October 04, 2020
27th Sunday Ordinary
Wildfires threaten the wine region in Napa Valley, California. I have been to this area to see the vineyards. The beautiful weather late in September is delightful (bright sky, warm days, cool evenings). Visitors taste local wines during visits to the wineries and then enjoy wine in evenings with their meals. It is difficult to take in the fast-moving fires, the evacuation of people and the burning of structures and vines.
Vineyards and wine were very much a part of the landscape and way of life in ancient Israel and Judah. Isaiah, the great Jewish prophet, sings “of my friend, my friend’s song concerning his vineyard.” His friend is God! God tends the fertile hillside, spades the soil, clears the stones, and plants choicest vines. His friend builds a watchtower, hews out a wine press and waits with anticipation for the harvest “but what it yields is wild grapes!” Isaiah sings of his friend’s sadness and disappointment, and of what will befall his vineyard: the hedge will be removed; the land trampled; overgrown with thorns and briers; and rains will not come. The “Song of the Vineyard” is a Country Western ballad of God’s lament and judgment on the house of Israel and people of Judah. His chosen people have failed to be faithful to the covenant and now are led into exile.
In our Gospel, Jesus tells the song of Isaiah as a parable with lyrics directed against the chief priests and elders. Jesus speaks of the “landowner” sending servants and then his son to obtain his produce from the tenants. The tenants react with violence and even the landowner’s son is killed. Jesus ends the parable with a question: “What will the landowner do?” They answer: “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.”
The Song of Isaiah expresses God’s disappointment with the Jewish people at the time of the Exile into Babylon. The Parable of Jesus conveys Jesus’ frustration with the Chief Priests and Elders who are rejecting his preaching and marvelous deeds inaugurating the Kingdom of Heaven. The Parable of Jesus is retold and remembered by Matthew, the Evangelist, to warn baptized Christians, both Jew and Gentile, of their responsibility to be faithful to what they have received in Christ. The gift of faith that they/we have received must be lived. As St. Paul writes to the Philippians: “Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you.”
Is God disappointed in us who claim to follow his Son Jesus Christ? Have we been faithful to our baptismal promises? Today is Respect Life Sunday. We will be Standing for Life on our property near the Statue of Mary from 2 PM until 3 PM giving peaceful witness to the sanctity of human life in the womb and the ensuing chapters of life until we die. The Song/Parable of the Vineyard reminds us that we are stewards of God’s creation. We are provisional caretakes. Christ’s caregivers
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25th Sunday Ordinary
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26th Sunday Ordinary
