27th
Ordinary Sunday (Year A)
First
Reading: Isaiah 5:1-7
Second Reading:
Philippians 4:6-9 Gospel
Reading: Matthew 21:33-43
“THE
STONE THAT THE BUILDERS REJECTED HAS BECOME THE CORNERSTONE!”
George
Campbell Morgan, a renowned English preacher and a Bible scholar, was
one of 150 young men who sought entrance to the Wesleyan ministry in
1888. He easily passed the doctrinal examinations, but then had to
face the trial sermon. In a cavernous auditorium that could seat more
than 1,000 sat three ministers and 75 others who came to listen. When
Morgan stepped into the pulpit, the vast room and the searching,
critical eyes caught him up short. Two weeks later Morgan's name
appeared among the l05 REJECTED for the ministry that year. He wired
to his father the one word, 'Rejected,'
and sat down to write in his
diary: 'Very dark everything
seems. Still, He knoweth best.'
Quickly came the reply from his dad: 'Rejected
on earth. Accepted in heaven.' In
later years, Morgan said: “God
said to me, in the weeks of loneliness and darkness that followed, 'I
want you to cease making plans for yourself, and let Me plan your
life.'”
Rejection is rarely
permanent, as Morgan went on to prove. Even in this life,
circumstances change, and ultimately, there is no rejection of those
accepted by Christ.
Today
is the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Now,
there are striking similarities between the First Reading of today
from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah and the Gospel Reading from St.
Matthew. They both focus on the same subject, viz. 'the
Lord's Vineyard and the Vine'
in different ways and
underline
the necessity of bearing 'good
fruit.'
Failure
to produce good fruits ultimately leads to 'rejection.'
In
the
First Reading,
we hear about 'the
Song of the Vineyard.'
In the song Isaiah describes God as the owner of a beautiful vineyard
that has been carefully tended. The owner does everything possible to
produce a healthy crop of grapes. But he winds up with sour wild
grapes. The prophet warns the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah that
they, the vine, will be abandoned
(rejected) by God because of their injustice and non-observance of
the Law. In
the
Gospel Reading
we hear about 'the
Parable of the Wicked Tenants.'
Here
too, the vineyard stands for God's people but the criticism is
directed at the tenants rather than the vineyard itself. It is not
difficult to see that the owner of the vineyard is God. The tenants
are of course those who exercise moral authority viz. the chief
priests and the elders of the people. The owner first sends his
servants, then finally his son to collect the harvest. Instead, the
tenants seize, beat, stone and even kill them all. The
obvious meaning of the parable is completed by the rejection
of the tenants and the giving of the vineyard to those who are
prepared to work in the vineyard to produce good fruit.
The chief priests and the elders, those to whom the parable is told,
fully understand that the parable is attacking them. The
Second Reading
from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians is joyful in tone. It
seems that the Christians of Philippi have produced fruits that
correspond to the Gospel. St. Paul exhorts them to keep striving for
all that is good and holy. In this way they need
have no anxieties and the God of peace will be with them.
“THE
SONG OF THE VINEYARD.”
The
Prophet Isaiah, was a royal adviser in the southern Kingdom of Judah.
During his ministry (740-701 BC) the northern Kingdom of Israel was
conquered and dominated by the Assyrian Empire. While the northern
kingdom fell, the southern kingdom, too, was in serious political,
religious, and social decline. The fundamental issue is that both
leaders and population were in denial of reality, injustices
prevailed among them and they were unfaithful to the covenant with
God. They embraced political and religious ideology, rather than the
good sense of truthfulness and integrity.
It is in this background that we hear
about 'the
Song of the Vineyard,'
in
the First Reading of today.
The
unit is a skillfully developed parable, reminiscent of popular Hebrew
love poetry, but with a savage ending that forces the hearer to
conclude that the nation is deserving of divine wrath. In
the song Isaiah describes God as the owner of a beautiful vineyard
that has been carefully laid out and cared for. The owner does
everything possible to make his vineyard fertile and productive, but
at the end he gets only sour wild grapes. The prophet warns the
inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah that they, the vine, will be
abandoned
(rejected) by God because of their injustice and non-observance of
the Law. It
is a parable of tragedy and the metaphor is announcing divine
displeasure of the most serious sort. Isaiah is insinuating that the
conquering army of the Assyrian Empire was God’s tool of punishment
for the Jewish failure at fidelity to the covenant with God. Isaiah
maintains the connection between the two kingdoms, Israel and Judah,
so that this tragic exhortation is
relevant to and aimed at the southern kingdom of Judah, as well as to
Israel.
“THE
PARABLE OF THE WICKED TENANTS.”
In
the Gospel Reading of today from St. Matthew, we hear about 'the
Parable of the Wicked Tenants,'
which
also appears with some variations in other Synoptic Gospels that of
St. Mark and St. Luke, and which is
the third
of the three consecutive parables
about vineyards
presented to us in the context of the Kingdom of God. St. Matthew
inserts today’s story of the vineyard as second
in another series of three consecutive parables called 'the
Parables of Rejection'
that details Jesus' controversy with the chief priests and the
elders of the people. All these three parables are primarily
addressed to the Jewish authorities and are meant to express their
deep hypocrisy and their ultimate refusal and rejection of Jesus as
the Messiah and the message of his Gospel. As it appears in Matthew's
version, the story has become more of an allegory than a true
parable. A parable normally presents one lesson and the details are
not relevant; while, in an allegory, each detail of the story has a
symbolic meaning. However, the Evangelist's point here is a stern
warning to his own community, the present tenants of the vineyard,
not to fail in their responsibility to 'yield
a rich harvest.'
Also, the reminder that divine justice and judgment will ultimately
prevail is a message for every generation of believers.
Let's
firstly set the Gospel parable within the context of its time. In
those days, the landlords commonly lived far away from their
land-holdings. It
was not unusual for a rich man to plant such a vineyard and then
leave it in the care of tenants for
a fee or a percentage of the produce, while
he pursued his business affairs.
The trouble with this arrangement arose because the relationship
between the landlords and their tenants often bordered on ruthless
extortion. One
can imagine how, with the passage of time, the landowner's rights
might be disputed. The tenants might well come to see the vineyard as
theirs and the landowner would be forced to reassert his rights.
Given
such a lop-sided deal, it was understandable that the tenants
behaved the way they did - killed the landowner’s agents and
finally the heir to the estate.
Now, the same
theme as in the First Reading is taken up in the Gospel Reading. Like
God in the Prophet Isaiah's 'the
Song of the Vineyard,'
St. Matthew's landowner did the same to his vineyard. But instead of
tending it himself, he leased it to some tenants and went on a
journey. When harvest time came, he sent his servants to collect his
due. But the tenants seized, beat and killed them. He sent more
servants but they suffered the same fate. Finally, he sent his only
son. When they saw him, they said to each other, "This
is the heir. Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance."
And they did. Moreover, unlike in the First Reading, in the Gospel
Reading the charge is leveled not against the failed produce, but the
tenants, those temporarily in charge of the vineyard who failed to
recognize the owner and his son. The chief priests and the elders,
those to whom the parable is addressed, have no difficulty in
recognizing the outrageous
wickedness of the tenants towards the vineyard’s owner.
The interpretation of the
parable may be done on two levels: First, and more
obvious is that God is the landowner who planted the vineyard. He
chose the people of Israel and made them tenants in His vineyard. But
they disappointed their God. Throughout their history as God’s
chosen people they have consistently produced the sour grapes of
infidelity to their God and frequently killed the prophets sent to
them to call them back to their allegiance. Now they have added to
this list the refusal to hear the Word of God brought to them by
Jesus. By
hanging Jesus on the cross, by killing the Son, they think they have
put paid to this inconvenient householder, this landlord, to God
himself. Second,
this obvious meaning of the parable is completed (concluded) by the
giving of the vineyard to others who hear the Word and are prepared
to work in the vineyard to produce good fruit. Jesus makes it clear
that this is not an end to the matter. The message of the Gospel is
for all times and applicable in every age. Hence, the less obvious
message in this parable is - “The
kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will
produce its fruit.”
BEARING
ABUNDANT SPIRITUAL FRUITS:
In
the Second Reading of today from his Letter to the Philippians, St.
Paul encourages the Christian community at Philippi to
respond to God's loving initiative by letting their faith in Christ
bear
abundant fruit
in daily life.
He
advices
them to strive towards whatever is true, honorable, just, pure,
lovely and gracious. In a sense, this is the kind of 'fruitfulness'
that Saint Paul wanted the Christian community to grow into.
By
instilling in them the necessity of prayer and the importance of
virtues, he wants them to relish the peace of God, a fruit of the
Spirit and a gift that surpasses human understanding. So, he tells
them not to worry or be anxious about anything, but to always pray
with gratitude and put all their worries and anxieties into the hands
of God with confidence and conviction; then the God of peace will be
with them. Prayer
implies, in addition to gratitude, a perfect submission to the will
of God. God is greater than all our troubles and can give us his
peace, which is beyond anything we can come up with on our own. Still
in view of letting the faithful experience the God of peace, St. Paul
thus exhorts the community of believers to put into practice what
they have learned and received, the words they have heard from
him and the actions they have seen in him.
CONCLUSION:
Today,
we are God’s chosen people. We are the tenants in the vineyard.
Now, God calls us to produce the
fruits of the Kingdom of God that
will endure. How do we see this call? Do
we find ourselves specially privileged, by baptism, to be called to
work in the Lord’s vineyard? How well,
have we received the message of the Lord, when time and again we are
invited to gather together to hear the Gospel and to make it part of
our lives? Also, it is just as easy for us in these times to fail to
recognize the voice of God in the messengers He sends us, just as
the Jewish authorities of Jesus' time failed to recognize the Word of
God in him. Over the centuries many prophets in our Christian
communities have been rejected, abused and even killed. And all these
martyrs have one thing in common - they were killed not by pagans but
by fellow-Christians, the tenants in the Lord's vineyard. We can
hardly feel superior to the people Jesus is criticizing in today's
Gospel.
Again, God is
outrageously generous and gracious indeed. But aside from his
generosity, another quality of God is revealed in the Gospel parable
of today. God values faithful stewardship. Since stewardship is an
exercise in responsibility, it follows that God puts premium on our
sense of responsibility. We are responsible for our life and for
everything else that the Father has entrusted to us in this life. To
be responsible is to be accountable to somebody. The tenants in the
Gospel did not want to make accounts with the land owner. They
refused to be accountable. They had pretensions at ownership. They
wanted to enjoy the bounty of the land without accountability and
privileges without obligations.
Finally,
today we are reminded again of what the Scripture says, “The
stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” The
prophets and saints may go unheeded and God’s beloved Son may be
rejected, but God has not lost control. Tenants may go on failing,
but God does not depend on them. In the face of rejection and sin, he
is free to provide other tenants who will produce good fruit. There
is surely here an implicit warning for the new leaders of God's
people. Leadership must be about service and about nurturing God's
people. Christian history has seen its share of failures in moral
leadership but it also has no shortage of courageous saints. Today
therefore, let us all take a few moments to review our status before
God, asking ourselves if we will inherit the Kingdom of God. May the
grace of God be with each and every one of us as we assess our
spiritual status in the eyes of God. And this is the Good News of
today.
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