Not For Nohing

 Matthew 21: 33-43

The Parable of the Tenants

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 marvelous 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.

This parable is obviously a parallel to the attempts God has been making for centuries, to have us accept his emissaries, his prophets, and eventually his own Son.  They all suffered rejection, some, even death. God never lets these human responses discourage him from continuing to make overtures to us.  Perhaps we could take some time on this "Sabbath" to pause and look back at his interventions and attempts to assure us of his love for us, for me as an individual, and look at how we accepted, ignored or rejected them. It might be time to clear the old balance sheets and start a new one, one of happy and peaceful acceptance, for it is not for nothing that God keeps approaching us, and attempting to entice us into greater trust and confidence in him, for even though his ways are not always our ways, they always turn out for the best.  Trust him.  It is out of love that he keeps approaching us.

Bro. Rene