The vineyard as an image of God’s kingdom occurs a number of times in the Old Testament. When he told this parable our Lord must have had today’s first reading in mind. The owner did his best to make the vineyard fertile. He gave the tenants time to produce the fruit. He sent his servants to collect the fruit or its value in money. The tenants refused to give. Notice in the first Reading the trees produced bad fruit. In the Gospel the tenants refuse to hand over the fruit, or the money, to the owner. Instead, they ill-treated and killed the servants who were sent to claim it. In the end he sent his son, and now the tenants saw their chance to make the vineyard their own, by killing the son. It seems that in reality at the time of Jesus this was legally possible. Clearly the servants in the parable are the Old Testament Prophets including John the Baptist, and the son, who is the third and last one to be sent, is Jesus thrown out of Jerusalem and killed. The ministry of Jesus is coming to an end, and the crisis, brought about by the hostility between Jesus and the Jewish authorities, is coming to a head. Jesus is showing the leaders more and more clearly that the point at issue is the acceptance or rejection by the leaders’ of the Son who has been sent by God at the end of a long line of prophets. From time to time in the past their ancestors rejected the servants; they are the ones who will reject the Son. In Matthew 23,29 Jesus says: “Alas for you Scribes and Pharisees…you who build the sepulchre of the prophets…saying, We would never have joined in shedding the blood of the prophets had we lived in our fathers’ day… you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets, Very well, then finish off the work which your fathers began.” Since the Jews reject Christ, the stone which God has chosen as the source of strength and stability in the new kingdom, the pagans will become God’s New Chosen People, because they will accept him. Let us who belong to the New Chosen People, see to it that we do not make the same mistake, and fail to produce fruit as the Old Chosen People did. And if we have already fallen into the trap let us try to get out of it.
The vine is the tree which produces grapes from which wine is made. The wine we use at Mass is wine made from grapes. Palestine was a vine growing country and the people were familiar with vineyards carefully laid out and cared for by their owners in order that they might produce good fruit. The prophet takes this as an image of God’s relationship with his people. God’s care for and interest in his people has been like that of the vine-grower and his vines. Isaiah wrote this poem about 740 B.C. and people were well aware, if not from their experience, anyhow from their tradition, of all that God had done for them especially in the call of Abraham and the Deliverance from Egypt and their settlement in the land of Cannan and their unification under David. The record of what God had done for them was passed on from generation to generation. But Israel and Judah produced sour grapes, bloodshed instead of justice amongst the people and rebellion instead of obedience to God. Through Isaiah God challenges Judah and Israel to say that he has not done enough for them. Keeping the image of the vineyard he warns them of the trouble he will allow to come on them because of their infidelity. The trouble came on Israel in 721 when Samaria was conquered by a man called Sargon, the Assyrian; and on Judah first in 597 and second in 587 when Jerusalem was besieged and then destroyed by a man called Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian. Like the members of the first Chosen People, we who are members of the New Chosen People, need to appreciate what God has done for us and respond with a life of virtue, not of vice. Our Lord must have had this passage from Isaiah in mind when he spoke the parable that is in today’s Gospel.
St. Paul exhorts the Christians of Philippi to two big things in today’s reading: to prayer and to good Christian living. And he says that these two things are necessary if we are going to be free from worry, and if we are going to live at peace in our own minds, with God and with our fellow man. It is important for us to set time aside for prayer. St. Paul reminds us that our prayer should be in the first place a prayer of praise to God for his greatness and thanks to God for his goodness to us, for his wisdom which knows what is best for us, for his love which wants what is best for us and for his power which does what is best for us; our prayer should be in the second place a prayer of petition for ourselves and for other people and we should be ready to take anything, whether it is great or small, to God in prayer. Human life is always a worrying thing and for the Philippians there was the added worry of being a Christian, Paul’s solution for worry is prayer. If we give time to prayer, God’s peace will guard our hearts like a sentinel. Indeed we can have true peace only if we have trust in God and put everything trustingly in his hands. Paul then gives the Philippians a list of things which they should set their hearts on if they are to live in a good way and enjoy the peace that comes from a right relationship with God and with other people. They must set their hearts on things which are reliable, which cannot deceive or fail or disappoint them; things that are serious and of value; duty-mindedness towards God and people; things that are fit for God to see; things that make a person attractive, like kindness and sympathy and patience and cheerfulness; things that are fit for God to hear; things that as pagans they considered to be good qualities in a person; things for which people will want to praise you. Not that you live right so that people will praise you, but that good men praise you, then you can be sure that you are living right, things handed down in the tradition of the Church, things he himself explained to them, things that they have heard him say and seen him do. Let them set their hearts on these things and they will be free from worry and enjoy peace in themselves and with God and other people.
Kefa W. MHM
What you’ll find here is my personal reflection on Scripture. I don’t claim to have all the answers, only a sincere desire to seek truth. Some of the references used are drawn from past study and experience, and I may no longer be able to recall all their exact sources. Feel free to leave your comments or personal reflections below as we continue to grow deeper together in the Word of God. I’ll see you next Sunday.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.