To be a Cornerstone…
13th Sunday after Pentecost
1 Corinthians 16:13-24; Matthew
The Gospel story is about tenant-vinedressers. Christ recounted a parable, a life example of understanding the relationship between God and people, which was understandable to His listeners. It is clear to us that when a certain person
“planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country” (Matthew 21:33),
then that man is the master, the owner of that vineyard, and he had the right to receive the proceeds from those to whom he leased his possession.
However, Christ did not set Himself the task of clarifying the economic relations between people and the fulfillment of their duties. The Lord drew the attention of the listeners to the fact that God created the world, gave people, Jews, everything proper for life. He surrounded that nation with the Law of His commandments and instructions, according to which that nation had to live in order to confess, to recognize the one God.
But that nation, especially its leaders, turned God's Law into ritualistic and ceremonial observance, yet the main aspect of their faith confession was missing - there was no expression of love for one's neighbor. God Himself is the manifestation of the greatest love, “God is love” (John 4:8). When one confesses God as a manifestation of love, then there will be an expression of the fruits of faith. Formal Judaism did not exhibit those fruits of faith.
God sent His prophets from that same nation who patiently reminded the leaders and rulers about the need to express the fruits of true faith, but those leaders perceived such reminders only as personal reproaches and mercilessly “beat one, killed one, and stoned another.” (Matt. 21:35)
When the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, came to earth, He rebuked the Jewish leaders, the scribes and Pharisees, whom He called hypocrites who erected monuments and tombstones to the prophets whom their fathers had killed, and said:
“If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.” (Matt. 23:29-31)
But those who were determined to fight against the will of God were “not ashamed” of the reproaches of the Son of God — they seized Him and had Him crucified on the cross in order to finally humiliate and despise Jesus Christ in this world. So when the Lord spoke in the parable of the son of the vineyard owner and said:
“So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him” (Matt. 21:39),
He was making a prophecy about Himself, which, as we know, was soon fulfilled.
What, then, will be God's will regarding those leaders of the Jewish people, who ruled over the people under the guise of zealots for God's Law, but in reality, were, by Christ's definition, children of the devil:
“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do”? (John 8:44)
The listeners of Christ's preaching themselves defined it:
“He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.” (Matt. 21:41)
And so it happened: although the first apostles were chosen from the Jews, the Church of the New Covenant was not entrusted to the Jewish people. The Church of the New Covenant, for the preservation and fulfillment of God's truth, was entrusted to many other nations—those nations that were bypassed in the Old Covenant. The Jews themselves were expelled from their land by force in the year 70 by pagan Romans, and the destiny of the salvation of the human race was entrusted to the people who accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour.
Jesus cited for His listeners an Old Testament prophecy:
“The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.” (Matt. 21:42; Psalm 118:22)
Therefore, it was according to God's prediction. Our people are one of those nations that were not taken into account in the Old Testament, were rejected, but in the New Testament became one of the main ones — the “cornerstone”. Kievan Rus’, our ancient capital Kyiv, became a centre of the Christian faith, from where it spread to the north, east, and west, and drew peoples to the God-preserving faith.
But let us not make a mistake – let us not be proud of our calling to Christ. Let us not forget that as God demanded and expected the fruits of faith from the confessors of the Old Testament, so much more can He expect those fruits from the confessors of the New Testament. Especially, as we have come to know the fullness of the Godhead in the Most Holy Trinity, we are enlightened by the light of Christ, and we have the means available to us according to the gospel teaching of Christ.
Let us examine ourselves whether we are growing in Christ, whether we have the fruits of faith:
Do we forgive our offenders more and more often?
Do we donate to a good cause, to help our neighbours?
Do we invest our share in the development of the Church of Christ?
Are we participants in Divine Services and the Sacraments of Christ?
Let us pose these and similar questions before our conscience -- they will help us recognize our spiritual growth and feel the fruits of our faith.
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
