Untitled Sermon (6)

Questioning authority: Cleansing the Temple and the Fig Tree

As Jesus enters Jerusalem near the end of his ministry, he is greeted with loud cheers and shouts of “Hosana!” The people in the city expected great things from Jesus: the overthrow of Roman authorities, the establishment of Israel as a powerful nation once again, as in the time of King David. What they most certainly did not expect was for Jesus to march straight to the temple, whip in hand, and begin chasing people out of if and flipping over tables. Then he stuck around to heal a people in the temple, and then left Jerusalem for the night. On the way back into town the next morning, Jesus made sure to stop and curse a fig tree that didn’t have figs on it, before going back into the city to begin teaching.

Of course, when he got back into the city to teach, the Jewish leaders had a few words for him. He had, after all, just assaulted the temple! “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”

Why did Jesus go straight to the temple? Why pick a fight with the Jewish leaders? What did all of this mean? All of these events lead up to Jesus telling, once again, another parable.

Hear another parable: A landowner planted a vineyard, placed a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, built a watchtower, leased it to farmers, and went traveling. Now when the time of fruits drew near, he sent his slaves to the tenant farmers in order to receive his fruits. The farmers took his slaves. One they beat, one they killed, and one they stoned. Again, he sent other slaves, more than before, and they did the same to them. So finally, he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But the farmers, seeing the son, said amongst themselves, “This is the heir. Come! We must kill him and have his inheritance. So, grabbing him, they threw him outside the vineyard and killed him.

Therefore, when the Lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?” They said to him, “He will put those evil ones to an evil death, and he will give the vineyard to other farmers, whoever will repay him the fruits in their season.”

Jesus said to them, “Haven’t you 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’?

Because of this, I say to you that the Kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation producing the kingdom’s fruits. The one falling upon this stone will be crushed to pieces, if it falls upon someone it will crush him.

Having heard his parables, the high priests and Pharisees knew that he was speaking about them. Though they desired to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they considered him to be among the prophets.

Planting a Vineyard:

B- Planting a Vineyard:

When asked “By what authority are you doing these things?”, Jesus turns directly to scripture to justify what he was doing. We may not notice it at first glance, but this parable is full of references to the Old Testament. “A man planted a vineyard,” Jesus says, “he placed a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, built a watchtower, and leased it to farmers.” The vineyard is a very common metaphor in the old testament, but this particular description of the vineyard comes right out of Isaiah 5:

The New Revised Standard Version The Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard

My beloved had a vineyard

on a very fertile hill.

2 He dug it and cleared it of stones,

and planted it with choice vines;

he built a watchtower in the midst of it,

and hewed out a wine vat in it;

he expected it to yield grapes,

but it yielded wild grapes.

The New Revised Standard Version The Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts

is the house of Israel,

and the people of Judah

are his pleasant planting;

he expected justice,

but saw bloodshed;

righteousness,

but heard a cry!

Isaiah goes on to say what will happen to this vineyard that didn’t produce good fruit: it will be destroyed! It will suffer the same fate as the tenant farmers when the landowner returns.

God planted a vineyard, Israel, and left it to tenant farmers, the Jewish leaders. He expected it to yield fruit, but it did not. He expected מִשְׁפָּט, but behold: מִשְׂפָּח. He expected צְדָקָה, but head צְעָקָה instead. Isaiah and Jesus, with this parable of the vineyard, retell the entire Biblical story.

God planted a garden and entrusted it to farmers: Adam and Eve. He expected fruit, but behold: rebellion. So God planted another people with the seed of Abraham. He expected Abraham’s children to grow and flourish, to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue and make things right again. He put this vineyard, Israel, under the care of the priests of Aaron, the Levites, and under the care of the Kings from David’s line. They were to be his people, they were to make the world right again. They were supposed to bring justice, but instead brought bloodshed. They were supposed to bring righteousness, but instead brought a cry. The leaders of Israel, time and time again, failed to yield any fruit from the vineyard. The vineyard became as desolate as the first garden. The people of God became just like the people of the earth.

Sending Slaves- How to Ignore Prophetic Voices

God, however, did not give up on this vineyard. He thought, “Surely if I send my servants to them, they’ll realize they need to turn themselves around!.” So the vineyard owner sent his slaves. God sent the prophets to Israel time and time again to warn them that they had gone astray. Instead of hearing the warnings of the prophets, Israel developed a long history of killing them! Nehemiah tells us:

[Israel] captured fortress cities and a rich land, and took possession of houses filled with all sorts of goods, hewn cisterns, vineyards, olive orchards, and fruit trees in abundance; so they ate, and were filled and became fat, and delighted themselves in your great goodness. “Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their backs and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies.

26 “Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their backs and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies.

Perhaps most memorable is the death of Zechariah found in . Zechariah spoke out against the blasphemy of King Joash. Joash had abandoned the temple and began worshipping other gods, so Zechariah prophesied, “Thus says God: Why do you break the commandments of the LORD, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, he has also forsaken you.” Hearing this, the leaders of Israel stoned Zechariah to death inside the temple.

Yet, as we hear Jesus’s parable, we might think that God is foolish. The owner of the vineyard sent the first group of slaves, and they were killed. Shouldn’t that have been enough? Apparently not: he sent a second group of slaves. And when they killed those slaves too, he sent his own son. Is this a foolish man? Are we to take away from Jesus’s parable that God just doesn’t have any sense?

No, the point of the parable is that God has a very long nose! God’s long nose is a very common theme in the old testament, though you probably won’t find that translation in your English Bibles. You see, a long nose meant that someone was patient and slow to anger. When you’re angry, your nose gets “short”, because you scrunch your face up. God’s long nose means it takes longer for it to grow short. Believe it or not, God’s long nose is one of the most important things about him, it is one of God’s most repeated characteristics in the Old Testament:

The New Revised Standard Version Moses Makes New Tablets

“The LORD, the LORD,

a God merciful and gracious,

slow to anger,

and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,

7 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,

forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,

Time and time again, God sent his prophets to Israel, and Israel killed them. He didn’t keep sending prophets because he was a fool, but because he so loved his people. And, finally, he sent his only son to Israel. Not because he was a fool, but because he so loved his people. “God so loved the world that he sent his only son...”, even knowing that he would be killed.

This pattern of sending and killing is repeated not only here, and not only in the Old Testament, but throughout all of human history. It’s a pattern that reveals something deeply wrong with us. When we hear God’s word proclaimed, we hate it. God’s word is good and powerful, but it is also damning and convicting. It is a brightness that brings all the things we want to hide in the dark into the light. God’s word challenges evil and calls out sin, and so naturally our evil, sinful hearts recoil at its sound.

It’s easy to look at God’s unfathomable love for Israel, and ask, “How could they done that? How could they have failed to love God back? Why didn’t they listen to the prophets? Why didn’t they listen to Jesus?” That’s very foolish question to ask, however. It’s a question that reveals a very deep misunderstanding of ourselves. They didn’t listen to the prophets because they didn’t want to. They didn’t listen to Jesus, because he did not tell them what they wanted to hear. Very often, he doesn’t tell us what we want to hear either.

Yet, God’s word is so powerful that it cannot be ignored. Whether we want to hear what Jesus has to say or not, not hearing him isn’t an option. God’s word cannot be ignored, and it demands a response. This is, after all, why Jesus taught in parables. “The reason I speak to them in parables,” Jesus says, “is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’”

Parables were the best way to teach people things that they didn’t want to agree with. Parables have this unique way of getting people to agree with you before they really realize what it is you’re saying. When Jesus finished his parable, he asked the Jewish leaders, “When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?” Before they even realized the parable was about them, they condemned themselves and answered, “He will put them to death, take the vineyard away, and give it to someone else!” Parables have a way of making the truth harder to ignore.

So when the Jewish leaders heard Jesus’s parable, they couldn’t ignore it. When we hear Jesus’s parables, when we hear God’s word, we can’t ignore it. God’s word demands a response from us. And we have only two options being faced with the Word, Jesus: To accept him, to repent and bear fruits worthy of repentance, or to reject the messenger.

The Rejected Cornerstone: God’s Ironic Twist

Yes, rejecting the messenger is an option. It’s the one Israel chose over and over again. Maybe, like the farmers in the vienyard, they thought that if they just kept turning the owner’s people away he’d eventually leave them alone and let them just have the vineyard. But God doesn’t work like that. In a twist of irony, God decided to use the stone the builders rejected as the cornerstone. Those who rejected the son did not know that it was him who would build the temple of the Church. They didn’t know the power of this stone, that it couldn’t be destroyed, and in fact, those who attempt to destroy it are themselves destroyed.

Jesus says, “The one falling upon this stone will be crushed to pieces, if it falls upon someone it will crush him.” He is calling back to a prophesy that Daniel had while interpreting King Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams. King Nebuchadnezzar saw a statue of gold, bronze, iron, and clay that was smashed to pieces. Daniel revealed to him that each of these metals in the statue represented a future kingdom that would arise after Babylon. But it was the stone that destroyed the statue that was most important:

And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall this kingdom be left to another people. It shall crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever; 45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from the mountain not by hands, and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. The great God has informed the king what shall be hereafter. The dream is certain, and its interpretation trustworthy.”

Jesus is that stone, not made by human hands but coming down from heaven. Jesus is that stone. Though he was rejected, despised, and put to death on the cross, he rose again and became the cornerstone from which God’s Kingdom was built. And now all men are measured by this cornerstone, to see whether they might fit into God’s kingdom.

Temple, Kingdom, and Vineyard: Bearing Fruit

Christ’s parable was a stern and terrible warning for the Jewish leaders of his day. Because of their turning away from God and their rejecting of the prophets he sent, including his own son Jesus, the vineyard was about to be taken away. The kingdom of God would be given to a nation who would produce fruits.

Let us not think, however, that this warning was meant only for them and not for us. As Paul says in :

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the rich root of the olive tree, 18 do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. 19 You will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” 20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you. 22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. 23 And even those of Israel, if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.

God is patient, but there is a point of no return.

Bear fruits.

[and]

Planting a Vineyard:

[so]

Sending Slaves- How to Ignore Prophetic Voices

[but]

The Rejected Cornerstone: God’s Ironic Twist

[therefore]

Temple, Kingdom, and Vineyard: Bearing Fruit