(Homily 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Yr .A)
The
unprecedented message of today revolves around the parable of rejected love,
God’s kindness and the human and the cosmological ingratitude. The recurrent themes in today’s readings,
especially the first reading and the Gospel are love and ingratitude, fidelity
verses infidelity. God is coherent and faithful to his words, but man is
not. The imagery of the vineyard was used to drive home the point. In the first
reading prophet Isaiah presents the canticle on the vineyard of his friend,
even in the responsorial psalm we heard the prayer on the vineyard: “God
Sabaoth, come back, we pray, look down from heaven and see, visit this vine;
protect what your own hand has planted” (Ps.
80:14-15). The first reading and the
Gospel present the parable of a rejected love, while St. Paul in the second
reading gives us clues on how to remain in this love and bear fruits.
In
the first reading (Is. 5:1-7) we are
presented with the canticle of the vineyard, which was composed by Isaiah at
the early part of his prophetic ministry. The prophet talks about a vineyard
owned by his friend, the vineyard was situated on a fertile hillside. His
friend for love of his vineyard, dug the soil, cleared it of stones, and
planted the choicest vines. He even built traditional watchtower and installed
the typical wine press. After all this,
he naturally anticipated a rich and abundant harvest. Instead he got wild
grapes. At the heart of this
canticle we could feel the pain of a broken heart who breaks his silence in
anger. More than that, it is an
anthropomorphic illustration of the disappointment God feels in his people who
have not acted justly and with compassion to the lowly and oppressed.
Little wonder, towards the end of the canticle, the last stanza equates the
aforementioned vineyard allegorically with Israel, and as an expression of
God’s judgment on his people. The message of the first reading serves almost as the prophesy
of the Gospel passage. God had his vineyard on a fertile hill, he cleaned and
cleared it of stones, he even built watchtower in the midst of it (to ensure
there is security), but instead of producing grapes, it produced wild grape.
What a disappointment? Let us not be a disappointment to God. The underlining message is that God expects fruits from each vine in
His Vineyard. We are called to yield a harvest of kind thoughts and good
deeds.
Equally
in the Gospel passage (Mt. 21:33-43)
allegory was used especially with
particular reference to the Christological upgrading of the son, as Jesus
Christ, and the murder as the crucifixion. The parable of the homicide
tenants that is presented to us today from the version of Mathew is collocated
in the contest of the ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem, few days before his
passion. And it is a strong warning to
the people of Israel to be conscious of the grave responsibility for rejecting
the salvation offered by God, through His Son, Jesus Christ. In the parable
narrated in the Gospel, the tenants did not worry about the consequences of
their actions. The landowner sends for his rent; and the tenants beat, stone
and kill the messengers. They were thieves, stealing from the landowner. They
felt nothing will happen. In the story that Jesus narrated, the landowner
represents God the Father; the tenants are the people of Israel and those who
ignore God.
The beginning of the parable is connected
with the allegory of prophet Isaiah, about “the canticle of the vineyard”, in
which the prophet emphasized on the love and the care that were shown to the
beloved vineyard, the people of Israel, by the owner of the vineyard himself,
God. In fact, to express the density of love and care He has demonstrated, He
asked “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?” (Is.5:4). The prophecy of Isaiah presents the vineyard as a symbol of the people
of God (Israel), a well cultivated and planted vineyard, from which God was
expecting an abundant harvest, instead it produced sour grapes. The Parable
of Jesus instead has as protagonist tenants, to whom the Landowner entrusted
his vineyard, after planting and securing the vineyard he travelled to another country, this indeed, is a
wonderful sign of love and trust, and that is what God does for us. But when
that stipulated time came, the landowner sent his servants to get the fruits
of the vineyard but the servants got an aggressive response from the tenants.
They had one beaten, killed another and yet another was stoned. Afterwards, the
landowner now decided to send his only son, hoping that they will respect him.
Contrary to the thinking of the landowner, the tenants saw the killing of the
son as an ocassion and a possible means of having complete ownership of the
vineyard. And the Jesus asks: “When the landowner comes what will he do
to those tenants?”. He will “make them to die miserably and he will give the
vineyard to other tenants that will give him the fruit of the harvest at the
proper time”, this was the response of the listeners of Jesus, the chief
priests and the elders of the people. And Jesus concludes saying, “Therefore I
tell you, the Kingdom of heaven will be taking away from you and it will be
given to a people that will make it to bear fruit” (Mt.21:43). Remember his words in John. 15:16: “I chose you from the world to go and bear fruit,
fruit that will last”.
The wicked tenants represent the people of Israel, who rejected the
messengers of God (the prophets) and even killed the Son, and as such attracted
upon themselves divine punishment, for “the vineyard will be taken and given to
other tenants”. The chosen people will
no longer be only the people of Israel, because she failed in her mission and
calling. They are like those described by Jeremiah, “For my people have
committed two crimes: they have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and
dug water-tanks for themselves, cracked water-tanks that hold no water” (Jer. 2:13). Secondly, the tenants represents all of us who are brought into this earth by God
for the purpose of bearing fruits: “be fruitful, multiply and fill the
earth” (Gen.1:28). This parable
serves as a reminder to us that our stay here on earth is temporary. Are we
bearing fruits in due season? When we do not work for the development of God’s
Kingdom and when we do not live respecting the teachings of Christ, the values
and the virtues he brought to us, we are like those wicked tenants.
And
who are the “other tenants”, that will “give the fruits at their proper time”,
the new people that will fructify the Kingdom? It is the messianic people, the Church formed by Jews and pagans
together. The true Israel, the true chosen people or people of God will be
constituted by all those that truly obey God, that do his will and welcome his
Son (cf. Jn. 1:11-12). God as the
landowner has done everything to make this a wonderful world for us to live in.
So we have to ask ourselves: How can we be good tenants? What do we do to show
appreciation to this God that loves us so much? First and foremost, we are
called to be custodians, good tenants of God’s vineyard.
Furthermore, we can read the stories on the vineyard (first reading and
Gospel) in two different ways, from the
historical or narrative dimension and from the dimension of its actuality.
Even though, the second approach is of more interest to us, but we need the
first in order to grasp the second. Historically the vineyard that is being
thought about is the Jewish people. God chose them, He liberated them from
Egypt and led them to the Promised Land, he planted them in the Promised Land
like a vine. He gave her all necessary cares, but instead of producing vine, it produced
wild grapes. It paid God back with disobbedience, infidelty and betrayal.This
was the story the Psalmist revoked in the responsorial psalm. The chosen people abandoned the ways of the
Lord, instead of producing the fruits of justice and faithfulness; they paid
God back with disobedience, disappointment and infidelity. Just as Isaiah
affirmed in the first reading: “He expected justice, but found bloodshed”. Till today this bloodshed continues in
variegated forms.
In the parable of Jesus, the story of the vineyard becomes more
transparent. In its actuality, it is
the history of the people of Israel and our own history too, we are the new
people the Lord has entrusted the vineyard to. The
vine pressers (tenants) rebelled against the landowner, not the vineyard (like
in the first reading). Here, men rebelled and not the land. What will God do?
In the first reading, Isaiah says God will destroy the vineyard. The psalmist
described God’s destruction of the vineyard, as manifested in the fall of
Jerusalem and the exilic experience. But
Jesus in the parable does not speak about destruction of the vineyard. It is
not only the promises of God that will change, but also the recipients. The
Kingdom of God, the vineyard remains but it will be given to another people. It
is indeed an allusion to the destiny of the people of Israel: having rejected
the prophets and killed “the Son”, they will be substituted with another
people. And indeed, the Good News is that the new people that the Kingdom of
God has been entrusted to are we Christians.
We
are now, in a particular sense, the vineyard of the Lord. Here begins the
actual dimension of the parable. The deeper significance of the word of God for
us today will be found in the Gospel of John thus: “I am the vine, you are the
branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut
off from me you can do nothing” (Jn.
15:5). The
condition of bearing fruit is remaining
in Him. God has planted each and everyone of us where we are today, what type
of fruit am I bearing? We can
personalize the message of the parable and see ourselves as the vineyard of
Lord, and ask ourselves, what type of fruit do I produce? Or as tenants
that God has placed incharge of his vineyard, are we like those wicked tenants
or we are good tenants? We are sometimes like the wicked tenants who killed the
only son of the landowner. We are like them when we hear the word of God and
refuse to allow it to become relevant and fruitful in our lives. We kill the servants and the only son when
we wilfully stifle the truth. How are we living as the new chosen
people of God? If we do not live in faithfulness and justice before God, there
is a risk for us Christians today, as individual and as a group, and that is
the danger of losing the vineyard (God’s Kingdom) St. Paul one day after seeing
the resistance of the Jews in accepting the message of Salvation exclaimed:
“here and now we turn to the gentiles” (Acts 13:46). Are there not some
tendencies of the rejection of the Son in us or in our society today? We too may lose the vineyard!
For St. Mathew there is a precise time for
producing fruits, and our Christian life implies also the ability to respect
the quantity of time at our disposition, it is not unlimited, because we are
journeying towards judgment, and the fruits expected of us will be that of
Charity, on which the final judgment will be based (cf. Mt. 25:31-46). This in deed is an important admonition to the
Church, to the Christian communities and to each and every one of us.
In the second reading (Phil.4:6-9) St. Paul assures us that nothing can
destroy the peace and joy of a Christian, if he remains united to God through
prayer. He gives us a list of virtues that Christians must imbibe in their
lives in order to bear good fruit, a vine planted by God that bears fruit at
the proper time and season, and he says: “finally, brothers, let your minds be
filled with everything that is true, everything that is honourable, everything
that is upright and pure, everything that we love and admire – with whatever is
good and praiseworthy” (v.8) but
not only this, he invited them to the imitation of those virtues they have seen
in him: “Keep doing everything you learnt from me and were told by me and have
heard or seen me doing” (v.9). He
presented himself as a real model for them. Again in 1Cor. 11:1 he courageously invites “be my imitators, as I am of
Christ”. With our minds focused on God,
we will be good tenants.
The parable reveals that our God is a God
who trusts his workers, he trusts us. He creates possibilities for us. But
do we recognize and appreciate the opportunities and the resources God has
placed in our hands or has used to bless us? Are we responding responsibly to
God’s kindness or we are like the wicked tenants? Indeed, our God is a patient
God, like the landowner who sent several servants to collect the produce from
his vineyard, God also seemingly gives us chance after chance to respond to his
unique call to us. Do we recognize and appreciate the patience of God? Or we
take God’s patience for granted? Do we recognize the impending judgment of God?
Jesus ended his parable with a warning thus: He will put those wretched men to
a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants.” The bad and wicked
tenants will lose the Kingdom, for God will give His Kingdom to those who will
produce fruits. We cannot but conclude with the words of the Psalmist in the
responsorial Psalm thus: “We shall never forsake you again; give us life that
we may call upon your name”. O Lord , help us to bear good fruits, fruits that
will last and stand the test of time and eternity! Amen!!
(Fr. Vitus M.C. Unegbu, SC)
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