Series

He then began to speak to them [chief priests, teachers of the law, elders—11:27] in parables: "A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. [2] At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. [3] But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. [4] Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. [5] He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.

[6] "He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, 'They will respect my son.'

[7] "But the tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' [8] So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

[9] "What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. [10] Haven't you read this scripture:

[12] Then they looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away.

When Joe Montana was in high school, trying to get a spot on his school football team, his coaches didn’t think all that much of him. He wasn’t named as the starting quarterback until his junior year. When he went to Notre Dame, the same thing happened. He was a backup quarterback until his junior year. But when he graduated and entered the NFL, he won the Super Bowl just two years after starting for the San Francisco 49ers, and wound up winning a total of four Super Bowl championships. He was an 8-time Pro Bowler and 3-time first-team All-Pro, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2000. How could someone with that much talent be overlooked by his high school and college coaches? How could they let someone like that sit on the bench, or only come in to rescue the team when they were in trouble?

Joe Montana wasn’t the first person to be misjudged and overlooked by the authorities in his life. Jesus was another, as we will see in this passage today.

The time was the last week of Jesus’ life. He was staying with Martha, Mary, and Lazarus in Bethany, just a couple of miles from Jerusalem, and walking in to the city each day to teach. The day before, He had driven all the vendors and money changers out of the Temple courts, and the tension between Him and the authorities was rising fast. Rather than back down, and try to make nice and smooth things over with them, Jesus told them this parable.

Most parables make just one point, but this one is more like an allegory, which has several points of comparison between the story He tells and the point He is making.

The vineyard itself was an image of Israel, the people of God. This was a common image for Israel, and it was evident right there in the Temple where Jesus was speaking. There was a carved grapevine around the door to the Temple. The branches and leaves were made of gold. The bunches of grapes were made of precious stones. Herod had put it there, and wealthy Jews had added to it from time to time. Moreover, Jesus was basing His parable on a story in Isaiah in which Israel was pictured as a vineyard. So there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the vineyard in this parable was Israel.

Mark 12:1, “He put a wall around the vineyard, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower.” Those were all the things God had done for Israel, to make sure they would flourish. He gave them the land; He gave them a way to worship Him; He told them how to live in order to please Him; He gave them a king when they asked for one; He defended them against their enemies. They had no excuse for not flourishing spiritually and producing a good harvest. As the story in Isaiah said, Isaiah 5:2, “he looked for a crop of good grapes.”

The tenant farmers he rented it to were the religious authorities, the people who were put in charge of the people of God. These were the priests and Levites of the Old Testament, and perhaps the political leaders as well. In Jesus’ day, they were the three sets of people He was talking to: the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders (Mark 11:27). Together, these men comprised the Sanhedrin, the supreme ruling council of the Jews.

The servants who were sent by the owner to collect the rent stand for the prophets. Mark 12:2, “At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. [3] But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. [4] Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. [5] He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.” Generally speaking, the religious authorities and the kings of Israel treated the prophets badly. These men of God were bringing a message that the leaders didn’t want to hear, and just like Jesus said in the parable, they beat some of them, and killed others.

Jesus elaborates this point to emphasize the love of God for wayward people. He could have given up on them after they rejected the first prophet, but He didn’t. He kept sending His messengers to the people of Israel for hundreds of years.

Finally, there was just one more way to demonstrate His love for His people. Mark 12:6, "He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, 'They will respect my son.’” This, of course, is Jesus, the Son of God.[1] God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16).

Mark 12:7, "But the tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' [8] So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.” That was a very clear prediction by Jesus that the religious authorities were going to kill Him, as they did, just a few days later.

Mark 12:9, "What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” In other words, God was going to take the spiritual oversight of His people away from the Jews, and give it to believers in Christ. Right after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples became the spiritual leaders of the little band of believers. That small group of about 120 people quickly blossomed into a church of 3,000, and then 5,000, as the apostles preached to the Jews in Jerusalem. So the tide was starting to shift, as God was building a new temple made of living stones that He would inhabit by His Spirit. Forty years later, in 70 A.D., the Romans came in and sacked Jerusalem, ran all the Jews out of the area, and destroyed the Temple that had been the center of worship for centuries. That effectively completed “giving the vineyard to others” that Jesus predicted in His parable.

These parallels were pretty obvious to the religious leaders He was speaking to, so you can see why it made them mad, and why they wanted to kill Jesus. He was really a pain in the neck!

How can we apply this to ourselves? Now, we, the Christian Church, are God’s vineyard, and God is looking for good fruit (see Is 5:1-4) from us, as well.

I think there are three types of fruit that God is looking for in our lives. The first is the fruit of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness and self-control.” These are essentially the character qualities of Jesus, and God is looking for these things to be showing up in our lives as well. It’s a great way to evaluate how we’re doing in our spiritual growth. Periodically, I try to go through this list carefully, and prayerfully, asking God to show me how I’m doing against this standard. I don’t expect to be perfect this side of glory, but I do expect—and more importantly, God expects me—to be growing in these things, to become more like Jesus each year. Let’s look briefly at each of these, to see how we’re doing.

This is basically an other-centered attitude that seeks the welfare of others more than our own. It is willing to sacrifice our own comfort, time, money, resources, energy, and rights in order to benefit someone else. Every married couple starts out with this attitude toward their mate. Every parent knows what this is like as we love our children into adulthood. The question is, are we becoming more loving toward the people in our lives, or more selfish? What would you say about yourself? Are you more loving this year than you were last year, or are you still pretty much self-absorbed? When you walk into a room full of people, do you think, “There you are! What’s going on with you? How can I be of use to God in your life today?” Or do you think, “Here I am. Come and greet me, you lucky people”? When you have some down time, do you find yourself thinking and daydreaming mostly about yourself, your plans, your future, your problems, or do you think mostly about others and their situations?

This is different from happiness, which depends on what happens to us. Joy is a deep-seated pleasure in the way God is ordering our lives, even when things are not so comfortable. It’s a confidence that God is good, and that God is at work for our good, so we can be joyful even in the face of hardships. Happiness, on the other hand, or the lack of it, is like the waves on the surface of the ocean; joy is the current moving deep below. Which one dominates your life? When things are bad, can you say, with Job, Job 1:21, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised"? Or with Nehemiah, Neh. 8:10, "…the joy of the Lord is [my] strength"? Does His joy increasingly determine your emotional state?

Peace is when calm and contentment replace the anxiety and worry and fear in our hearts. How do you react when the stock market falls, or the teacher announces a big test, or your boss calls you on the carpet? How’s your peace level when your health fails, or you’re facing surgery, or your kids make stupid decisions, or the car needs expensive repairs? Are you nervous, uptight, on edge; frantic, panicked, flustered; or at peace because you are trusting God?

The word literally means long suffering, and we’re not good at that. We live in such a fast-paced world, we have come to expect things to happen immediately: microwaved meals, instant messaging, immediate reporting of news from all over the world. So we’re often impatient when we’re stuck behind a slow driver, or the person ahead of us in the checkout line has some trouble with their check, or we have to wait for our spouse or kids before we can leave for some appointment. What do your driving habits reveal about your level of patience? Would you say the bunch of grapes that represents your patience is growing? Can you wait patiently, in inner peace, or are you in turmoil when things don’t happen on your timetable?

You’ve heard the saying, Nice guys finish last. That may be true in some sports, and in some businesses. But in the game of life, God is very interested in how kind and good we are to others around us. I think these two words are somewhat difficult to define precisely, but we know them when we see them. When our neighbor up the street shovels the walks and driveways of the three widows who live south of him, that’s goodness and kindness. When you offer a compliment to a coworker who has irritated you in the past, that’s kindness. When you go visit a friend who is in the hospital, or is stuck at home recuperating, that’s kindness and goodness. I think one key to this is that we go out of our way to do something—it’s not just something we do on the backstroke, or on the way to doing something else. How many kindness and goodness grapes are showing up in your life?

This is the quality of being trustworthy, reliable. Can people trust you to keep your word, to follow through on assignments, to hold up your end of the project? When our son was in high school, he was constantly frustrated by his fellow students who were grouped with him to do projects together. They tended to coast, knowing that Todd’s drive to excel would not let him be content unless he did their work as well as his. They were not faithful partners. This is the supreme quality required of husbands and wives toward each other—that they would keep themselves and their minds exclusively for the other. Do people see you as reliable, faithful, dependable? Or do they know that if they count on you, they’ll be disappointed?

This is the ability to respond with a soft answer when someone attacks or criticizes you. It’s being in control of our temper. How are you doing here? Do you fly off the handle when someone hurts you? Do you have a quick, sharp, tongue? Do you harbor a grudge, determined to get back at them? Or is your life characterized by the gentleness of Jesus? Are you more like a brick wall, or a pillow? There’s a time and a place to be a brick wall, and there are some things we must not bend on; but the way we exhibit that strength and firmness matters. We are to be like velvet-covered bricks, always concerned for the welfare of the person we are talking to.

This is the ability to say no to foods that are not good for us; to drive the speed limit when everyone is speeding; to have a daily Quiet Time even though you are tired and rushed; to quit smoking or drinking to excess. It’s the ability to defer gratification in favor of greater rewards later—for example to say No to the “once in a lifetime” “lowest prices of the season” sale, in order to have money to make a family memory; or the willingness to pass on an invitation to go to the movies, because you have a big homework assignment due soon. Ultimately, this is yielding to the control of the Holy Spirit, because when we do, He gives us that self-discipline to make wise choices.

These nine traits are called the fruit of the Spirit, because as we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit, He has the freedom to produce more and more of these qualities in our lives. This is what Jesus is like, so these are the qualities we can use to measure our progress in becoming like Him.

Another type of fruit God expects to see in our lives is good works. Ephes. 2:10, “For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” I see this sort of thing happening all the time in our church, as people care for others, serve their friends, go out of their way to help someone financially, or with a project. It’s really cool.

But I also want us to think about spreading that fruit around in our community. We want to be serving our neighbors in whatever way we can. Here are some possibilities that Chris Perciante is facilitating for us: Kids Hope is an opportunity to mentor children one on one at Van Buren Elementary School, starting next fall. Later in May we are going to do oil changes for folks who may need that—it’s not for us—it’s for our neighbors and friends. See the insert in the bulletin. In June, we will host Interfaith Hospitality Network, and that takes about 35 people. In July, we need ten volunteers to help build a Habitat for Humanity house. And there are more. See Chris for more information on these and other opportunities to show the fruit of good works to our community. Good works produce good will, which leads to opportunities to share the good news.

A third type of fruit that God is looking for in our lives is the kind that reproduces the vine. In Jesus’ day, every grape had a seed in it, and that seed was intended to grow another grape vine and produce more grapes. Jesus told a parable about seed that was planted in the ground and brought forth a harvest of 30, 60, or even 100 times as much as was sown. God expects us to reproduce ourselves spiritually.

Now we are clearly not all gifted evangelists. So we will all have very different roles to play in that process of bringing people to the point of faith in Jesus. But we all do need to be involved in the process. Some of us are good at inviting people to come to a Christian concert or to church. Others are good at answering questions people have. Somebody else uses their musical talent, or their technical expertise, to help put on a program where the gospel is presented. Someone else is the quiet servant, showing the love and kindness of Christ without saying much. God can use, and wants to use, every one of us to introduce others to His Son, and to reproduce ourselves in that way. He wants to see a large harvest of grapes from His vineyard.

Fruit grows slowly, so we don’t expect to see all these qualities pop out immediately, as soon as we become Christians. But if we don’t see growth in these areas, we know something is wrong.

Jesus concluded His parable with a quote from Psalm 118 which was prophetic about Himself. Mark 12:10, “Haven't you read this scripture: 'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; [11] the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes'?" This word translated “capstone” was used for two different stones in the buildings of the day. One was the capstone or keystone[3] in an arch. To construct an arch, they would build a wooden frame that held the stones in place as they built it up from the sides. Each stone was carefully tapered and shaped to fit next to the others, forming a curve as it went up. Then at the very top was the keystone. When that was in place, they could take the wood frame away, and gravity would force the stones against each other, forming a very strong and stable structure on which they could build other things. The keystone was therefore the most important piece in the whole building, because without it, the arch would collapse, along with everything that was built on top of it.

The other meaning of this word is cornerstone. In our day, a cornerstone is usually just a decorative, ceremonial stone placed in a building with the date of construction and maybe something about the Masonic Lodge that built it. In earlier times, it was a key part of the foundation of any stone building. The location of the cornerstone was chosen carefully, because it determined where the building would actually be, and it was important that it be perfectly square, so that the walls would be true and at right angles to each other. So again, whether we think of this as the capstone in an arch, or the cornerstone in the foundation, it is the most important stone in the whole building.

There are several places in the Old Testament where this word is used of the Messiah, and Jesus quotes one of them here. The interesting thing about it is that the builders (the religious authorities of Jesus’ day) rejected this particular stone—Jesus—like Joe Montana’s coaches did him, but He has become the most important stone in the whole structure that God is building.

1 Peter 2:5, “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” The Temple in Jerusalem was such a holy place because God had promised that His presence would dwell there on earth, above the Mercy Seat, or the Atonement Cover, between the two cherubim on either side of the Ark of the Covenant. That Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., and has never been rebuilt. In fact, today, there is a Muslim mosque, the Dome of the Rock, on the very site where that previous Temple stood. But God has built, and is still building, a new temple, a new spiritual house in which His presence lives, and that house is the Church, with a capital C. The stones in this temple are believers—living stones, Peter calls us. It’s built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Eph 2:20) and Jesus Himself is the most important stone in it. God doesn’t live in buildings anymore; He lives in His people. So you and I are part of the building that the Spirit of God lives in on earth.

This is particularly important for us at FEC to grasp today, as we meet this noon to discuss and vote on a building expansion program. We want to make more room for the people God is bringing to our church, to make it more conducive for us to fellowship with one another, to welcome visitors, etc. But as important and desirable as that is, we must never confuse our building with the Temple of God. I’m a little disturbed by Christian churches that call themselves “temples”, because the whole concept of where God lives has changed since Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on all the believers. Thinking of the building as the temple, or the house of God, creates the impression that the building is in some way sacred, and that often results in turning it into an idol. This building is not the place where God lives on earth; it is a facility—something that facilitates ministry. The Church, which is where God lives in the bodies of His people, can exist anywhere, with or without a physical building in which to meet.

The Psalm Jesus quoted referred to the fact that the cornerstone, the most important stone of all, was rejected by the builders, and that’s exactly what happened to Jesus. I think it is still happening today.

Sometimes, people hear a caricature of Jesus, and they reject Him for that. But most often, they reject Jesus because of what they see in His followers[4]. They see Christians as hypocritical, saying one thing but living another. They think we are so fixated on getting people saved that we can’t see them as real people with other dimensions in their lives. Christians are often perceived as being anti-homosexual, not loving gays as persons made in the image of God. They often think we are too political, having aligned our faith with the Republican Party, and we are too judgmental and quick to find faults in others.

To be honest, we would have to say that these criticisms have some truth in them. All to often, Christians are like that. So we need to repent, and acknowledge our failings honestly to people who criticize us, and then go back to God and ask Him to help us produce good grapes. Because if we were being the kind of people God wants us to be, the world wouldn’t have so much to complain about. We want to represent our Lord in the best possible light, because He is the best possible Person for our friends and neighbors to know. Let’s try to make sure that no one rejects the Cornerstone because of us.

[1] Jesus never called Himself the Son of God outright, but this is a pretty strong inference that He knew He was God’s Son.

[2] While all the passages indicate the stone at the corner, there appear to be two conceptions: (a) the foundation-stone upon which the structure rested (Job 38:6; Isa 28:16; Jer 51:26); or (b) the topmost or cap-stone, which linked the last tier together (Ps 118:22; Zec 4:7); in both cases it is an important or key-stone, and figurative of the Messiah, who is "the First and the Last." In Job 38:6 it beautifully expresses in figures the stability of the earth, which Yahweh created. In Zec 10:4 the leader or ruler in the Messianic age is represented by the corner-stone. http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/C/CORNER-STONE/ accessed 4/27/08.

[3] Jeremias (TDNT, 1:792f) referenced in Walter W. Wessel, Mark, in Frank E. Gabelein, Gen. Ed., The Expositors’ Bible Commentary, vol 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), p.733. So also C.E.B. Cranfield, The Gospel According to St. Mark in The Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary, C.F.D. Moule, Gen. Ed., (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1959), p. 368.

[4] David Kinnaman, UNChristian (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007).