TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Isaiah 5: 1-7; Philippians 4: 6-9; Matthew 21: 33-43

(Rev. Dr. Francis Perry Azah)

On this Sunday, Isaiah tells us a parable about a vineyard, its owner, and wild or bad grapes. The vineyard is the Israelites; the owner is God who cares for them; and the wild or bad grapes are the results of the harvest: the numerous infidelities of the Israelites. God is always faithful, and the Israelites are often unfaithful. God is deeply disappointed with the Israelites. And Isaiah may be asking you and me: Is God also disappointed with us? How faithful are we to our baptismal promises? Do we try to do our best as we go about our daily routine? Paul, in his letter to the community at Philippi in Greece, challenges us not to be anxious about our lives but to make our needs known to God in prayer. Focus on what is honorable, true, and good. Paul is asking you and me to do the same: focus on what is honorable, true, and good.

In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus tells a parable similar to Isaiah’s story. On one level, we see how the tenants will stop at nothing to get what they want: the vineyard. On another level, Jesus describes his mission in life: to open up the doors to eternal life for all humankind. The property owner is God; the servants are the prophets of Ancient Israel; the son is Jesus; and the tenants are the Israelites who often mistreated the prophets and murdered the son. The point of this story is simple enough: Jesus invites into the kingdom of God only those who do what is right and true and good; only those who not only have the right relationship with God but also the right relationship with one another.

Delving more into today’s parable, the Gospel depicts God as a landowner who prepared a beautiful vineyard and gives it to his people to tend. When harvest time came, he sent his servants twice, but they killed them all. It is because the people wanted not just their share of the harvest, but the whole thing. The vineyard is again Israel; the planters the Jews; the messengers, the prophets and leaders to His people to lead them back to Him; but they rejected and killed them often. Lastly, he sent his son because he presumed that they would respect him, but they killed him too. He knew already what was happening, and yet he still sent his son. That is because God’s love for us is without condition. But as a consequence, the Jewish race lost its vineyard, which was given to the “pagans”, that is, we who have received the faith of Jesus.

This parable is also a warning to us Christians and for each one of us personally. Is our being a Christian just fulfilling minimum obligations, like going to Sunday Mass and receiving Holy Communion? Is being married contented only with merely doing the minimum duties? This parable is a warning to us because, as Christians, we must accept God’s messengers, prophets, teachers, the hierarchy itself, and the Pope and anyone who helps us read the signs of the times and see in them the loving hand of God who urges us to produce “good fruits. These signs would immediately pinpoint areas of deep trouble in our weak faith: immorality in the family, corruption in the government, and scandalous injustices from top to bottom in our society today. We cannot afford to be complacent and rest on our traditional forms of piety, hoping that being Christians will give us salvation. The Jewish people were deeply religious too and yet lost the Kingdom because their fruits were nowhere to be found. Being a true Christian means not saying, “I have not done anything wrong”. The right question for a Christian is not: what we have not done wrong, but what we do or can do right.

What the Gospel passage reports challenges the way we think and act. It particularly challenges the people who have received the Gospel proclamation. If we look at history, we are often obliged to register the coldness and rebellion of inconsistent Christians. As a result of this, although God never failed to keep his promise of salvation, he often had to resort to punishment. In this context, it is natural to think of the first proclamation of the Gospel, from which sprang Christian communities that initially flourished but then disappeared, and are today remembered only in history books. Might not the same thing happen in our time? Nations once rich in faith and vocations are now losing their identity under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture.

There are some who, having decided that "God is dead", declare themselves to be "god"; they consider themselves the only architect of their own destiny, the absolute owner of the world. By ridding himself of God and not expecting salvation from him, man believes he can do as he pleases and make himself the sole judge of himself and his own actions. However, when man eliminates God from his horizon, declares God "dead", he is not really happy. He is not really freer. When men proclaim themselves the absolute proprietors of themselves and the sole masters of creation, they truly cannot build a society where freedom, justice and peace prevail. It happens instead - as the daily news amply illustrates - the opposite: arbitrary power, selfish interests, injustice, exploitation, and violence in all its forms increase.

In the end, man finds himself lonelier, and society is more divided and bewildered. Yet there is a promise in Jesus' words: the vineyard will not be destroyed. While the unfaithful laborers abandon their destiny, the owner of the vineyard does not lose interest in his vineyard and entrusts it to other faithful servants, to his son. Jesus assures that his death will not mean God's defeat. After being killed, he will not remain in the tomb; on the contrary, precisely what seems to be a total defeat will mark the beginning of a definitive victory. The comforting message we gather from these biblical texts is the certainty that evil and death do not have the last word, but that Christ wins in the end.

The Gospel parable reminds us that God is very patient with us and very generous too. But God is also just and won't give us endless time to produce the fruits God wants. So, are there areas in our lives where God has been exceedingly patient? Towards the end of today’s Gospel, we have Jesus quoting Psalm 118: “It was the stone rejected by the builders that became the keystone. This was the Lord’s doing, and it is wonderful to see”. What a profound statement. What a great lesson for us. Today's Gospel message reminds us that all of us are talented. All of us possess amazing and powerful qualities. All of us, given the right encouragement and direction, can make a difference in our lives and in the lives of others. In our relationship with the Lord, we can never give him all he is due, but we can live in acknowledgment of his right to ask of us anything, even our very own lives.