Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 139

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.

The Lord's allegory in today's gospel is transparent to those who believe in him, and nonsense to his opponents. All three groups -- Jesus's disciples, the chief priests, and the elders -- were familiar with the business of grapes, wine, and vineyards. They knew all about spading, clearing the soil, and planting choice vines. The industry required a wine press and a watchtower and wall against varmints and thieves; that was common knowledge. They also knew Isaiah's parable of the gardener and his disappointment. When he looked for the crop of plump, cultivated grapes, the gardener found scrawny, bitter, wild grapes. The chief priests and elders of the people knew perfectly well that Isaiah's allegory was all about God's disappointment with ancient Israel. Their prophets told them Divine Wrath had fallen upon Jerusalem when the Babylonian army destroyed the city. By God's decree, the invaders left not one stone upon another when they razed Solomon's spectacular temple. The Galilean's audience remembered the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and the exile in Babylon, and their ancestors' efforts to reclaim the city's former greatness. Jesus’s retelling is more savage than Isaiah’s original parable. His garden is apparently productive – as he told his disciples, “the harvest is abundant!” – but the tenants produce no fruit. And worse, they kill the landowner’s son. This Gospel story as it appears in the Bible concludes with a sentence which the editors of our lectionary cut out:

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them.

What they did not get was the immediate relevance of Isaiah's parable. They knew he was talking about them; and they knew that God is the vineyard owner. But they could not imagine that Jesus is the Landowner's son. They had eyes to see and ears to hear but could not understand that this man before them is the only begotten son of the Most High God who planted the city of Jerusalem, and destroyed it for its infidelity, and would build a New Jerusalem. They could not see this nuisance from Galilee coming on the clouds of glory, and all the angels with him. They could not imagine him sitting upon a glorious throne, and judging all the nations. They saw only a talented storyteller who used Bible stories to entertain the poor, the blind, and the lame. They did not see what widows, orphans, and aliens see in Mary’s son. Chilly mornings of October remind Christians of time passing and the coming judgment. The Gospels never let us forget that we are servants of God, accountable not only for our time and talents, but for our inmost thoughts and desires. Nor do they let us forget that our merciful God plants, prunes, and makes us produce an abundant harvest of good works. The Lord's parables warn us not to assume that we know what God wants or thinks. That is the sin of Jesus's opponents. His disciples ask for an explanation while his enemies go away; satisfied by an entertaining story. For them, entertainment is a value in itself, needing no further justification. If it’s distracting and diverting, it’s good! You remember that Herod liked to listen to John the Baptist. He was amusing and colorful. He had a way with words. The Lord told Ezekiel the Prophet: For them you are only a singer of love songs, with a pleasant voice and a clever touch. They listen to your words, but they do not obey them. Tragedies and comedies are all the same to these people. What the chief priests and the elders heard skewered them. It might have warned them of the coming wrath, but it went right over their heads. Today, as leaders of the Church meet with Pope Francis in his Synod on Synodality, we must pray that we the Church -- the entire Church -- will also read the signs of the times and see God's hand in all of it. There's a reason for hurricanes, droughts, forest fires, rising seas, blistering summer heat, pandemics, wars, mass migrations, drug abuse, abortion, and suicides. Are we being punished for producing only scrawny, bitter, wild grapes where we should produce juicy rich food and pure, choice wines? Are we the people who would send the landowner none of his produce but would murder his son? To think God has nothing to do with the massive machinery of politics and economics, or the Earth's dynamics is to dismiss the Word of God as cheap entertainment. Saint Paul urged his Philippian disciples to work out your salvation with fear and trembling; and Isaiah warned us during troubled times to:

Serve the LORD with fear;

exult with trembling,

Accept correction

lest he become angry and you perish along the way

when his anger suddenly blazes up.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him! Psalm 2:11