The Rejected Stone - 10/04/20
Call to worship:
L: Hear the song God sings to the people!
P: A love song greets our happy ears!
L: The people of God are the Lord’s pleasant planting!
P: The hand of the Lord stretches near to the vine!
L: O earth, sing a song; throw your head back and sing!
A: The Keeper who tends you shall hear you and come!
Opening Hymn: Jesus Loves Me #191
Jesus loves me this I know,
for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong;
they are weak, but he is strong.
Refrain
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.
Jesus loves me he who died
heaven's gate to open wide.
He will wash away my sin,
let his little child come in. (Refrain)
Jesus loves me, this I know,
as he loved so long ago,
taking children on his knee,
saying, "Let them come to me." (Refrain)
Opening Prayer:
disappoint you. Amen.
Epistle Reading: Philippians 3: 4b-14
4 even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised
on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things,
and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have suffered the loss For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish,
in order that I may gain in order that I may gain Christ than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the
loss
loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and
be found in him, not having a be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but
one that comes through one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his
sufferings by becoming like him sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the
resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Beloved,
I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Hymn: Tell Me the Stories of Jesus #277
1. Tell me the stories of Jesus I love to hear; things I would ask him to tell me if he were here: scenes by the wayside, tales of the sea, stories of Jesus, tell them to me. 2. First let me hear how the children stood round his knee, and I shall fancy his blessing resting on me; words full of kindness, deeds full of grace, all in the lovelight of Jesus' face. 3. Into the city I'd follow the children's band, waving a branch of the palm tree high in my hand; one of his heralds, yes, I would sing loudest hosannas, "Jesus is King!"
Prayer of Dedication:
We pray Lord, that you will forgive the past and guide us into a future with you by our side and within our heart. Amen.
Gospel Reading: Matthew 21: 33-43
33 “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. 34 When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37 Finally he
sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never 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’?
43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.
Sermon Title: The Rejected Stone (video link)
In 1858 the Illinois legislature--using an obscure statute--sent Stephen A. Douglas to the U.S. Senate instead of Abraham Lincoln, although Lincoln had won the popular vote. When a sympathetic friend asked Lincoln how he felt, he said, "Like the boy who stubbed his toe: I am too big to cry and too badly hurt to laugh." Abraham Lincoln experienced failures and triumphs just like anybody else, but the point is that he never stopped trying to fulfill the mission that he believed had been given to him by God. (Not just to be the president of the United States, but to serve his fellow man as much as he could with the gifts he had been given.) His faith helped to make his life into one of the biggest successes that this country has ever seen.
In the passage that we read from Matthew today, we find some really unruly renters that do some really horrible things. After the landowner had prepared this vineyard and had planted choice vines. He built a fence around it to protect it and a watchtower in the middle of it to be able to see danger coming. (This point being a smidge on the ironic side since the danger ended up coming from within.) And with all of this work that he had put into it, he expected it to yield grapes, but instead, it yielded only wild grapes.
Let us read Isaiah 5: 1-7 where the vineyard symbolizes the Israel planted by God. And the tenants with responsibility for it are the religious leaders of the day. Produce pays the rent. The fruit represents the good works of obedient living.
I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
but it yielded only bad fruit.
3 “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?
5 Now I will tell you
what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled.
6 I will make it a wasteland,
neither pruned nor cultivated,
and briers and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds
not to rain on it.”
7 The vineyard of the Lord Almighty
is the nation of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are the vines he delighted in.
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
The leaders refuse to honor God with appropriate living. The numerous slaves are the prophets whom the leaders reject and Jesus is the owner’s Son whom the leaders kill. The leaders actually pronounce their own penalty when they answer the question of what will be done to the terrible renters…because they are the terrible renters and they will be forced to leave the vineyard and will be replaced by those who will follow God’s laws and ways.
Note that while the vineyard spoken of in Isaiah is destroyed, the one in Matthew is not. Plus it has the promise of new tenants, and this has to do with the sacrifice made by Jesus Christ on the cross. God empire is taken away from the leaders and given to those who will care for it as God intended and will pay their rent with the produce (grapes) raised.
Christ Jesus, the Son, is the stone that the builders (religious leaders) rejected. Their rejection was unfortunate only for them, however, and Jesus (the stone) was implemented as the cornerstone of God’s kingdom and ultimately, our faith.
And this is the Lord’s work. Amen.
Closing Hymn: How Firm a Foundation #529
1. How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
is laid for your faith in his excellent word!
What more can he say than to you he hath said,
to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
2. "Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
for I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand
upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.
3. "When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
the rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
for I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
4. "When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
my grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;
the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.
5. “The soul that on Jesus still leans for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake.”
Jesus came into the world as a Light so that no one would have to remain in the darkness. Be a blessing to all you see.