27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
This gospel passage leads me to a lot of questions. Is ‘the absent landowner’ a good metaphor for God? Can we not feel some sympathy with the tenants who have done so much work only to be told the vintage belongs to someone else? It’s not unusual for Jesus to use morally ambiguous parables to make his point (eg parable of the wasteful steward Lk 16:1-9).
This leads to 2 bigger questions: first, who do we actually think the land belongs to? Humanity or God, or just itself?
The second one is maybe this parable isn’t really about grapevines and land anyway. This seems to be borne out by Jesus own comment, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.’ Jesus is placing himself with the prophets who were sent to Israel, but he is a Son not a servant. Nevertheless he will be rejected like them. This is central to Matthew’s christology. The Messiah is the Son of God who will be rejected and crucified and be raised up by God.
I think there may be some dramatic irony in the way the chief priests and elders deliver the condemnation out of their own mouths.
Because Matthew clearly intends this as a prediction of the rejection of the Jewish authorities and the inclusion of the gentiles ‘The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.
What does this mean for us??
Well, I think there is the point that nothing belongs to us, neither the land nor the kingdom of God. It is all gift.
And we probably shouldn’t be surprised that Jesus continues to be rejected today, even by his own people
Questions
There are probably enough questions already in this. But here are some more!
- 1. What strikes you about this passage?
- 2. How does it make you feel?
- 3. Do the images speak to you, vineyard, fruit , cornerstone ?
- 4. Where do we think the kingdom of God is in our own experience?
- 5. Any other ideas?