Sermon on Matt 21:33-42.

“The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Matt 21:42; Ps 117:22)

Thus Jesus arrestingly concludes his parable of the wicked tenants – with this quote from Psalm 117 and a new image. Remember, he has been speaking of a vineyard, its vinedressers, and its owner’s son – not of a building, its builders, and a stone. Yet he shifts suddenly to this new image.

Partly, this says the same thing in a new way: that the very people the Lord has chosen to love and serve him – the tenants of his vineyard or the builders of his temple – will reject and kill his Son. And partly it says something additional: that after his rejection, he will become the cornerstone. That is, after his crucifixion, he will rise again.

These coming events are much on Jesus’ mind, I expect, because he speaks this parable on Holy Tuesday, only three days before he will suffer his passion and death on the cross, having been turned over to such ignominious death by some of the people to whom he is speaking – the chief priests and elders of the people of God. They are standing in the court of the temple (cf. Matt 21:23). Perhaps being in the stone temple[i] brings to Jesus’ mind the image of the cornerstone from the Psalms.

Here is the scene: the chief priests and elders of the people of God are standing in the temple of God, speaking to the Son of God. They did not know what they were saying when they condemned the wicked tenants of Jesus’ parable to a miserable death. They did not know that they were the wicked tenants who had rejected the Lord’s servants and would soon reject his son. Nor did they know that the condemnation they spoke was against themselves. They did not know to whom they were speaking. And as he is being crucified for them and for us, he will forgive them for they do not know what they do. “Let Israel say, ‘His mercy endures forever’” (Psalm 117:2).

And by his forgiveness and his rising from the dead, Jesus Christ becomes the cornerstone. “That is,” writes the Blessed Θεοφύλακτος, “He [becomes] the head of the Church, joining Jews and Gentiles in one faith. For as the stone which forms the corner of a building makes continuous the walls leading to and from it, so Christ has bound all together in one faith.” The Jews are like the wall that leads to Christ, the cornerstone, and the Gentiles are like the wall that goes from Christ, the cornerstone. Christ makes us a seamless whole. He unites the Old and New Testaments as only he can.

When Jesus suddenly interjects a verse from the Old Testament at the end of his new allegory of the vineyard, he recontextualizes the Psalm – as opposed to decontextualizing it. He gives it or finds in it a true messianic prophecy perhaps never before seen or understood.

Of course it makes perfect sense that we have to read the New Testament in the context of the Old – because the Old Testament comes before. It describes and provides the context in which the New Testament was originally received and understood and so without it, we can never hope to truly understand the Gospel on even a human level.

But with Scripture, interpretation goes the other way as well. We also read the Old Testament in the light of the New. Because, in addition to being written by humans, scripture also has God as its author. God inspires scripture, and he is not bound by time. Our chronology does not limit him. So when Jesus offers us an interpretation of the Psalms, as he does today, we should listen! Be attentive – because – even though the Psalms were written centuries before Christ was born, when Christ interprets them, he speaks with authorial authority. He doesn’t interpret scripture as you or I must, nor does he interpret as the scribes and Pharisees must, or still less as the Sadducees. He, alone among humans, can give scripture authentic meaning that even its original human author did not intend – because he, alone among humans, is the God who inspires all scripture. And “All scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching…” (2 Tim 3:16).

In its original context, it is fairly clear that – by the stone – the Psalmist is referring not specifically or directly to the coming Messiah, but to the nation of Israel. Israel was rejected and oppressed and exiled repeatedly – by the Assyrians, by the Babylonians, by the Persians – and the Psalmist is praising the Lord who has delivered Israel, granted them victory over their enemies, and restored them. Despite being rejected by “all nations” (Ps 117:10), Israel remains the chosen people of God, among whom the Lord dwells in his temple – “the house of the Lord” (Ps 117:26). So, Israel is “the stone which the builders rejected, [which] has become the cornerstone” (Ps 117:22).

But now Jesus teaches us that this also applies to him – personally. That he – a true Israelite – is “the stone which the builders rejected” and that he, personally, will “become the cornerstone”

When Jesus mentions a stone, I think Peter’s ears must have pricked up.  “Oh – a stone – that’s me!” he may have thought – “Jesus calls me a rock and now he’s talking about a stone – I had better pay attention to this.” Be attentive! It seems that Peter did pay attention – because he really latches onto this image. This passage from Psalms is quoted twice more in Scripture, and both times it is quoted by Peter.

The book of Acts records that rulers and elders and all the high priestly family inquired of Peter “by what power or by what name” he had healed a cripple. Peter answered boldly, “be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well. This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, but which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:10-12)

And in his first letter, Peter, the rock, rhapsodizes much on this rocky image of Christ:

“Come to him,” Peter beckons us, “to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture [That is, in the prophet Isaiah (28:16)]: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.’

“To you therefore who believe, he is precious, but for those who do not believe, ‘The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner,’ and ‘A stone that will make men stumble, a rock that will make them fall.’ For they stumble because they disobey the word…. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:4-9).

 

 

[i] That the temple is stone: cf. Matt 24:2

Sermon on the Dormition & Matthew 19:16-26 

All things in sacred scripture and holy tradition are interrelated. This makes sense because all of revelation is revealed by one revealer – our one God. And so, I really believe that it is possible to preach a good sermon on almost any topic using almost any Scripture. The connections are usually there if you look deeply enough, I find. However, sometimes they are quite plain.

So it is with the gospel for this Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost and the theme of Mary’s holy death, her dormition which we celebrate today. There is in Holy Scripture not a single word that directly and literally references this holy tradition. But, as I say, all of scripture can be brought in to reflect upon it.

Consider this: the rich young man asks Jesus, “What good deed must I do to have eternal life?” The young man is seeking eternal life, as are we all, though he may have been seeking a way to avoid death altogether. In fact, I think that is likely. But Jesus teaches us and exemplifies for us that in fact eternal life is available to us only through death. Take up your cross, he teaches us and then he does just that himself. There is no crossless Christianity nor any way out of death except through it.

Jesus himself is our life and our way. And the way to life he shows us is through death. But death for us, as for Mary, is a dormition, that is, a falling asleep. Both Jesus and Paul refer to death as a sleep (eg. 1 Thess 4:13-16).

This can be misunderstood, however. Understand that death is not sleep in the sense of unconsciousness. Consider Moses, who has died, speaking with Jesus on Mt. Tabor. Or the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, from which it’s clear that those who have died remain conscious and aware of what goes on in the world. No, death is sleep not in the sense of unconsciousness, but in the sense that, as with sleep, it is a state that leaves us. It is something from which we rise again. And if we are in Christ, even though we die, we rise again to live eternally.

Mary shows us this first. Mary is the perfect model of Christians. She shows us how best to follow her son Jesus Christ. She follows in his way. She, like him, embraces death and she, like him, awakes from the sleep of death and lives on eternally. Mary, in other words, knows by experience the answer to the question of the rich young man. She has actually entered into that eternal life that he seeks and she has done it through her holy death.

She follows him in everything, even death, and bids us to do the same. At a wedding in Cana in Galilee, Mary commands, “Do whatever he tells you.” She says this to the servants at the wedding, and she says it today to you and to me. And what does Jesus tell us to do? Again, we can turn to today’s Gospel and read, “If you would enter life, keep the commandments” (Matt 19:17)

And, when pressed, Jesus then indicates a selection of which commandments in particular we are to keep. I don’t think this is meant in an exclusionary way. Rather, I think the commandments he names here are meant to point toward the whole. All the other commandments also remain divine and worthy of our observance, but nonetheless he does particularly highlight certain commandments. It must be said, he does include here the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself, which he elsewhere includes in the greatest commandment. But let’s look also at another one he felt particularly worthy of mention.

He says, as did his Father before him, honor your father and mother. Now this commandment is of particular significance today on this feast of God’s own mother, Mary the Theotokos. I have to ask you; can you imagine that Jesus Christ would have disobeyed this commandment? That would be a blasphemous suggestion. Jesus Christ is perfect God and perfect man. And so, both the perfect giver of this commandment and its perfect follower.

Note also that the commandant is not merely to obey your father and mother, as it is sometimes recalled. Certainly, obedience to our parents has an important place in the following of this commandment, but such obedience does not exhaust it. The commandment is to honor your father and your mother. Which we are to do first of all by living a holy and loving life. Every act of love we do honors those through whom we came into the world. And no good we do would have been done were it not for our father and mother. Even if we don’t like them or even if they weren’t good parents, we honor them by living well – for example, by being good parents ourselves to our children.

Well, Jesus Christ has a father and a mother too, of course, and he couldn’t have asked for better parents. His father, of course, is God. And he honors his father more perfectly than any other son ever has. Causing his father to say, more than once, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” But the commandant carries on to say honor also your mother. And the mother of Jesus Christ is Mary. Being both God and man gives Jesus Christ the capacity to honor his human mother more completely and perfectly than any other son can.

Jesus Christ alone, in his divinity, is the creator of his own mother and so he can begin to honor her from the moment that he forms her in her mother’s womb. The rest of us don’t have that opportunity. But Jesus does. And so he honors her from the moment of her conception. She is filled with grace, which is the life of God from the moment her conception, because Jesus Christ is honoring his mother.

But today we are reflecting not upon her conception, but upon her death. And Jesus not only has the power to honor his mother from the moment of her birth, but also continues to honor her at the moment of her death, even after his own death. And so he is with her. We see him with her in the holy icon of this great feast holding her newborn soul in his arms – she is born again from above in spirit. He holds her now just as she held him when he was a baby. He repays her that kindness, and so honors her. This is an image worth remembering when it comes time for some of us to care for our elderly parents just as they cared for us when we could not care for ourselves.

Just as God is with Mary in a unique way from the moment of her conception, so he is also with her in a unique way at the moment of her death. And he empties her tomb and raises her up just as he will raise up all in Christ, but his mother first of all, whom he honors in sublime fulfillment of revelation.