Florida Catholic | Sunday Word

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jesus is the keystone of God’s people

October 5, 2008 :: Is 5:1-7; Ps 80:9, 12, 13-14, 15-16, 19-20; Phil 4:6-9; Mt 21:33-43

DR. EMILIO G. CHÁVEZ | SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA CATHOLIC

This Sunday’s readings have to do with bearing good fruit, the call of the Christian in this life. Thus Paul, in prison for Christ when he writes our second reading, reflects those “good fruits of the Spirit” (cf. Gal 5:22-24) which are our gift from God in Christ: “what is true, honorable, just, lovely, gracious, excellent,” etc., living without anxiety, praying, applying what has been learned from persons such as Paul. This gives us the profound peace of God.

The first reading from Isaiah and the Gospel reading – Matthew’s version of the parable in Mark 11 – are closely matched. Using the image of a vine or vineyard for the people of Israel, the prophet poetically depicts the cares of the Lord for his people alongside the poor results achieved. The vineyard will suffer for this; perhaps this suffering will be purifying, as is the pruning of the vines in the parable in John 15.

In Mark 11, Jesus clearly refers to this Isaian parable in order to convey a sense of the history of Israel. Matthew largely takes over this passage, adding a couple of twists of his own. The servants sent are the prophets, traditionally mistreated and killed. The use of “tenant-farmer” (husbandmen or vine-dressers) for the ones to whom the vineyard is entrusted is significant; they are not owners, as is the “Lord” of the vineyard, but mere occupants without ownership rights (the land is God’s; see Lv 25:23).

What is new in the history of Israel is the sending of God’s Son, the real heir of everything (see Heb 1:1-2). This resulted in the greatest crime of all, the murder of God’s Son. Jesus was the keystone of the whole building of God’s people; rejecting him is rejecting the salvation which is found in the kingdom of God. Only Matthew says that “the kingdom of God” (he usually says “kingdom of heaven”) will be taken away from “you” (apparently the “chief priests and elders” of Matthew 21:23, as our translation indicates) and given to a “nation” (not “people”) who will produce fruits. “Nation” indicates gentiles, non-Jews; “people.”

Much could be said about the great Psalm 80, but space allows us simply to consider it a plea that God return to his people and visit his vineyard, a plea reproduced in Latin on the bronze door of the Carmelite church of St. Teresa in Rome (Carmel is the vineyard).

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