Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
My dear parishioners,
God is Good!!! All the Time!!! And All the Time!!! God is Good!!!
Isaiah’s eloquence as a spokesman for God is clearly evident in this reading. After a series of oracles challenging the children of Israel to return to their heavenly Father, the prophet invites the people to hear the lyrics of a song that neatly expresses God’s loving care for them—as well as their own refusal to respond to that love.
Today’s Gospel is a highly allegorized parable describing the events of salvation history as seen through the eyes of the early Church. There might be some elements of the story that go back to Jesus himself, but those are scarcely recoverable. The central image of the parable is the vineyard. This quickly evokes the popular song of the vineyard from Isaiah 5:1–7.
The allegorical elements. Here are the intended allegorical features of the parable. The vineyard stands for Israel. The landowner is God. The tenants represent Jewish leadership. The slaves sent to collect the produce are the prophets sent to Israel. The son is obviously Jesus. The punishment refers to the destruction of Jerusalem. The other tenants to whom the owner will give his vineyard—this is very controversial. It represents somehow new leadership of the community of the kingdom.
An outline of Israel’s salvation history. The parable focuses on a key question consistently asked by the early Christians: What happened to us? How did people end up killing the Messiah who was sent to save us? What will our future be like? It appears that things started out in a very positive way. Israel was carefully constructed by God. Those first in charge seemed to be responsible, but that ended up not being the case. Israel’s leadership failed. God sent prophets to warn Israel’s leadership that things must change for the better. These prophets were rejected and often killed. The monumental move happened when God sent his own Son to reconcile the situation. Shockingly enough, the tenants even killed him. Psalm 118:22–23 accurately summarizes what happened. The rejected stone has become the cornerstone, and this changes everything.
To whom will the kingdom be given? This final verse is very controversial. Some think the kingdom is taken from the Jews and given to the Christians. No doubt, there will be new leadership. This does not necessarily imply that the Christian Church replaces Israel. Most likely, Matthew sees this new leadership as composed of both Jews and gentiles. It will not be the same as what went before, but it will still come to be part of the landowner’s vineyard. This, of course, describes the community to which Matthew is writing.
Excerpts from “Sunday Homily Helps”, is used by permission of Franciscan Media. www.FranciscanMedia.org.©2023. All rights reserved
Sincerely in Christ,
Fr. Aloysius