Matthew 21:33-46 – Becoming the Cornerstone

Matthew 21:33-46 – Becoming the Cornerstone

Today we read yet another story in which the arguments between Jesus and the Temple leaders were most often not about religious practices, but about the temple leaders' collusion with exploitative economic and social policies of the Roman Empire, and later over different ways of negotiating life under that Empire in the church and the synagogue.  Today’s story of the absentee landlord and the rebellion of his workers focus us on some fundamental questions on two levels.

One level asks some fundamental questions of systems and structures; of our corporate decision-making.  Jesus dismisses all ideas of the old “vineyard” and talks about being the “cornerstone” of a totally new structure.  He raises fundamental questions about the futility of debates about, and maintenance programs for, the institutions of this age.  Rather, Jesus asks us to consider how to care for those whom the world disregards.  Here in Madison, a courageous new stand by our County Executive has now required that the consequences to the poor be calculated whenever more luxurious building plans are approved or the cost of public transportation is doubled rather than the cost of parking, or grocery stores are approved for particular locations.   How can we support that stand?  How do we begin to honor the peacemakers, and to strive for justice and peace and the dignity of every human being above our own comfort – both physical and ideological?  In what ways are we like the sharecroppers, willing to do wrong to achieve what we think is right?   Do we think about the cost to generations to come as we escalate interpersonal and international conflict?

Another level asks some fundamental questions about how we choose to negotiate life within our current reality.  In what ways are we like that absentee landlord, dependent upon the exploitation of millions of people in order to support our standard of living?   Do we know where our food, our clothes, our energy, our coffee, our electronics, come from, and at what cost to poor people and the environments in which they live?  Do we know about the racial disparities, the poverty and the homelessness in our own community and the social and economic impact those realities will have on future generations? Are we willing to help be the cornerstone of those new structures that  will care for those whom the world currently disregards?