Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 8, 2023: What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done?

What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done?

Are we ready and open to producing good fruits for the Lord? 

   Jesus faced a lot of resistance from the Jewish community of his time. In Matthew’s Gospel, when the chief priests and elders come to challenge Jesus’ teachings, Jesus offers a series of parables. In one, the owner of a vineyard sends his servants to obtain his produce from his tenants, but the tenants wreak violence upon the servants. The owner then sends his son, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But in fact, the tenants seize the son, throw him out of the vineyard, and kill him. The chief priests and elders are forced to see themselves in the role of the tenants, indicted by their own reading of the story, and Jesus makes his point clearly, saying the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit. Jesus offers them every opportunity to turn this situation around and repent. Will they? Are they listening? 

   In that moment, the chief priests and elders would no doubt have been recognizing echos from the song of Isaiah, which was itself an indictment of the people of Isaiah’s time. Faced with a vineyard that yields only wild grapes, its owner decides to let it be trampled! God has cared for God’s people, planting the choicest vines, vines that showed promise; the wild grapes that come forth are like those who reject relationship, relying solely upon themselves. Isaiah, too, called the people to repent. Did they? Were they listening? Are they truly open to God? Could they really promise, as Psalm 80 does, that if the Lord protects what his right hand has planted, they will no more withdraw from him? 

   When we face the unknown, we can become fearful, anxious. But, as Paul reminds the Philippians, they have only to make their requests known to God by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, and God will sustain them. We have but to go to that place where we are in Christ, focusing on all that is true and honorable and just and pure and lovely and gracious, opening ourselves to God, and we will find strength in being one in Christ, and thus able to produce good fruits. Unlike the chief priests and elders, unlike the people of Isaiah’s time, we must be ready, open, so that God can act in and through, offering us that peace that surpasses all understanding, that we might share that peace with our world. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com