Cycle A - Year I:  

8 October 2023: Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time 

(Liturgical Color: Green)

Readings:

First Reading:        Isaiah 5:1-7

Second Reading:   Philippians 4:6-9

Gospel:  Please read  Matthew 21:33-43 

Stewards of God's vineyard!

Holy Scripture frequently uses variations of the image of the vine and the vineyard to express the relationship between God and His people. God has shown His loving care for His vineyard, His chosen people Israel, by transplanting them from Egypt to the fertile Promised Land. He has cultivated and protected His vineyard. This shows God's unbelievable patience and generosity toward His people. God couldn't have done more for them!

We hear another parable today about the tenants in the vineyard. A landowner entrusts his vineyard to his laborers as he went on a journey. But the laborers become greedy and violent. At harvest time, they kill the "servants" sent to collect the landowner's share of the harvest. Finally, the landowner sent his "son" to collect his share of the harvest. But the tenants killed even the son, so they could take possession of the vineyard all for themselves.

Let us reflect on the parable. Our world is God's vineyard. Before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, the servants of the vineyard's owner were all the prophets and teachers sent by God to the people of Israel, from Moises to Micah. Their presence in salvation history shows God's attempt to bring men back into friendship with Him through a loving call to repentance. Now, this shows how patient God has been with us! But men's hearts are hardened and did not listen. So God sent His only Son to the vineyard, our Lord Jesus Christ. But we crucified Him.

In the vineyard of God's world, our present world, we are now the tenants of God's vineyard, entrusted to care for our world with all that we have, and to give back to God the fruits of the harvest.

The Landowner of this vineyard still hasn't returned, 2,000 years later. But He will, as He promised in the second coming to judge the fruits of our harvest. That will be the day when all of creation will be judged by our Lord Jesus Christ. And the best way to prepare for that judgment is to expect the Landowner to return soon or any time than we expect; to be fruitful  tenants of the vineyard of the Lord, as we wait and look forward to His promised return. 

In the first reading, the Lord also compares the house of Israel to a vineyard. Yahweh has done everything possible for Judah, and expected a harvest of justice and righteousness. But what He got was bloodshed and cry of anguish. The fault is not Yahweh's but Judah's. Yahweh has done everything that could be expected and more, but Judah yielded only wild and sour grapes that are good for nothing.

Also in the second reading, Paul encourages the Philippians to stay faithful to the teaching they received from him. "The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you." (Phil 4:9)

So the Gospel today is really a call for accountability on all of us chosen People of God as stewards of His creation. Let us pray that we may be worthy of the good things that the Lord has done for us by becoming productive and faithful laborers or tenants, fully aware that the vineyard is on loan to us so long as we render the expected harvest. We are not the owner of the vineyard -- only tenants of the most merciful and just Landowner, God Almighty. Amen.

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!