27th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
Isaiah 5:1-7 Philippians 4:6-9 Matthew 21:33-43
The author of the first 39 chapters of Isaiah (known as 1st Isaiah) was a royal advisor in the southern Kingdom of Judah. During his ministry (740-701 BC) the northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered by and dominated by the Assyrian Empire. The Temple of the Lord which King Solomon had built was in Jerusalem in the southern kingdom. Jerusalem and its Temple was the Jewish center of the universe. While the northern kingdom fell, the southern kingdom, too, was in serious political, religious, and social decline. Today’s lesson is a parable about the Jerusalem of 1st Isaiah’s day. It was a parable of tragedy from God’s perspective, and from Isaiah’s as well, in his prophetic office as God’s friend and spokesperson. The population of Isaiah’s day would have been very familiar with the practices of having and maintaining a vineyard, so the nuances of the metaphor were not lost on them. This metaphor is announcing divine displeasure of the most serious sort. Isaiah is insinuating that the conquering army of the Assyrian Empire was God’s tool of punishment for the Jewish failure at fidelity to the covenant founded by Moses. Isaiah maintains the connection between the two kingdoms, Israel and Judah, so that this tragic exhortation is relevant to and even aimed at the southern Kingdom of Judah, as well as to Israel. There is a play on the Hebrew words “judgement” and “bloodshed,” and again between “justice” and “outcry.” The fundamental issue is that both leaders and population were in denial of reality. They embraced political and religious ideology, rather than the good sense of truthfulness and integrity. Some might find a parallel to today’s national and international tendencies (by leaders and citizens alike) to embrace the idolatry of ideology in politics, both civil and ecclesiastical.
Matthew’s Gospel text recounts Jesus’ vineyard parable. This one is reflecting on the evil tenants who murder the son of the just owner. It is a metaphorical parallel to the rejection of Jesus’ messiahship by his own people, some of whom will eventually work to have him killed in their misdirected rage. The early church wrestled for some decades with the issue of “For whom did the messiah come?” In this parable, the beginning assumption was that the tenants had misused their lease and had been ungrateful to the rightful owner. The post-Easter reflection of the church understood Jesus in the role of the just owner’s son, i.e., God’s son killed by the Jewish tenants of the Promised Land. This parable was not merely or primarily about who killed Jesus, but rather about the blind ingratitude of those who had been chosen and blessed with the vineyard. This parable can be applied very nearly to all peoples of every era. Indeed, among the various human sinful conditions is the normal social blindness of humanity towards values and persons which are just and truthful. This parable parallels the Isaian vineyard parable, describing complex dynamics of justice and injustice, gratitude and ingratitude, insight and blindness. God’s pleasure was and is, of course, always with justice. Justice must be used and exercised if we are to become adroit with it and come to imitate the Just Owner of the Vineyard (read: God). Perhaps these ancient parables (Isaiah and Matthew) both advocate a “use it or lose it” position. That is, the tenants of the vineyard who reject their chosen-ness will eventually find themselves disenfranchised and completely without appreciation of their blessedness due to their habitual neglect of genuine justice.
Last Sunday’s Philippians text, the Kenotic Hymn, about Jesus’s human self-donation woven with his divinity, was a magnificent piece of poetry. Today’s passage from Philippians is another eloquently poetical text principally in a run-on sentence. The fundamental Gospel attitude of gratitude is Paul’s foundation for all prayer of petition. Fidelity to the most noble of the divine gifts (gratitude) in the Gospel life are what keeps believers balanced and makes all life worth living.
The scripture texts in recent weeks have evolved from questions about forgiveness and repentance to another fundamental and intense principle of justice. Gospel morality is not so much a code of behavior as it is a dynamic tension among freedom, truth, justice, and love. Those who freely do the truth in justice and in love will embody the Gospel spirit. Indeed, they will be enlivened by the Holy Spirit behind the Gospel.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful! Enkindle within us the fire of your divine love and renew the face of the Earth!