27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (1)

I doubt I’m going to have much free time to post any more entries before I fly out on Sunday, so I’m posting my homily for this weekend now. We’re having the Annual General Meeting of our parish this weekend, hence the longer than usual homily, and hence it being more serious than usual:

Last week’s readings put before us the question: Are we really followers of Jesus or just admirers? Today’s gospel asks also asks a question: are we the owners or the renters of the church?

Let’s put the gospel into context. After Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and the people hailed him with palm branches and shouts of “Hosanna to the Son of David”, Jesus went to the temple. He was disgusted with what he found. Moneychangers had nice booths in which they carried out the business of changing world currencies into money suitable for use in the temple. Merchants were there selling animals and other paraphernalia. All of this activity had become more prominent than the most important activity: the worship of God. In anger Jesus overturned the money-changers’ tables and drove out those who were buying and selling.

It comes as no surprise then that people, religious leaders, come to Jesus asking, “What right do you have to do these things? Who gave you such right?” (Matt. 21:23). Jesus then proceeds to tell a number of stories, parables, our gospel reading today being one of them. The parable begins with a note of grace. The landlord planted the vineyard, improved it with a fine fence and watchtower. He did all the preparation, all the work to guarantee a harvest. The tenants simply had to tend the plants, keep the weeds down, harvest the fruit, and pay the owner his agreed upon share. Everything had been done for them. It was all a gift.

For years the tenants are free to enjoy this considerably improved vineyard. But it is not their vineyard. They don’t own it, they’ve done nothing to improve it. They enjoy the fruits of the vineyard . . . until that day, that day of reckoning, when the owner sends someone to collect his rent.

And the tenants act as if they are owners rather than renters. They shamefully beat the owner’s representatives. The owner sends another set of servants to collect his rent, the rent which is his due. They too are beaten.

In exasperation, the owner sends his own son.

You might well ask, “What kind of master is this?” He already has ample proof that these renters are a violent, low breed of people. Look how they’ve repeatedly, over a long period of time, maltreated his servants. Now he is going to send his own son into this dangerous situation. And it doesn’t surprise us to hear that the tenants take the son and kill him too. The master has no rent, no honour, no servants and, now, no son and no vineyard.

Now what do you think the owner of the vineyard will do to these tenants?

A bit of a silly question really! Of course, anyone listening to the story would know what the owner of the vineyard would do. He will react by killing the wicked tenants. After all he has been ever so patient and gracious, giving them chance after chance to realise that they aren’t the owners but tenants. They are tenants who have a responsibility to fulfil. Now the owner will put good tenants in their place. The new tenants will recognise that they do not own the vineyard but are renters. They will recognise who the real owner of the vineyard is. They will give the owner the fruit from the vineyard that is due to him.

This parable of Jesus has a lot to say, amongst other things, about authority and ownership. The tenants acted as if they owned the vineyard. Even though the master had acted generously and patiently they didn’t recognise his ownership of the vineyard in the least. We know that Jesus was talking about the people of Israel in this parable and how they rejected God by rejecting the prophets, and soon will beat and kill God’s Son.

This parable has special application to the church of Jesus day but we would be blind if that is all we could see in this story. God is the owner but how often do we act as if we are the owners.

When you stop and think about it, we are tenants, not owners. Everything we have is on loan from God. We sometimes imagine that we are owners:

“It’s my money and I can spend it as I please.”

“It’s my body and I have a right to do what I want with it.”

“It’s my life and I don’t need God or the Church or anyone to tell me how to run it.”

Even your life. Your life is a gift and you’re accountable not just to yourself and what you think you want for yourself—you’re accountable to God.