The Cornerstone

  

Mark 12; 1-12

The Parable of the Tenants

12 Jesus then began to speak to them 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 moved to another place. 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 passage of Scripture:

“‘The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
¹¹ the Lord has done this,
    and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

¹² Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders 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.

We see greed, jealousy, disrespect, rejection and murder in this short parable and word picture of our world at its worst. It is frightening and sobering to think that humans can be so evil. Watch the evening news and see 28 minutes of such stories capped with less than two minutes of a "feel good" piece shoved in to remind us that yes, good does still exist in this murky mess. The owner of the vineyard will punish his evil tenants and find others to take their place. Good will triumph over evil. Jesus himself was rejected and killed but his return from the dead reversed evil once and for all and gives us reason to persevere in doing good, in being good. May we do our best to build on this cornerstone rather than the one offered by "the world."

Bro. Rene

Dear Jesus, be the cornerstone on which I build my life. Amen.