Readings:
Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:9, 12, 13-14, 15-16, 19-20
Philippians 4:6-9
Matthew 21:33-43

In today’s first reading and the Gospel, there are two different parables of a vineyard. In the first, the prophet Isaiah sings a song about a friend who did everything he could to cultivate fruitful vines. The hillside he chose was fertile. He spaded the soil and cleared it of stones. The vines he planted were of the choicest quality. He built a watchtower from which he could guard against potential threats such as thieves or wild animals. Anticipating a splendid harvest, he hewed out a wine press. After all this care and effort, instead of yielding rich, sweet grapes, all that came forth were wild grapes.

The speaker changes and it becomes clear that the parable is about God’s care for the people of Judah and Jerusalem and God’s extreme disappointment that after all God has done, showering them with abundant blessings of every kind, the people have gone astray, becoming like wild vines that yield inedible grapes. While the parable ends with the destruction of the vineyard, ruin and desolation is never the last word in the story of God’s people. The peoples’ unfaithfulness to God has caused them to be like a vineyard that is overgrown, trampled, and withered up. But they remain God’s “cherished plant” (v. 7) and the prophet will speak again later of God’s offer of forgiveness and restoration. There will be hope that the vineyard can yet produce good fruit.

The parable in the Gospel begins in much the same way as the one in Isaiah. A landowner exerts great effort to plant and cultivate a vineyard, build a tower, and dig a winepress. But the story in the Gospel goes a different direction than Isaiah’s parable. Harvest time arrives and the owner sends his servants to get his grapes from the tenant farmers who are doing the actual work of tending the vineyard. A shocking thing happens: the tenant farmers beat, kill, and stone the servants. The owner sends more servants and the same thing happens. Finally, he sends his son, thinking they will respect him. But they kill him as well.

One way of reading this parable is that it depicts a peasant uprising against an oppressive landowner. Weary of their landlessness and powerlessness, the tenants do away with all the landowner’s envoys and even his son, the heir apparent, hoping to gain control of the land themselves. At this point in the parable, Jesus poses a critical question: “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ audience consists of chief priests and elders who are questioning his authority. Likely hearing the resonances with Isaiah’s parable, their response is, “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.”  They envision retaliation by the owner that is as violent as the brutality of the tenants. The owner will put in place new tenants who will hand over his produce. One way or another, the powerful vineyard owner gets what he wants. In this scenario, the parable can be read is as a commentary on the futility of violence to accomplish change in ownership and leadership.

A more traditional reading of this parable is that it is an allegory, in which the vineyard represents Israel, the tenants are Israel’s leaders, the vineyard owner is God, the messengers are the prophets, the son is Jesus. From this perspective, Jesus’ parable offers a new ending to the familiar parable in Isaiah. In Jesus’ parable, the vineyard is not destroyed, but rather entrusted to new tenants. The religious leaders who oppose Jesus,  the current “tenants,” are unable to cultivate the desired fruit and so new leader are needed. The divine vineyard owner does not desire the destruction of the vineyard, but even after the death of the Son, God’s response is forbearance, forgiveness, loving kindness, and extending one more opportunity for repentance.

Some people interpret the “others” to whom the vineyard is entrusted as the Gentile church that “supplants” the Jews as God’s beloved vineyard. This interpretation should be firmly rejected. In the gospel narrative, the change envisioned is from Jewish leaders who oppose Jesus to Jews who follow him. By Matthew’s time Jesus’ disciples, predominantly Jewish Christians, understood themselves as the “new tenants,” even as they struggled to define themselves in relationship to their sibling, Pharisaic Judaism.

The parable can lead us to reflect on leadership not only within the church, but within any organization, institution, or nation. If the leaders are not cultivating the fruitfulness of all members, then the leadership must be entrusted to others who will do so. Within the literary context of the Gospel, hope is held out that current leaders could repent and become fruit-bearers and cultivators of fruitfulness in others. But the parable also notes that vintage time is near—code language for the end time—the moment at which time to change runs out, and the decisions made all along have a finality. The Gospel invites us to insist on having leaders who can cultivate fruitful abundance for all and to pursue nonviolent means of bringing about change in leadership when that is needed.

Today is also the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, whose care for creation is renowned. Along with the parables in today’s readings that speak of God’s careful tending of the vineyard, St. Francis can invite us to reflect on and renew our own efforts to be responsible stewards in caring for our common home. This is one way that we can be led into the peace and joy to which St. Paul exhorts the community at Philippi in today’s second reading, along with remembering always to give thanks.

Sr. Barbara E. Reid, O.P.

President Emerita and Carroll Stuhlmueller, C.P. Distinguished Professor of New Testament Studies