27 TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR A
In the gospel we hear this Sunday, we have Jesus is talking to the religious leaders who
have decided to gang up on him. They try to paint him into a corner, but Jesus is too smart for
them. He turns the tables on them by challenging them and questioning them.
Jesus’ parable is often directed at the chief priests and Pharisees – and they know it. And
so, they were always looking for a way to arrest him, to shut him up. But they’re afraid of the
crowds, who believed Jesus was a prophet.
One of the things that you could always say about Jesus is that – unlike some preachers
and politicians – he never wasted his breath just talking. Everything he said had a purpose.
Even his parables were tools he used to get his point across.
And in this Sunday’s parable, the point is pretty obvious, especially to the self-righteous
people who were so defensive; who were always looking for a way to be rid of Jesus.
Put simply: The landowner is God. The vineyard is God’s people. The tenants are those
who are supposed take care of God’s people. The servants who are sent are the prophets. And
of course, the son is Jesus himself.
The new tenants who will be brought in are the gentiles and the simple people who will
produce fruit for God’s vineyard. Therefore I tell you, that the kingdom of God will be taken
away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruits.
Main point: God is still looking for people – faith communities – to work in his vineyard.
God is looking for individuals who are willing to give themselves to Christ and his work instead
of living for themselves. God is still looking for faith communities that are willing to actually
function as his hands and feet to our dying world so in need of a savior.
But what does God often times find instead? God finds individual Christians who are
more interested in their comfort than in helping others find Christ through their actions – and
the truth is that’s me sometimes.
What does God often times find instead? God finds faith communities that are more
concerned with maintaining the status quo of religious activity, but not having God really be a
part of what they’re doing.
I want our Church to grow. I want our faith community to grow. And I want it to grow
because numbers are not just numbers. Numbers are people! And I want more people to find
the Church and make our faith community their faith home because they found Christ through
us.
The reality is we don’t own the vineyard. We don’t own the church – God does. We
work for him and not for ourselves. Our challenge is to earnestly look for the gifts that the Holy
Spirit has given us for work in God’s vineyard.
Let us strive to keep our eyes off ourselves and to remember that our church belongs to
God and our stewardship of that church is to produce fruit for God.