The world belongs to God
The earth and all its people
How good and lovely it is
To live together in unity
Love and faith come together
Justice and peace join hands
Song “Brother, sister let me serve you”
Let us in silence remember our faults and failings
Christ have mercy on us, and deliver us from our sins and may we amend our lives
Amen.
The Lords Prayer in our own language
Reading-Matthew 21v33-46
33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
35 “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
38 “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
“‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvellous in our eyes’?
43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.44 Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.
Song “Christ be in my waking”
Reflection
The parable today in Matthew is a kingdom parable, a gospel riddle. It comes immediately after the questioning of Jesus’ authority. It is a parable about judgment. Gods judgement.
The Talmud states that people who have worked land that is not theirs for over three years have gained rights for it. In this case, the owner may then be treated as an intruder. So the bad tenants in the story are claiming the land. Its colonization.
Jesus draws out the moral that bad behavior will be punished - the tenants will lose their living and the vineyard handed to new tenants.
Bad people will come to a bad end and the vineyard given to other tenants.
In our story, the owner of the vineyard sends his son to reclaim the vineyard from wicked tenants and they kill the son. Very bad people.
The obvious explanation of the parable is that Israel is the vineyard, Israel's religious leaders are the farmers, the servants are the prophets and the son is Jesus. They threw out and killed Jesus, the Son of God. The hearers thought it meant that.
Isaiah 5:1-7 and Jeremiah 7:25-26 are background texts
Matthew is emphasizing that Israel's religious leaders have rejected the Messiah so the kingdom is given to others. Jesus is baiting the chief priests and the Pharisees.
The "people" are the Gentiles and the people of the land, the peasants, the poor people.
The prophecy about the corner stone is from Daniel 2:34, 44-45. When the Messiah judges those who have rejected him, they will be ground to dust. It’s pretty harsh!
The capstone or cornerstone is a top stone keeping walls together, or the corner foundation stone. The builders rejected it as unsuitable, but from God's perspective, it works perfectly-just like the ordinary people who have been rejected by the religious leaders. The rejected stone is now the cornerstone. In the Psalms, Israel is the stone. The Aramaic words for son and stone are similar so there may have been a deliberate play on words.
It’s difficult not to see that tenants or leaders in some countries have taken power and are bad tenants of Gods world. They are the bad boys but one day there will be a reckoning. That may be sooner rather than later. In the mean time we live in a Covid dystopia, facing injustice and environmental destruction. Its difficult not to think that we are in the end times. But Jesus tells us not to predict but to watch and pray. So that is what we must do. And we will meanwhile be faithful to the gospel.
Song “Put peace into each others hands”
Our Prayers
We pray for people and situations we are concerned about including Will and Brian who were shot dead in cold blood on Wednesday and their families, people coping with ongoing lockdown, the desperate people crossing the sea in dinghies, people with Covid 19, the people of Belarus, the people of Hong Kong and the people of war torn Syria and other places we never hear about, rising fascism, the government, the Rohinga Muslims, Muslims being persecuted in China, protection for key workers and adequate PPE, protection for Black and Asian people, for people on low or no incomes, for those with underlying health conditions and those over 60, care for those who are alone and those struggling in whatever way, suffering with depression, protection for asylum seekers and refugees and ensuring that food is reaching the vulnerable and global warming.
May we not fail you. Amen
Song “In Christ alone”
The blessing of God be upon you
On those you love and those you meet
This day and forevermore. Amen
With thanks to the ©Iona Community adapted
