Readings: Isaiah 5 vv 1-7; Matthew 21 vv 33-46
You will doubtless have noted the similarity between our two readings this evening. Sometimes the connection between the readings from the Old and New Testaments can be rather obscure but not this evening, nor would it have been to those who heard Jesus tell the parable soon after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem or to the early readers of the Gospel according to Matthew.
Let me remind you, Matthew was writing for a Jewish readership to whom the vineyard was a well known metaphor for the kingdoms of Israel and Judah as described in Isaiah. This is the first Isaiah, the one who wrote before the Babylonian captivity but who sees that all is not well...and may well have foreseen the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the destruction of the first Temple in which he was a priest. God has planted a vineyard, dug a trench round it, lovingly cared for it, set up a watch tower to see the enemy without ...but it is the enemy within who is the greater threat. With all this Jesus’ listeners  would have been familiar.
They would also have been familiar with  the social setting of the parable...... an absentee landlord was a widespread phenomenon in the ancient Mediterranean. This landlord let out his estate in the expectation of receiving the rent from the leaseholders in the form of crops but it didn’t work out that way. A succession of stewards  (the prophets?)  come from the landowner to be stoned and eventually he sends his son who is killed. Whether the original listeners foresaw the crucifixion, or remembered the parable when the crucifixion had taken place we shall never know. Perhaps Jesus alone knew what was in store for him.
However, the first readers of Matthew’s gospel would have known. There  has been much between the telling of the parable and the recording of it....the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Depending on when it was written and most scholars seem to favour the  ‘80’s A.D. one can add, the Roman siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Third Temple, analogous to the  capture of the city by the Babylonians and the destruction of the first Temple.
It was also becoming clear that Christianity was not going to stay part of main stream Judaism which is why Matthew adds something to the earlier telling of the parable by Mark  ... the landlord is taking the vineyard from the wicked husbandmen and giving it to others, finding new tenants, those who have recognised his son. ...i.e. the Church .
He also adds that it is the stone the builders have rejected which will be the cornerstone. One knows about the importance of cornerstones intellectually but it was not until I visited Syria two years ago and saw those old buildings with no cement near Damascus but even more at Ugarit that I could see the importance of the cornerstone for myself and how vital it was that it should be right or everything else would collapse.
What is the message, if any for us today?

• Stewardship .. ...it is our responsibility to look after the vineyard which will include giving but also working in it.
• Recognising the true prophets.... much more difficult
• Has the vineyard always been a credit to the lord in the past? The late Pope actually apologised to the middle east both Christian and Moslem for the Crusades which those who fought considered their Christian duty
• May be we are doing so today worrying about things that may seem important to us: but do us little credit in the world at large. Even less credit is done by the abuse of children by priests in a sister church. I am going to assume that those who covered up the abuse were men of good will but they put the institution they served before they put either the victims of abuse or the truth. Were they neglecting the cornerstone and putting the whole building in peril?

Toiling in the vineyard in the 21st century is no easy matter if it ever has been....the gift we need to pray for is discernment. The discernment to recognise the true prophet from the false and to recognise the Son when he is in our midst.