27th Sunday Ordinary Time - October 8th, 2023 (Click Here for Readings)

In this Sunday’s readings from Isaiah and the Gospel of Matthew, we see two different types of tenants of God’s vineyard who were guilty of sin in two different ways. In Isaiah, the tenants ignored great opportunities to serve their God and return good fruits. In the Gospel, the tenants were productive in the vineyard they were given, but selfishly hoarded the harvest for themselves.

In Isaiah, God is portrayed as the friend and vineyard owner who created ideal conditions for his people to grow plants of righteousness; crops of rich grapes in thanks and praise to him. But due to their squandering of God’s blessings, they harvested themselves as wild grapes of sinfulness and heedlessness, resulting in the loss of opportunity to flourish as God’s cherished people.

Though the tenants of the vineyard in today’s Gospel produced much fruit, they were still sinful by greedily keeping the harvest for themselves and refusing to share it with the servants of the vineyard owner. 

St. Paul’s Golden Rules

Neither of the tenants; the Jewish people in Isaiah or the vineyard lessees in the Gospel approached their opportunities in the way that St. Paul tells the Philippians in his letter today; to be true, honorable, pure, just and loving with graciousness in all they do; to be good stewards of God’s vineyard with a desire to nourish their work with these qualities. They were called by God to be loyal tenants, sow the vineyards in good faith and yield rich harvests for their communities, but they betrayed their God in both cases.

Regarding Us

God gives us these same opportunities today with vineyards of limitless resources and personal talents to produce and share our best fruits with others and continually grow his kingdom. As tenants of the vineyards God calls us to cultivate, we must regularly check our productivity both individually and in communion with our tenant brothers and sisters in Christ. 

When we show our gratefulness for God's vineyards of opportunities with bountiful and self-giving lives in service to all those in need, we will please our heavenly Father as he once hoped for with his people in both Isaiah’s and Christ’s time. May we never experience the bloodshed and outcry of God’s judgement that his people once caused by their squandering and ignorance of his gifts, and for the greed and wickedness of the tenants in Matthew's Gospel.

Let us never kill the Christ in us as the tenants in the Gospel killed the vineyard owner’s son, but share the Christ in us by producing good fruits of truth, love, honor and righteousness to all whom we encounter. God has an investment in us and expects a generous return on his investment with grateful stewardship.

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