We have come to the final week of our message series, “Cornerstones,” which has been looking at some of the foundational values of our Catholic faith. Next weekend we will begin a new message series called “Staying Power” which will be all about commitment.

In “Cornerstones” we have looked at the importance of love not just as something we feel but something we do. We looked at grace. The Church is most appealing when grace is most apparent. Two weeks ago we reflected on the Greek word Ecclesia, which was the word Jesus used to describe the movement he was building. The Church is to be a movement, not a monument. Jesus established the Church to make an impact on the world. Last week we looked at how Jesus had a priority for reaching out to the Lost folks, and so the Church exists to reach out to people who are far from God and bring them into a relationship with him.

These principles are well foundational. They are basic and yet, each and everyone of them can be easily lost sight of. It is strange and bizarre but Churches lose sight of them all the time and then they lose their way. As we close out our series, we are going to look at one last word churches often lose sight of and to forget this word might be the strangest of all.

We are looking at a passage from the 21st chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel. The story takes place after Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. The crowds are cheering him as king, the Jewish leaders are filled with jealousy, and the Roman authorities are starting to get worried about insurrection and revolt. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians all hate him. Why?

He is successful and they have only dared dream of being successful. In fact they’re not successful at all, at this point these religious leaders, who are entrusted with the care of God’s family, the people of Israel, and growing this family, have instead, made it so daunting and difficult to even try and live faithfully as a religious Jew, that most ordinary people have simply walked away and given up trying.

In the midst of the cheering of the crowds and the hatred of the Jewish leaders, Jesus tells another story. “There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey” (Mt 21:33).

This was something in that time a businessman or entrepreneur would do. He oversees the hard work that lays the foundation for a return on his investment. Then he rented the vineyard to farmers. Obviously, to tend the vineyard, and produce the fruit he was after. This was a typical situation in that region in the first century. The farmers who worked the land would share in the profit, but the profit – in this case the grapes – belonged to the landowner.

The story continues, “When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce. But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned. Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way” (Mt 21:34–36).

This is outrageous. The landowner seeks what already belongs to him, the fruit of the vineyard he planted, that he owns and these people, who are suppose to be serving him, withhold from him his fruit. The servants represent the prophets who God sent to the leaders of Israel time and time again, but the leaders mistreated them.

Things then go from bad to worse. “Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’ They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him” (Mt 21:37–39). THEY KILLED THE SON.

We know in every parable Jesus told the characters all represent someone. Someone, for instance, usually represents God and in this parable that is the owner of the vineyard. That would mean that Jesus is the landowner’s son (the one who is killed). The tenants? That would doubtless be, as St. Matthew later tells us, the religious leaders whom Jesus is telling the story to. But Jesus is such a master story teller that they’re not even thinking about that, they’re caught up in the narrative itself.

So Jesus asks, “What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?” (Mt 21:40). It is a no-brainer, and the Jewish leaders answer correctly, “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times” (Mt 21:41).

Now here comes the lesson: Jesus says to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures:
‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes’” (Mt 21:42).

So Jesus tells the leaders that the Messiah, their long awaited Savior, is to be rejected by them, and then become the cornerstone for the new movement God is building, which is the Church. He quotes Psalm 118, a psalm that was sung by pilgrims who were journeying to the Temple to worship God. The new worship of God will not be based on a place but on a person. No longer do people have to go to the Temple to worship God, but they can simply go to Jesus, the stone that the builders rejected.

While we have called this message series “Cornerstones” – plural – we really should have called it “Cornerstone” – singular. Jesus is the cornerstone of our faith.

Think about how amazing it is that we are talking about a Jewish carpenter who lived 2,000 years ago in the backwater of the Roman empire. He never wrote a book, he never held a political office or made a lot of money. He never did any of the things that usually make someone famous or normally worth remembering. He died the death of a criminal on the cross rejected by his leaders. Yet, here we are talking about Jesus today.

Why was Jesus rejected by these religious leaders? Well it was because he was successful and popular and they were jealous. And the reason he was popular was because he was accessible and real. He didn’t make a relationship with God seem so distant and far away. While he was the holiest and most righteous person that ever lived, he didn’t hold people’s sins against them.

The cornerstone of our faith is the person of Jesus Christ. We exist to lead people into a growing, personal relationship with Jesus. The purpose of his life, death and resurrection was to ransom us from sin, deliver us from the clutches of evil, restore us to God – so that his personality and his life could heal and fill our personality, our humanity, and our lives. We exist to help people know Jesus and then become more like him. Everything we do is so that we will know Jesus in a personal way.

This entire experience each weekend at Mass is designed to be an experience with Jesus. We want people to experience the presence of God in this place. The liturgy is about Jesus. The Eucharist, the source and summit of our faith, of course, its all about Jesus Christ.

That all seems so obvious but it turns out it is actually easy for Churches to forget about bringing people into a relationship with Jesus. It can be easy to come to Mass and go through the motions and forget that its about meeting with Jesus. It can be easy to forget about Jesus. Church becomes about knowing facts about Jesus rather than knowing him. Church becomes about commitment to activity rather than commitment to Christ. It becomes about making sure people are living morally or keeping rules or maintaining the building or a dozen and one other things that might be good things or even necessary things, but are not about Jesus.

So as we conclude this series, I invite you to pray this simple prayer when you come to church each weekend: Jesus, I want to know you better.