Matthew 21:33-46
Let’s remember to pray for Jim and Marty.
“Notice what you notice.” More than 40 years ago I had my own construction company, a partnership with another young man building poured-wall concrete foundations for new houses. We named our company “Cornerstone Construction”. Psalm 118:22 was the Scripture verse that gave our company its name. That is the verse that Jesus quotes in today’s reading. I can’t read that verse without going back those 40+ years and seeing David and me praying as we were beginning our business.
What surprises me in today’s reading is that His listeners go along with Jesus’ prompt and answer His question as to what the vineyard owner would do to those tenants. Their response was exactly the parable ending that Jesus would have given and was a clear condemnation of the Jewish leaders. Their forefathers had killed one prophet after another and now God was sending His Son. Jesus was foretelling His own death and predicting the fall of Jerusalem and the rise of the Gentile church.
This parable follows another in Matthew, the “Parable of the Two Sons” in both of which Jesus is condemning the Jewish leaders. Matthew follows these two parables in Chapter 21 with another beginning Chapter 22, the “Parable of the Wedding Feast”, again with serious negative implications for the Jewish leaders. With each new parable the anger of the Jewish leaders grows. Yet Jesus continues in spite of their opposition. That’s courage!
Slava Bohu!