has become the cornerstone;
What stones are we rejecting?
How much control do we demand for our construction projects?
Are we willing to do our part and entrust the rest to God? If not, we might be engaged in vanity projects more than mission.
This vineyard is where God calls us to work. It is the vineyard he himself plants and defends. Even though he chooses to work through us, and in that sense leaves on journey, that does not mean that we can forget about his plan and purpose for the vineyard. We can't try to keep the fruit for ourselves. This is the first step in the wrong direction. This is where we try to use the pleasures and good things of this world without reference to the one who gives them and their true purpose. This first step quickly leads to more where we become abusive toward fellow servants. We eventually can't stand to hear the messengers God sends. We kill them in our hearts, still somehow hoping to keep the inheritance for ourselves.
God is calling Tobiah and his family to use the stones of feeding the poor and burying the dead. He is calling them to build with the corporal works of mercy. They are threatened when they do these things. Society calls them to reject these stones. But they realize that the house they are building is the LORD's house. They will not reject the stones which he desires.
The neighbors mocked me, saying to one another:
“He is still not afraid!
Once before he was hunted down for execution
because of this very thing;
yet now that he has scarcely escaped,
here he is again burying the dead!”
Tobiah and his father are blessed because they fear the LORD. Since they do not reject the building materials the LORD supplies they themselves become living stones in the temple of the LORD. They become a light to those around them revealing the goodness of God.
Light shines through the darkness for the upright
They do not keep the fruit for themselves, because "by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes". It is wonderful indeed.
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