Matthew 21:33-46- The Stone the builders rejected

Matthew 21:33-46

Psalm 118:19-24

                                             “The stone the builders rejected”

No-one likes rejection.

Rejection hurts.

I am sure at some stage in our lives we have all been rejected by someone or some group, or some club- perhaps even a member of your own family has rejected you.

The classic example of rejection is when a boy likes a girl, and the boy plucks up the courage to ask the girl out. After hours of rehearsing of what he will say, and thinking about what he will wear and where he will take her on a date, he finally plucks up the courage to ask the girl out………….only for the girl to reject him, either mercifully, with a response of “I am just focusing on my studies….I simply don’t have time for a boyfriend”, or perhaps more brutally, with a response of “even if you were the last person on earth I wouldn’t date you”

Ouch- rejection hurts and yet it is part of this fallen world we live in.

My daughter who is the most talented ballet dancer in the world (no-bias at all) is in an art/ sport whatever you call it, where rejection is always just around the corner. At any time, a ballerina can be cut from the program because they just failed to perform on the day.

That is the message I got from the principle of Queensland ballet during their open day at the beginning of the year….He made it very clear to all the girls, that, If they can’t perform on the day, then really, what were they doing here”

Rejection can be brutal,-no-one likes rejection.

Although, sometimes you may understand why some people are rejected………

For example, you can perhaps understand why the leaders of Isreal rejected the prophets that God sent to them, again and again……

Just listen to what some of these prophets said to the leaders of Israel.

Listen to what the prophet Jeremiah said to the leaders of Isreal, this is from

Jeremiah 3:6

“You have seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore”

The prophet Jeremiah called Israel a whore.

Guess what? The leaders of Isreal rejected Jeremiah.

If you think that Jeremiah stirred the pot,…..just listen to what the prophet Ezekiel said to the leaders of Israel,

This is found in Ezekiel 6:5

“And I (God) will lay dead bodies of the people of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones around the altars”

Guess what? The leaders of Israel rejected Ezekiel

Listen to what the prophet Hosea said to the leaders of Israel, this is from Hosea 9:10

Like grapes in the wilderness I found Israel

Hosea told the leaders of Israel, that they were not even the grapes in the vineyard of God’s kingdom, they were just like grapes in the wilderness ready to be trampled upon.

Guess what? The leaders of Isreal rejected Hosea.

And I could go on and on, but I will just give you one more.

Listen to what the prophet Elijah said to Ahab- the king of Israel at the time.

Not just any leader of Israel at the time, but THE leader.

This is from 1 Kings 18:17-18

When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “it is you, you troubler of Israel? And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals

The prophet Elijah didn’t just tell the leaders of Israel that they were the trouble makers, but he told the leader- the king, that he was a trouble maker, he told him, he wasn’t doing his job properly.

And guess what? Elijah was rejected.

And so, you can sort of understand that the leaders of Israel continued to reject the prophets that God sent to them, because they were telling them things, that they just didn’t want to hear.

And at the heart of the messages of all the prophets that God sent to the leaders of Israel was this:

Repent: that is turn from your wickedness, turn from your idols and turn towards God- repent before it is too late and judgement will fall.

Repent, turn from your wickedness, turn from your corruption, turn from your idols and turn towards God, the one and true living God, whom saved you, who formed you, who created you, who chose you, from all the nations of the earth to be his people.

With this message of repentance, also came a message of warning, if you don’t repent, if you don’t turn from your idols, God will bring judgement upon you- but until that judgement comes, whether that was the sword of the Babylonians or the sword of the Assyrians, there was always time, to turn back to God.

The prophets of God preached repentance and judgement and yet they also preached grace within that warning.

In this parable we are looking at today from Matthew 21:33-46, it is clear, that the servants in this parable, who were rejected, beaten, and killed, represented the prophets of God whom he sent to Israel to warn them of coming judgement.

But before we delve deeper into these prophets and their rejection, let me just quickly summarise this parable that Jesus told.

In this parable, there is a master of a house who planted a vineyard, and it wasn’t just any old vineyard that was thrown together, but it was a vineyard that was built which had every opportunity to grow lots of grapes, there was a fence which kept animals out, there was a winepress, where the grapes were turned into wine, and there was a tower, where a good view of the whole yard could be managed. And this master, who set up this very functional vineyard, lent it out to some tenants to care of it and make some wine.

Friends this is a picture of God choosing the nation of Israel, out of all the nations in the world to be his people. He gave the nation of Israel everything they needed to be live fruitful lives in God’s kingdom. He gave them his law, he gave them land, he even gave them a temple where they could worship him.

And yet sadly, as we read throughout the Old Testament, again and again, Israel rejected God. Instead of producing fruit which was in line with God’s kingdom, they started to produce their own rotten fruit of religion, they started making their own laws, they started treating the land God gave them, as their own land, they often skipped the year of Jubilee, since they wanted to keep exhausting the land, they started treating the temple God had given them as their temple.

Now, in this parable, this was shown when the master sent his servants to collect his fruit. This was a common practice and it still is today- the tenants would have been given free board by the master, however, in return, the master reaped the harvest of his vineyard, although I am sure the tenants would also have had a cut.

But when the servants went to collect the fruits for their master: the tenants treated what belonged to their master as their own.

They didn’t give the master any fruit that was rightfully his, in fact they beat, killed and stoned the masters servants who came to collect the fruits of the harvest- just like the prophets, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Elijah, and Hosea, who went to the leaders of Isreal and pleaded them to show the fruits of repentance.

Finally, after the master of the vineyard had sent servant after servant, and after each servant had been rejected, beaten or killed, the master of the vineyard finally decided to send his own son.

Surely these wicked tenants wouldn’t have the “gall” to treat the masters’ own son, the same as they treated the servants?.........But they did…..

Look at what these wicked tenants did to the son of the vineyard.

Look at verses 38-39 with me:

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ ³⁹ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

These wicked tenants thought they could take the inheritance of the son, and so they threw him outside and killed him.

Now, obviously, Jesus was talking about himself here- God’s son, the king of God’s kingdom and so he was telling these leaders of Isreal, whom he was talking with that day, that not only have the leaders of Isreal rejected God’s prophets, but sadly they will reject God’s son, in fact they will kill God’s son- as they did when the Sanhedrin along with the Romans condemned him to death on a cross.

And then just as the prophet Nathan did to King David, when he confronted him with his sin of adultery and murder, Jesus confronted these leaders of Isreal with their sin, and just like David, they spoke condemnation on themselves.

Look at verses 40-41 with me:

When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” ⁴¹ They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

Jesus told this parable about the people he was talking to, the leaders of Isreal, and how they had rejected God’s prophets and how they had rejected God’s son, and now Jesus asked what should be done to these wicked servants who killed the servants and God’s son……and the leaders of Israel replied……..”Put those wretches to a miserable death and let the vineyard out to other tenants who will give the master his fruits in season”

The leaders believed that these wicked tenants who represented them, should not just be put to death- but to a miserable death.

But just look at what Jesus said would be the punishment of these wicked tenants.

Look at verse 43 with me:

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.

What exactly was Jesus saying here?

He was saying this:

The kingdom of God will no longer belong to just the nation of Isreal, through whom the law came, through whom the temple came, through whom God’s priests and prophets came, but the kingdom of God will belong to all nations (including Isreal) through the true Israelite- Jesus. It will belong to all people who bear the fruit of repentance.

The nation of Israel failed again and again, but the true Israelite- Jesus didn’t fail and so God works his fruit of repentance not through the leaders of Isreal, but through Jesus.

Because of Jesus, we gentiles, we non-jews are also part of God’s kingdom along with all Jews that come to his kingdom through his son- Jesus, and yet sadly for those Jews who have rejected Jesus, that kingdom has been taken away from them.

And one of the remarkable things about this expansion of God’s kingdom which is for all people, is that it only came about, because- Jesus- the son of God was rejected.

Jesus was rejected so that we could be welcomed into his kingdom.

Look at verse 42 with me:

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 marvellous in our eyes?

Apparently stone masons searched through piles of stones, looking for the right stone to complete their project- their building. They tested each stone for size and shape necessary to complete their project. They examined and discarded stone after stone until they thought they had found the perfect one.

And so when Jesus here compares himself to the stone that the builders rejected, he is talking about the leaders of Isreal, the chief priests, the scribes, the teachers of the law, the elders, who put Jesus under a microscope but then chose to reject him, they chose to kill him.

He was talking about those leaders of Isreal who examined Jesus closely, but then cast him aside and condemned him to the cross…………..and yet praise be to God, this rejection that Jesus faced from his very own people, the Israelites, was all part of the Lord’s doing, it was all part of God’s perfect plan, to bring the kingdom to all nations through Jesus, not just the one nation of Israel.

And so friends take comfort in times of rejection: we have a God who knows what rejection feels like, and just like Jesus, we know that God is working out his purposes, even in the times of our rejection.

But I don’t just want to leave you with that message today.

I want to leave you with a thought about this stone – this stone of Jesus that was rejected.

Look at verse 44 with me:

And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him

Friends how you respond to Jesus, this stone that the builders rejected is what really counts.

How you respond to Jesus is what really matters.

What you think now about the nation of Isreal is secondary to what you think about Jesus.

What you think about the Presbyterian denomination, or Baptist, or FIEC or whatever denomination is secondary to what you think about Jesus.

For those who reject Jesus, those who examine him but then reject him, then they will be broken to pieces and eventually that stone will fall on them, and Jesus will crush them.

Friends, if you are considering and examining who this Jesus is, I urge you not to reject him, because if you do, one day, but not today, He will reject you.

Let us pray