By Benjamin Stubblefield, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Christian Studies, University of Mobile
Cornerstone
Luke 20:9–19
I was about 13 when the “Left Behind” series of books came out, and I can still remember the explosion of interest in end-times theology in our area churches. It was also around that time that I first heard Larry Norman’s tenor-soft voice lullabying about the apocalypse: “There’s no time to change your mind. The Son has come and you’ve been left behind. I wish we’d all been ready.” I didn’t know much at 13. But I heard Larry loud and clear, and I didn’t want to get left behind.
Whatever you might think about how the last days will come about, one thing is certain: They will come about. Jesus warns in our passage this week that the day of the final assize is sure, and that the Lord will judge all people on the basis of how they respond to Him.
The Servants (9–12)
The imagery in this parable is particularly relevant to Israel. Vineyard, tenantry and fruit-bearing have unique correspondences to Old Testament language often used to explain Israel’s relationship to God. In other words, when Jesus tells this story with these very Jewish metaphors in Jerusalem to His Jewish kinsmen, everybody knows who and what He’s talking about. God (the Man) starts a plan to bless the world (a vineyard), and He designates Israel to be special custodians of it (the tenants).
But when harvest time comes, the tenants give none and mistreat the man’s servants. Most likely, this is an allusion to the manner with which Israel had historically persecuted God’s prophets (Matt. 5:12; Acts 7:52). This is a detail that’s easy to rush past, but we should slow down and hear the lesson Jesus is giving, lest we make Israel’s same mistakes.
God’s truth is not always palatable, even to God’s people. Sometimes, God’s prophetic voice so deeply cuts our conscience that we are tempted toward anger and hatred toward the one speaking it. Remember, it was a religious people that presided over Stephen’s death, stoning him while covering their ears, for they wished to hear him no more (Acts 7:57–58). God’s people must be quick to listen to God’s word, whether it is in season or out (2 Tim. 4:2), a pat on the back or a step on the toes.
The Son (13–16a)
The man decides to send his son, which elicits a bizarre reaction from the tenants. They “reason” with each other, cast him out and kill him, all the while thinking that the land should then transfer to their ownership (v.14). Perhaps they presumed the father wouldn’t suspect them. But whatever they “reasoned,” it was stupid. Because sin always makes you stupid. This was the height of obvious treachery that must obviously earn the height of punishment.
Sin is bad chemistry. As it is in the tenants, it corrodes our logic, character and integrity. It worked among our first parents to eat from the Tree and God’s people to hang Him on one.
The Stone (16b–19)
The crowd and religious leaders understood that Jesus indicted them for how they had in their recalcitrance mistreated God’s prophets, and it’s beginning to get clearer to them that Jesus is speaking about how they would mistreat Him (v.16b). The connection between the son in the parable and Jesus gets tightened in the Psalm 118 quote (v. 17). That psalm often encouraged Israel, because that’s what the stone in that psalm typically represented. God would build His kingdom upon Israel even though the nations rejected it. But here, Jesus indicates that He is the cornerstone which so much of Israel is rejecting — the true stone upon which all who reject Him will shatter (Dan. 2:44).
So much of Christian theology celebrates the love, grace and mercy of God, and rightly so. But we ought to be careful to avoid the mistake of forgetting that the same Christ who saves in mercy also judges with wrath. Jesus calls us to prepare now, so we don’t have to worry about wishing “we’d all been ready.”
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