Scripture reading: Matthew 21:42-45
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 amazing in our eyes ”?
43Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.* 44The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’*
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them.
Sermon Title: "BROKEN OR CRUSHED?" Sunday, March 30, 2008
PASTOR HUDSON: This is one of Jesus's
more pointed biblical texts where he is talking about
stewardship as it pertains to the fruitfulness of our
lives.
Now, please do not think money, okay? We do understand
that our finances are a part of our stewardship, but I
don't want you to lock in on that aspect, but think
comprehensively about being fruitful in your personal
life of discipleship.
The gospels speak to that image very clearly and
rather frequently all the way back to John the Baptist
when he said these words, “Bring forth fruit in keeping
with a repentant attitude.”
The word "fruitfulness" became fundamental to
both the ministry of John the Baptist and the ministry
of Jesus and on into the ministry of the disciples and
the apostles. Jesus would say it with a little
different language, but with the same imagery of
fruitfulness.
In today’s passage, Jesus said the kingdom of God
is going to be taken away from you and given to a
people who will produce its fruit. So it's
appropriate to ask ourselves today this fundamental
question as we begin to look at this text, How am I
fruitful as a disciple of Jesus Christ?
Have you ever heard somebody say in response to a
question about what they do for Jesus, oh, I don't
have any gifts. I don't have any ministry. I'm just
here. I don't do anything. You may not have yet
found what you should be doing.
A couple of hundred years ago that was the
fundamental litmus test for Methodist preachers. To
this day, the examining questions and that overarching
process that clergy go through contains the question,
Do they have fruit in their lives consistent with a
call from God to be a clergy? Rest-assured when that
question is asked by the examining committee, that is
no time to say something like, I don't really have any
ministry. This will not go well with the bishop or the
board of ordained ministry.
If we're confronting the question of what our fruit is,
and we're coming up short in the sense that we cannot
really put our finger on what it is about our life
that is fruitful for God, we've got some work to do.
Now how does that work take place? Verse 44
gives us an interesting paradox. The imagery, as I
understand this text, is positive in one sense and
negative in the other. Number one, he says I'm going
to take the kingdom away and I'm going to give it to a
people who will produce fruit, and know this, that the
one who falls on this stone, that is in essence, the
stone of the kingdom, will be broken to pieces, but
the one on whom the stone falls will be crushed. Now
as I worked this text, that's where our title, broken
or crushed, comes from.
Let's deal with the positive first. The truth is
when you think about stewardship and fruitfulness in
the life of the kingdom, there is a painful process
that goes with that. A few years ago, I was going to
catch a plane and fly into Lexington, Kentucky. We
had an ice storm, and there was a horrible sheet of
ice all over our driveway at the parsonage. As I
walked out onto the driveway, suddenly my feet just
shot out from under me. It was almost comedic. Now
please understand, I wasn't laughing, but I'm sure anybody else
that saw it was laughing.
I had a cup of coffee in one hand and a box of
stuff I was putting in the car in the other. I walked
out onto this ice, and quicker than I could think, my
feet shot out, the coffee went up in the air, the box
went the other direction, and I landed flat on my back
on that concrete slab-- Cracked two or three ribs.
I laid there trying to figure out how do I was going to cope
with a combination of having the wind knocked out of
me, and the agony of cracked ribs. I had this
ugly mental image that somebody was going to have to
come and help me up and that was the only thing that
made it possible for me to overcome the pain, get up,
and say, all right, I've maintained at least some
shred of dignity.
It was a broken experience. Many of you have
been down that road in some way or another, and you
know when you fall on the rock, it is painful. How
can that possibly be positive for Jesus? I believe
that Jesus's imagery is that out of the brokenness
comes something that is positive.
The truth of the matter is in our spiritual walk
with Christ, the very fact that we come to Christ
initially for most of us has to do with an effort to
deal with the brokenness that is a part of our life.
It is a process of breaking, no longer being Mr.
Strong Guy or Ms. Strong Woman, but coming and saying
I can't do this on my own, I need Jesus Christ. There
is some pain in that.
You see, many of us need to be broken in the area
of our stewardship and our fruitfulness in life.
We've not let that fall on the rock. Again, don't
think money, think ministry, think response to Christ.
Think about what you're doing in all dimensions and
aspects of your life. Fall on the rock.
Now here is the other half, the crushed part,
that's the part in the passage where Jesus says that
if the kingdom falls on you, you're crushed. If we
are not willing to fall on the kingdom and let it
break us and change us and renew us, it may fall on
us, crush us, and the day may come when it will no
longer be about the kingdom because someone else
somewhere will say yes to that ministry.
How often over the years have you found yourself
hearing something about, oh, this great opportunity or
that great opportunity? I remember reading a George
Mason column one time and thinking about how true this
image is.
George Mason wrote about imagining a day
that to come when you could open up a little kiosk
and sell really atrocious coffee for outrageous
prices. You wouldn't give free refills. You'd make
people clean up after themselves, and people would
flock out to buy your product. At that time the thought was, Are
you kidding? Then along comes these people from the
great northwest called Starbucks. The Starbucks by my
house has a line of cars in the drive-thru every day.
Sometimes the things of God's kingdom are the
same way. We say that won't work, that can't happen,
until suddenly someone falls on the kingdom, falls on
the rock, is broken, they're renewed, and the next
thing you know, somewhere across town somebody is
doing the very thing that we said God would not do.
Think of the things about Wesley that you love
the most. Make your mental list: These are the
attributes. These are the characteristics. These are
the things I love about this church the most. Is it
not true that most, if not all of them, have to do
with Wesley people being fruitful for Jesus Christ?
I challenge us. Let's make this year one of the
most fruitful stewardship years. Think ministry in
all of its varied dimensions. Let's make this a
fruitful year for Wesley. In the name of the Father,
Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.