Is 5:1-7
Ps 80
Phil 4:6-9
Mt 21:33-43
Today’s gospel begin where last Sunday’s ended. It continues the vineyard theme. Taken together the first reading and the Gospel illustrate the dependence of the New Testament upon the Old Testament, best expressed in the theology school dictum that one cannot understand the New Testament
without first knowing the Old.
The images of the vineyard, the wine press, and the tower that Jesus used in the parable, came directly from Isaiah. They make the same painful point about fidelity, or lack thereof, to God’s law. But Jesus then moved beyond Isaiah.
Cultivating a vineyard is complicated, difficult, and demanding work. It is not so much a job as it is a vocation and a way of life. I spent most of 2011 doing tertianship in Australia. Yes, it was a dream come true and then some, particularly for a photographer.
Though based in Sydney we spent about half the time posted all over the country. The only experience we had in common outside of Sydney was the thirty-day retreat at the Sevenhill Jesuit Retreat House located on the grounds of the Jesuit winery near the town of Clare, South Australia.
With 35 wineries the Clare Valley, is one of the centers of the Australian wine industry. Begun by Bavarian Jesuits in 1851 it was one of the first wineries in the Clare Valley. The setting on 1000 acres rolling hills is beyond beautiful. BUT . . . the beauty obscures an important fact. Caring for a vineyard is backbreaking work that demands both physical stamina and familiarity with organic chemistry.
Sometimes, despite precautions, hard work, the commitment of the wine master and the dedication of the workers, the harvest is not good and the wines are less than wonderful. Unfortunately, 2011 was catastrophic. It was unusually cold and cloudy. There was way too much rain during the harvest. Only sixty percent of the grapes in the valley were even harvested. The others died on the vine. But, the winemakers at Sevenhill and the rest of the Valley were not giving up. Once the scope of the problem was defined, the staff at Sevenhill rolled up their sleeves and began to prepare for 2012.
So it is with God who loves us and forgives our sins rather than giving up on us.
In the first reading we heard of the vineyard owner’s dismay when, despite constructing the vineyard, putting in a watchtower to prevent sabotage,and carefully cultivating the grapes, he harvested not sweet grapes but useless sour grapes. Isaiah was, like Jesus in the gospel, using the image of the vineyard for the people of Israel, people who, despite God’s care worshipped false idols, ignored the law, becoming like sour wild grapes unfit for wine or anything else.
The vineyard is a symbol for the people, a symbol for us, in the psalm as well. The psalmist asks the Lord to restore the vineyard and care for it despite the poor harvest, despite the people violating and forgetting the covenant yet again. In the psalm we ask the Lord to restore us despite our propensity to commit the same sins over and over while periodically throwing in a few new ones. The psalm is a combination of confession, faith, and bargaining. But the composer, who captured the essence of human behavior in the psalm, knows that God is forgiving and will relent.
Jesus takes the vineyard image further than Isaiah when he predicts His own death. But he also tells of the mission to the Gentiles, those who were not part of the old covenant. “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Truer words have rarely been uttered.
There are three more verses at the end of this parable. The last two are critical to put the parable and of all of Jesus’ teaching into context. We read, “When the chief priests and Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them. And although they were attempting to arrest him, they feared the crowds for they regarded him as a prophet.”
The truth hurts. Sometimes the truth hurts the one who reveals it, particularly in the cancellation culture of the U.S. Killing the bearer of the truth may be much easier than making fundamental changesin our lives, actions, and attitudes as a result of hearing that truth.
Five more chapters of parables and discourse follow chapter 21 before Matthew recounts Jesus’ passion and death. All of the parables and discourses are familiar. All of them challenge us, just as they challenged Jesus’ hearers. At times they are painful because we see ourselves reflected in them. The reflection is not pretty.
We can clean up that picture easily enough. The instructions are found in the second reading:
Do “what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you.”
That peace will surpass all understanding. That peace will trump anything we can imagine.
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The choice of photos was easy: the vineyard at Sevenhill, Clare, South Australia. It was a magnificent place in which to make the thirty-day retreat doing the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. I'd been told it was going to be very hot. One friend almost left the retreat he was so miserable. That was not our probem. Indeed, it was like being on retreat in mid-November. Not good for a vineyard.
Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
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