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Last week Jesus told religion that it neither believes nor practices the “way of righteousness.” (Matthew 21:32) So may I ask you: “Would your religious institution embrace or dismiss Jesus’ teaching that the Kingdom of God is accessed outside of religion?” What about you?

Jesus continues teaching in the temple with the clear intension of speaking truth to religious power.

³³ “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.” (Matthew 21: 33) 

Parables are usually metaphors that reveal the Kingdom of God which is here now, not depictions of one-day Heaven after we die. Today’s parable was told two-thousand years ago, during the “here and now” of Jesus’ life. We must take care to first understand the “then” so we can correctly contextualize it for today.

Parables help us understand the macrocosm by framing it within a microcosm. This reveals that God has created a context, (vineyard–the people of God) which is easier to grasp than the global big picture. The story reveals God’s provision for safety (fence), oversight (tower), and purpose (winepress) for God’s people. God leases it to people who are supposed to manage its growth, health, and maturity, and manufacture the fruit into its final product. In this case, religion is the lessee in charge of God’s people. This is vital because religion, as this parable asserts, believes themselves to be the owners. The wine, the final product, is a people with a love of God and His Kingdom.

³⁴ “When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. ³⁵ And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. ³⁶ Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them.” (V.33-36)

God allotted religion plenty of time to tend the vineyard and produce great fruit. He then sent his “bondservants” to get what is His from religion. Jesus is referencing the prophetic voices that have spoken truth to power, and specifically the Hebrew history where they beat, killed and stoned their prophets. (2 Chronicles 36:15-16, Jeremiah 37:15, 38:6) Religion (all institutional power) has a history of rejecting critical voices. This is true of my work, where some have rejected me because I’m critical of religion. I’m not saying I’m a prophet, but I unapologetically teach these same prophetic voices.

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 have his inheritance.’ ³⁹ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.” (V.37-39) 

Jesus is speaking to religion about himself and his life. As the heir, Christ will inherit the fruit of the vineyard…(the fruit of the lives of God’s people)…which is God’s Kingdom in its completely fulfilled state. In other words, religion is supposed to be growing people into their most fulfilled purpose in the Kingdom of God, not growing a competitive religion. Religion and the Kingdom are not coextensive. Instead, religion killed the heir, but also figuratively continues to kill the heir by stifling the growth of the vineyard (God’s people). Because we are supposed to be co-inheritors with Christ through his righteousness which comes to us by way of faith (Romans 4:13), not religion.

Then Jesus asks what I think is a leading question:

⁴⁰ When therefore 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 let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

Their answer reveals precisely how the religious mind (and others) have come to misunderstand God, by presupposing a retributive framework for Justice. (Learn more about his HERE.) I spent several hours contemplating this verse before this nuance emerged in my understanding. Listen closely at how Jesus answers this question:

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 marvelous in our eyes’?

Why would Jesus ask religious leaders: “Have you never read the scriptures?“ unless their answer is completely wrong? Just because this text says “God will avenge those wretches…” The indicative here DOES NOT make this a description of how God acts..but a description of how religion assumes God acts. Jesus quotation of David helps us here. Jesus is saying “It’s like you’ve never readPsalm 118:22-23.” In this Psalm (the very center of the Bible) God’s steadfast love which endures forever is front and center, He is the God of salvation and His plan of salvation for all people is incomprehensible to retributive justice.

Religion got God wrong. He’s not about revenge…it’s marvelous, it’s about restoration for all (salvation)! As a result of getting the justice of God so fundamentally wrong, Jesus continues:

⁴³ Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 

Retribution is not how God acts, because retribution is how the evil people in the story act…it’s how religion acts. So long as a person’s understanding of justice is retribution, they will never possess the kingdom of God, where justice is based in restoration.

⁴⁴ And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

Just for the “A” student…overachievers…check out the correlation in the Hebrew Scriptures of Genesis 3:15:

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
    and you shall bruise his heel.”

Jesus is saying that religion is no longer the renter of God’s people, it no longer has jurisdiction, authority, or the means to grow God’s people, and it’s not the means to access the Kingdom of God. God has (aĩro-taken it away, carried it away, lifted it up, withdrawn it) from religion, and given it to (ẽthnos/ěthen– nations/heathens) causing results. Imagine that, the Kingdom of God taken from the religion who should know better and given to the irreligious.

Ever met a non-believer who possessed more love of others than a church? This is living proof.

How did Christianity conclude that God took the kingdom away from Judaism and gave it to Christianity, but cannot accept the Kingdom is taken from Christianity and given to all comers as the scripture clearly says?

The Hebrew prophets, David, Jesus, and early church fathers all claim Jesus is this cornerstone, the hewn rock that sets the entire structure in line, who shores up the foundation of everything which builds upon it. This Kingdom (to be entered and built) begins in the restorative justice of Psalm 118. “The Steadfast love of the Lord endures forever.” And the nuance Jesus offers is that anyone, by any means of possessing it, will be (sunthláo–destroyed, shattered to pieces, or (likmáo-crushed by destructive pressure).

No one enters it whole. It wrecks us all. It ruins any sense of pride, self autonomy, stature or status as part of an institution, it takes everyone to their bottom, we’re each restored from our rubble. We know we have understood Easter when we welcome our ruin, our destruction, our death, because these are the result of impacting the cornerstone of Christ, instead of being puffed up with religious knowledge.

“When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them.“

If in the midst of the Easter story, Jesus is essentially divorcing religion, how did Easter become an invitation into an alternative religion? If Christ has taken the kingdom from religion and given to the heathens producing results, what does that say about our big Easter pageants and other claims? I invite you to share this with your pastors and see if they will lead their congregations into the ruin of the Cornerstone. Or if Easter will just be another sin-management seminar.

May we all be completely ruined this Easter so that we can be rebuilt in the steadfast love of God.