God's Continuous Invitation

Proper22A, St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, October 8, 2023, by Sr. Annette Fricke, OP In today’s Gospel text, God is the landowner who builds a vineyard. The tenants are the religious authorities like the Pharisees, chief priests, and elders for example. The slaves are the prophets, and the son is Jesus himself. During Jesus’ time, the tenants would contract to give the owner an agreed-upon portion of the crop, keeping for themselves what was left. This parable is known as the Parable of the Wicked Tenants or Treacherous Tenants. God’s expectation of the tenants is that God and the tenants will enjoy the produce, but this simply does not happen, God is ultimately disappointed. What will God do? Notice the similarity to the Isaiah passage I read today. This text asks the question, “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?” God is pleading the people to be faithful stewards, has even provided all the means to do it, yet the people continue to fail to bear fruit. In Isaiah, the expected grapes are wild grapes. In Matthew, God has a solution to the failure of the tenants. God will take away the kingdom of God from Israel and give it to a people who will produce the fruits of the kingdom. The problem with parables is that interpretation is difficult. Parables about vineyards do not always give the same picture which can make them confusing. You cannot say that that all the parables about vineyards are alike. God is very generous in the vineyard story of chapter 20, but in this one, God appears to be mean and ineffective in getting results. God talks about taking away the kingdom and giving it to others. Is that an allusion to Israel being the chosen, but since they rejected Jesus, it will be given to the Gentiles, the non-Jews? Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we hear about bread and wine as well as the ingredients used to create them. They were a common staple, much the same as bread and milk not many generations ago. Common and essential. In the Old Testament, “Vineyards” seem to have been a frequent metaphor for a lover, an example of that is found in chapters 7 and 8 in the Song of Solomon just in case any of you might be interested in studying this subject further. Think about the Isaiah and Matthew texts as God is the owner and the Church is the vineyard. God loves the vineyard very much, so much that God tries to protect the Church by setting up a fence or wall and built a watchtower. God reaches out many times but is continually rejected. God’s own people fail to be faithful to God and what God wants. The idea is not that God is rejecting Israel; they are still the chosen people of God by way of covenant. It is not that God is rejecting the leaders of Judaism, but their behavior. They are continually sent prophets and teachers and always could listen to and heed God. But they chose to plot Jesus’ arrest. I think the most helpful way of looking at this parable is to think of it in the context that Jesus is getting closer and closer to crucifixion. The parable is a look into the future, a glimpse of what rejecting Jesus looks like. Unfortunately, it appears to be predictive of violence. Jesus is divisive simply by being God’s son. He is born into a world where each faction of Judaism has their own teachings and beliefs. Nicodemus is thought to believe that Jesus may indeed be the Messiah but wasn’t known to commit. Belief is never forced. St. Thomas Aquinas explains it this way: “We love God for himself and everyone else as they are in God or capable of being in him. We love God in loving our neighbor when we love others as they are related to him. Love of God with our whole hearts does not diminish but should enhance our love of others because we will also want the greatest good for our friends and because the love of God enables us to be friends with others all the more, as it is the source of those feelings that are part of friendship.” In this parable, God reminds us of who we are—that we are “responsible for what God has given us.” Even though we will never be the faithful Christians God envisions, and that we will continue to struggle with our baptismal vows, God still beckons us to follow the example Jesus has shown us. Jesus does not promise us an easy life but does promise to walk with us. God is a landowner who owns a vineyard. New Proclamation, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN; 2005, p.210 The Gospel According to Matthew, Barbara E. Reid, Liturgical Press, 2005., p. 109. Selman, Francis, “Aquinas 101: A Basic Introduction to the Thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas,” 2005. New Proclamation, Ibid., p. 215.