The stone is actually part of the foundation of a grand building. “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

The same Jesus who was crucified has been raised. The rejection of Israel could not get in the way of God’s covenantal promise. Jesus was glorified. He was crucified on Friday, but he was raised on Sunday.

After all of that, who does the kingdom or the vineyard belong to now? It seems like it’s not for Israel alone. Is it taken away and given to Gentiles alone? No, it is given to a new group of people who are defined by nothing other than their participation in this death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: the church.

Yes, in this second picture, the kingdom belongs to a motley group of people. They don’t have much going for them on their own merit, but that’s exactly the point. They are gathered together by nothing other than the rejection of Jesus. The cornerstone of this building is only able to hold the building up because of his rejection. This is an ironic twist, and it is only accomplished in the mystery of God’s love.

In Jesus, the kingdom is opened to everyone. Galatians tells us that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek. The vineyard has been given to other tenants.

Let’s move on to the third picture. To see this picture, we need to back way up, because this picture is huge. In fact, pictures one and two are both parts of this larger picture. This picture is one of a God who covenants to be with God’s people. It begins with Abraham. “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” It continues through a long and difficult history of the people of Israel, but God never gives up.

God sends prophets, and they are rejected. But God never gives up. God sends more prophets, and they too are rejected. But God never gives up. God sends God’s son, from within the people of Israel, with a covenant message of grace and forgiveness, once again showing that God will not give up on these people. The son, too, is rejected and killed – there’s picture number one. But God is so insistent on God’s covenant that the rejection of the son was actually part of God’s plan! Through him, this covenant is broadened to include a new group, the church – there’s picture number two. This picture has always been one of a God whose mercy is deep, and now we see that it is a picture of a God whose mercy is also wide. God never gives up.

It would seem that the murder of the slaves would have caused the landowner to give up, but he didn’t. It would seem that the murder of his own son would have caused the landowner to give up, but he still didn’t. It would seem that the builder’s rejection of the stone would cause the stone to give up, but it simply won’t. God is impervious to our rejection. God never gives up on us!

Now that we have seen this picture, what are we to do? Matthew is implicitly asking this question of us, his readers. We are, after all, the new tenants. Will we bear the fruit of good works for the landowner? This is an important question, and not to be ignored. God calls us to faithful service, to give all that we have and all that we are to be transformed by God into who God would have us to be. We have decisions to make every day about whether we will live for God or live for ourselves.

If we choose to live for God, we have made the right choice. We can know greater love for our neighbors and greater rewards that come from self-sacrifice. We live faithfully into the covenant of God.

If we choose to live for ourselves, we have made the wrong choice. We are stifling the possibilities for love that God has created us to enjoy. We are not living up to the covenant calling that God has issued. But that doesn’t mean that we’ve ended the story. God never gives up!

Our rejection, like the rejection of the tenants, has nothing on God’s enduring covenant faithfulness. God cares about our response and God covets our response, but God’s faithfulness to us does not depend on our faithfulness to God. God never gives up.

Jesus was rejected. Jesus was raised from death, opening the kingdom to a new community of both Jews and Gentiles. We are called to respond in faithfulness because no matter if we do or if we don’t, we have a God who is eternally faithful. God never gives up.

Psalm 22:1-15

October 15, 2006, First Presbyterian Church of Dutch Neck

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame. But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people. All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads; “Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver – let him rescue the one in whom he delights!” Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast. On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.

Psalm 22 is a psalm of lament. Not only that, it is a forceful psalm of lament. It seems to come from the very depths of the psalmist’s pain. This is no small complaint for God’s ears – “Lord, I know this is your will, so it must be good, but it’s just hard for me to understand.” No, the Psalmist holds nothing back: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It seems to be a profound kind of pain that the psalmist is experiencing.

Then, in a few scattered verses throughout the Psalm, we find words of praise to God! When we read this psalm, we may find this strange. It seems like in such deep pain, the psalmist would have a hard time even addressing God, let alone continuing to praise God. When we wonder about this, we wonder not just because we are curious about the Bible. We wonder at the psalmist’s courage to lament and praise because we too have felt forsaken by God.

Now, it is a joyful thing to be a Christian. The Bible proclaims God’s love for God’s children, and we see evidence of that love in our daily lives. We rightly see God the creator as the source of blessings in our lives. But we know, too, that being a Christian is not a ticket to a rosy life. What about the times when that same loving God is nowhere to be found? What about the times when someone we love is taken away from us? What about the times when physical pain keeps us from living an ordinary life? What about the times when we are teased by classmates, even by those whom we considered to be our best friends? What about the times when depression grips our mind and steers us toward despair? It is at times like these that we too, cry out, “Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?”

When I started reading through this Psalm, I said to myself, “I’m in a good place in life right now. This psalm of lament doesn’t really speak to me. Why don’t I skip Psalm 22 and move on to the next one, the one with the green pastures and the quiet waters and the cup overflowing. That’s the kind of faith experience that I like to think about.” But as a member of the Christian community, I need to recognize that I am deeply in need of lament. Here’s one reason: October is domestic violence awareness month, a month in which we as a nation recognize our problem – that one in four women will experience domestic violence at some point in her life. We must work for change, certainly, but we also must lament that this is happening. It is at times like these that we too, cry out, “O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.”

How on earth or in heaven, we wonder, does the psalmist have the guts to turn around and say, “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.” Praises? Where did this come from?

What we see in verses four and five are a kind of snapshot of God from the past. The Psalmist remembers God’s faithfulness to the people of Israel throughout their history. Because the psalmist can see God nowhere in the present, he or she needs to dig into the past to remember that God actually does care about God’s people. “In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.” After this, the Psalm goes back to lamenting. Nevertheless, the readers now know that the God who has “forsaken me” is also “…the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” in love and faithfulness. God has been good to the people in the past. It is this sense of communal memory that enables the psalmist to praise.

In verses nine and ten, another snapshot is pulled out of the family album. The first photo was of God’s faithfulness to the whole family. This second snapshot is of God’s faithfulness in the psalmist’s own life. The sense of trust that the psalmist felt in God is so secure and so innocent that the picture is one of a nursing baby.

It is not that the psalmist still feels as safe as a nursing baby. After all, the very next verse talks about being surrounded by violent beasts! However, for just a moment the psalmist remembers the times in life when God seemed very near. It was like being a baby – almost asleep in mother’s strong arms, being gently rocked back and forth. God has been good to me in the past. It is this sense of individual memory that enables the psalmist to praise.

As human beings in this world, we understand the Psalmist’s cry of lament. We speak the Psalmist’s cry of lament – we have to! As Christians, we cannot put on a false front and pretend that our faith makes everything okay. But, we do have a sort of snapshot of our own to look back at – a snapshot that is brought to mind by this very Psalm.

Most of us recognize these words from either Matthew or Mark. “From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” The Psalmist’s deep cry of lament was recited by Jesus on the cross. The snapshot that we remember as Christians, then, is not one of Jesus smiling on us while we continue along in our miseries. The snapshot is one of Jesus in deep pain and agony. The snapshot is one of darkness covering the land and the son of God dying a humiliating and painful death. This is anything but a false front. We Christians do not have a God who cannot feel pain, who sits and watches while we flounder in this world. No, we have a God who stoops down, sits next to us, and joins us in crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Nicholas Wolterstorff is a Christian philosopher who lost his 25-year-old son in a mountain climbing accident. Wolterstorff experienced crushing grief after this loss. He also realized things about God that he never had before. He wrote, “How is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us? You have allowed rivers of blood to flow, mountains of suffering to pile up, sobs to become humanity’s song – all without lifting a finger that we could see. You have allowed bonds of love beyond number to be painfully snapped. If you have not abandoned us, explain yourself. We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God.” (Lament for a Son. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987. 80)

In Jesus, we have an empathetic fellow-sufferer. But, praise God, we also have an empathetic Savior. The very pain that brings Jesus down to our level is the same pain that, in the mystery of God’s love, brings us up into communion with God. God suffers our pain, but God is also greater than our pain.

We can’t wish away our suffering, as much as we would like to. What we can do in the midst of that suffering is to hope with confidence for the day when “…God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:4)

What, then, are we to do in the mean time? We live lives of pain in a world of pain, but we have hope. We don’t have a cheap hope that comes with a wink and a smile, but our hope is in the crucified one whom we call our Lord. We lament, knowing that Christ laments alongside us.

When we encounter others in pain, we give them a snapshot of Christ as well. This snapshot does not come from simply saying, “Jesus loves you,” (though that is certainly true) nor by reciting platitudes, however true they may be as well. The way that we Christians can truly point to Christ in the midst of suffering is to lament alongside of those who lament! We can witness to the Lord who laments when we are willing to lament ourselves. Wolterstorff, in the midst of his own lamenting, wrote, “Your words don’t have to be wise. The heart that speaks is heard more than the words spoken. And if you can’t think of anything at all to say, just say, ‘I can’t think of anything to say. But I want you to know that we are with you in your grief.’” (34)

We lament in the company of the whole body of Christ. We lament, knowing that Christ himself laments with us. We lament, knowing that our crucified Lord is now our risen Lord. We lament until the day when he comes again. Even so, come Lord Jesus!