“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here. For previous Green Room entries, click here.
This morning’s Gospel reading is Matthew 21:33–43:
Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people:
“Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey. When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce. But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned. Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way. Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’ They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?” They answered him, “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.”
Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes? Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”
Today, we re-enter the conversation that began last week, when Jesus responded to the chief priests and elders of Israel. In that passage, the parable Jesus used explained that the kingdom of God belonged to those who obeyed the word of the Lord and took it to heart, even belatedly, not those who just nodded in agreement but did not form themselves to His will. In this parable, Jesus’ teaching becomes more pointed and foreshadows the Passion, and warns of an even greater danger to those who do not listen to the prophets and the Word.
Seen from today, the foreshadowing is obvious. Jesus predicts His own death at the hands of the Israelites, and renders His judgment on their motives. The Israelites of that time had forsaken the will of the Lord and wanted to rule in temporal fashion. God had given the Israelites the land in order for them to become priests to the world, to convert the nations through their example of piety and fidelity. In essence, they had kept the produce to themselves, and refused to act as tenants and stewards. Jesus tells them this parable in order to explain what will happen if they do not accept the word of the prophets and of the Word Incarnate.
In today’s first reading, Isaiah gives a similar warning to Israel. He sings “the song of my friend,” a landowner who did all he could to produce the best possible harvest of fine grapes (Isaiah 5:1-7):
My friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside; he spaded it, cleared it of stones, and planted the choicest vines; within it he built a watchtower, and hewed out a wine press.
Despite this, Isaiah said, the land produced nothing but wild grapes, unfit for consumption. What is to be done with this failed vineyard? “Let it be trampled,” Isaiah declared, and reveals that “my friend” is the Lord. “Yes, I will make it a ruin: it shall not be pruned or hoed, but overgrown with thorns and briers; I will command the clouds not to send rain upon it.” He gets even more explicit at the end: “The vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his cherished plant[.]”
Isaiah’s warning at the time was to highlight the danger of Israel relying on pagan nations rather than God for its security. The lack of fidelity to the Lord would lead to the destruction of Israel on more than one occasion. In today’s reading from Matthew, Jesus predicts an even more fundamental consequence for Israel — the end of its favored position with the Lord. In Isaiah, the land would become barren and overgrown, but Jesus goes one step further and warns that the land will be given to other tenants, those who will produce God’s fruit for God rather than their own fruit for themselves. After this, the path to salvation — the fruit of God’s Word — will go through the missionary church rather than the land of Israel.
It’s not just Israel that gets judged in this parable, either. We should recognize that in this parable we are all tenants in God’s creation. All of us have different circumstances, gifts, and resources, but those do not belong to us in the eternal sense. They are gifts from God to allow us to work on His behalf to the best of our abilities and circumstances. We do not need to become clerics to do this, of course, but we can exemplify the Word of God in our careers through ethical and moral conduct, by raising families that praise the Lord, and through building communities and cultures that reflect His values, rather than our own desires and amusements. This parable speaks to stewardship on all levels and at all times, even though one of its meanings was contemporaneous.
Earlier I wrote that this parable foreshadows the Passion, which is true in a literal sense, but it’s not as if Jesus had given up on converting Israel either. Seen from a contemporaneous point of view, Jesus can be seen in the role of another prophet warning the leadership of Israel of its offense to God: Nathan. When Nathan confronted David over his grievous sins regarding Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah, he told a parable of a poor man whose prize lamb had been stolen and slaughtered by a wealthy neighbor in order to get David to convict himself. David pronounces judgment, and only then does Nathan reveal the purpose of the parable to the king of Israel.
David at that point does something nearly unparalleled in prophetic history: he actually repents for his sins. After repentance and atonement, David is restored to the Lord’s favor, and Israel with him. In today’s scripture, Jesus offers the same chance to the leadership of Israel at that time, and in the same manner. Even after centuries of disobedience and revolt, God still wants to reconcile with Israel, and through Israel with the whole world. Jesus offers them that chance at the time of His ministry, but leaves us this parable through time in order for us to both recall the lesson and know of our own opportunity for repentance, atonement, and salvation.
What this tells us, along with the previous parable, is that the Lord wants us to return to Him of our own choice, and that He is willing to forgive us when we do. In order to do that, though, one must form themselves to the will of the Lord, and to His Word Incarnate. Ironically, the sacrifice of the son in this parable does not allow the tenants to inherit the land, but everyone else willing to conform themselves to the will of God.
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