27th Sunday of the Year A; October 8, 2023

 
We implore the good Lord in this holy Mass to bend our hearts in obedience to His will so that it may be said of us after our earthly sojourn: “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” Happy Sunday!

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Isaiah 5,1-7; Psalm 79 (80); Philippians 4,6-9; Matthew 21,33-43; 27th Sunday of the Year A; October 8, 2023)

 

Also on this Sunday, the liturgy of the Word leads us into the symbolic horizon of the vineyard, which returns both in the first reading and in the Gospel passage. If the protagonists of the parable of last Sunday were a father and his two sons, today the characters in today’s parable are a master and the peasants to whom he rents his vineyard.

"There was a man who owned land and he planted a vineyard on it” (Matt 21,33). The beginning of the parable is similar to the so-called Song of the vineyard which we read in Isaiah: "My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill" (Isaiah 5,1b). The prophet reminds us that the Lord really did everything possible for his vineyard. The text also expresses it through a spatial symbolism: he has dug it up and cleared it of stones; and the text of the Septuagint adds: "I surround her with a hedge", an expression taken up in Matthew's parable which quotes the Greek text, not the Hebrew one. There is a horizontal dimension here: the Lord's care horizontally surrounds his vineyard with a hedge. He then built a tower there: here is the vertical dimension of height, with a tower that rises towards the sky. Again: he had dug a vat in it. It is the dimension of a depth that goes down into the ground. The Lord's action for his vineyard went in all possible directions. Such is God's love, according to the Apostle Paul’s prayer: “May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being, rooted and grounded in charity. I pray that you may be able to understand, with all the saints, what is the breadth, length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesian 3,17-19). Despite this loving care, which seems to have expanded in every direction, from breadth to length, from height to depth, the vine's response has been nothing other than to produce unripe grapes. Hence then God's warning: "What do I still have to do to my vineyard that I have not done?" (Isaiah 5,4). Is there still anything the Lord could do? The synoptic tradition answers yes; there is still something that the Lord can do which he subsequently does: he sends his Son. But (as Matthew's parable narrates) he too meets with rejection. John will offer a further answer in his Gospel: not only does he send the Son, but the Son himself becomes the fruitful vine that allows the branches to bear ripe fruit according to the expectation of the master (cf. John 15); or rather, those fruits that fully correspond to the love with which the farmer takes care of his property. In Matthew's parable the image changes. The fruits are there, the vineyard is capable of producing good and abundant grapes; on the contrary, it is the peasants who, instead of justice and righteousness, produce violence and oppression by gradually killing the servants, until even eliminating the son. As often happens in the parables, at this point, Jesus questions his interlocutors directly, so that they are the ones to judge. This is one of the typical effects of parabolic speech: forcing someone to come out, to express a judgment without realizing that they are judging themselves. And this is what do the chief priests and the elders of the people do who, when questioned, answer: "He will bring those wicked people to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other farmers, who will deliver the fruits to him in due time" (Matt 21,41). Here is their judgment, which appears very severe and without mercy. But is God's judgment really like this? Fortunately for us, and by God's grace, the Father's judgment is different, since it remains a judgment of mercy and salvation, as Jesus recalls by quoting Psalm 118. God is able to choose what we discard and place it as a cornerstone of the building that he intends to build, which is precisely the building of his salvation offered to all. What men do in their stubborn refusal and stubborn sin; God transforms into an offer of salvation. And the vineyard will finally be able to bear the expected fruit: "The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who produce its fruits" (Matt 21,43).

One last note. We speak in this story of "heir" and “inheritance". If the heir dies, to whom does the inheritance pass? If there are no close relatives (the son in the parable is the only child, let's remember this) to whom will the master allocate his property? We can imagine those he will name in his will. So who are these "others" to whom the vineyard will go? Who are these "people" to whom the kingdom of God will be given? In the Gospel of Matthew, there are at least two significant places where inheritance is spoken of: the page of the Beatitudes in which Jesus proclaims that the meek will inherit the earth and the kingdom of God will be given to the poor (cf. Matt 5,5.3); and the parable of the final judgment in which, to those who stand at the king's right hand and who have performed gestures of love, it will be said: "Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world" (Matt 25,34). Here is the nature of the fruits that the Lord wants to make shine in his vineyard: "I was hungry and you gave me to eat". 

+ John I. Okoye.

(graphics  by charles)