Living on the Vine
In this week’s Gospel Jesus returns to the Old Testament symbol of the vineyard to teach about Israel, the Church, and the kingdom of God. And the symbolism of the First Reading and Psalm is also readily understood.
God is the owner and the house of Israel is the vineyard. A cherished vine, Israel was plucked from Egypt and transplanted in a fertile land specially spaded and prepared by God, hedged about by the city walls of Jerusalem, watched over by the towering Temple. But the vineyard produced no good grapes for the wine, a symbol for the holy lives God wanted for His people. So God allowed His vineyard to be overrun by foreign invaders, as Isaiah foresees in the First Reading.
Jesus picks up the story where Isaiah leaves off, even using Isaiah’s words to describe the vineyard’s wine press, hedge, and watchtower. Israel’s religious leaders, the tenants in His parable, have learned nothing from Isaiah or Israel’s past. Instead of producing good fruits, they’ve killed the owner’s servants, the prophets sent to gather the harvest of faithful souls.
In a dark foreshadowing of His own crucifixion outside Jerusalem, Jesus says the tenants’ final outrage will be to seize the owner’s son, and to kill him outside the vineyard walls.
For this, the vineyard, which Jesus calls the kingdom of God, will be taken away and given to new tenants—the leaders of the Church, who will produce its fruit.
We are each a vine in the Lord’s vineyard, grafted onto the true vine of Christ (see John 15:1-8), called to bear fruits of the righteousness in Him (see Philippians 1:11), and to be the “first fruits” of a new creation (see James 1:18). We need to take care that we don’t let ourselves be overgrown with the thorns and briers of worldly anxiety. As today’s Epistle advises, we need to fill our hearts and minds with noble intentions and virtuous deeds, rejoicing always that the Lord is near.
St. Basil
Homily 5 on the Hexaemeron, 6
The Lord continually likens human souls to vines. He says for instance: “My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill” (Is 5,1) and again: “I planted a vineyard and put a hedge round it” (cf Mt 21,33).
Clearly it is human souls that he calls his vineyard, and the hedge he has put round them is the security of his commandments and the protection of the angels; for “the angel of the lord will encamp around those who fear him” (Ps 34[33],8). Moreover, by establishing in the Church “apostles in the first place, prophets in the second, and teachers in the third” (1Cor 12,28), he has surrounded us as though by a firmly planted palisade.
In addition, the Lord has raised our thoughts to heaven by the examples of saints of past ages. He has kept them from sinking to the earth where they would deserve to be trampled on, and he wills that the bonds of love, like the tendrils of a vine, should attach us to our neighbors and make us rest on them, so that always climbing upward like vines growing on trees, we may reach the loftiest heights.
He also requires that we allow ourselves to be weeded. To be spiritually weeded means to have renounced the worldly ambitions that burdened our hearts. Anyone who has renounced the love of material things and attachment to possessions, or who has come to regard as despicable and deserving of contempt the poor, wretched glory of this world, is like a weeded vine. Freed from the profitless burden of earthly aspirations, that person can breathe again.
Finally, following out the implications of the comparison, we must not run to wood, or, in other words, show off or seek the praise of outsiders. Instead, we must bear fruit by reserving the display of our good works for the true vinedresser (Jn 15,1).
Pope Benedict XVI
Angelus Address, October 2, 2011
This Sunday’s Gospel closes with Jesus’ warning addressed to the chief priests and elders of the people that is particularly severe: “The Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will bear its fruits” (Matthew 21:43).
These are words that make us think of the great responsibility of those who, in every age, are called to work in the vineyard of the Lord, especially with the role of authority; they move us to complete fidelity to Christ.
He is the “stone that the builders rejected” (cf. Matthew 21:42), because they judged him an enemy of the law and a threat to public order; but he himself, rejected and crucified, is risen, becoming the “cornerstone” upon which every human existence and the entire world can rest with absolute security.
The parable of the unfaithful tenants, to whom a man gave his vineyard to be cultivated to bear fruit, speaks of this truth. The owner of the vineyard represents God himself, while the vineyard symbolizes God’s people as well as the life that he has bestowed upon us to do good through our commitment and his grace.
St. Augustine says that “God cultivates us like a field to make us better” (Sermo 87, 1, 2: PL 38, 531). God has a project for his friends but unfortunately man’s answer is often oriented to infidelity, which translates into rejection. Pride and egoism impede the recognition and acceptance even of God’s most precious gift: his only begotten Son. When, in fact, “he sent them his son,” writes the Evangelist Matthew, “they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him” (Matthew 21:37, 39).
God gives himself into our hands, he allows himself to be an unfathomable mystery of weakness and manifests his omnipotence in fidelity to a plan of love that, in the end, foresees also punishment for the wicked (cf. Matthew 21:41).
Solidly anchored in faith in the cornerstone that is Christ, we remain in him as a branch that cannot bear fruit on its own if it does not remain in the vine. Only in him, through him and with him is the Church, the people of the New Covenant, built up.
In this connection the Servant of God Pope Paul VI wrote: “The first benefit which we trust the Church will reap from a deepened self-awareness, is a renewed discovery of its vital bond of union with Christ. This is something which is perfectly well known, but it is supremely important and absolutely essential. It can never be sufficiently understood, meditated upon and preached” (“Ecclesiam Suam,” August 6, 1964: AAS 56 [1964], 622).
Dear friends, the Lord is always near and working in human history, and he also accompanies us with the unique presence of his angels, whom the Church venerates today as “guardians,” that is, ministers of the divine care for every man.
From the beginning until the hour of death, human life is surrounded by their unceasing protection. And the angels are the crown of the august Queen of Victories, the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Rosary, who in the first Sunday of October, precisely at this hour, receives the fervid plea, from the sanctuary in Pompeii and from the whole world, that evil be defeated and the goodness of God be revealed in its fullness.
Pope Benedict XVI
Homily, October 5, 2008
The First Reading, taken from the Book of Isaiah, as well as the passage from the Gospel according to Matthew, have presented to our liturgical assembly an evocative allegorical image of Sacred Scripture: the image of the vineyard which we have heard mentioned on the preceding Sundays.
The initial passage of the Gospel account refers to the “canticle of the vineyard” which we find in Isaiah. This is a canticle set in the autumnal context of the grape harvest: a miniature masterpiece of Hebrew poetry which must have been very familiar to those listening to Jesus and from which, as from other references by the prophets (cf. Hos 10: 1; Jer 2: 21; Ez 17: 3-10; 19: 10-14; Ps 79: 9-17), it was easy to understand that the vineyard symbolized Israel. God bestowed the same care upon his vineyard, upon the People he had chosen, that a faithful husband lavishes upon his wife (cf. Ez 16: 1-14; Eph 5: 25-33).
Therefore the image of the vineyard, together with that of the wedding feast, describes the divine project of salvation and is presented as a moving allegory of God’s Covenant with his People. In the Gospel, Jesus takes up the canticle of Isaiah but adapts it to his listeners and to the new period in salvation history.
The emphasis is not so much on the vineyard as on the workers in it, from whom the landowner’s “servants” ask for rent on his behalf. However, the servants are abused and even murdered. How is it possible not to think of the vicissitudes of the Chosen People and of the destiny reserved for the prophets sent by God?
In the end, the owner of the vineyard makes a final attempt: he sends his own son, convinced that at least they will listen to him. Instead the opposite happens: the labourers in the vineyard murder him precisely because he is the landowner’s son, that is, his heir, convinced that this will enable them to take possession of the vineyard more easily.
We are therefore witnessing a leap in quality with regard to the accusation of the violation of social justice as it emerges from Isaiah’s canticle. Here we clearly see that contempt for the master’s order becomes contempt for the master: it is not mere disobedience to a divine precept, it is a true and proper rejection of God: the mystery of the Cross appears.
What the Gospel passage reports challenges our way of thinking and acting. It does not only speak of Christ’s “hour”, of the mystery of the Cross at that moment, but also of the presence of the Cross in all epochs. It challenges in a special way the people who have received the Gospel proclamation.
If we look at history, we are often obliged to register the coldness and rebellion of inconsistent Christians. As a result of this, although God never failed to keep his promise of salvation, he often had to resort to punishment.
In this context it comes naturally to think of the first proclamation of the Gospel from which sprang Christian communities that initially flourished but then disappeared and today are remembered only in history books. Might not the same thing happen in our time?
Nations once rich in faith and vocations are now losing their identity under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture. There are some who, having decided that “God is dead”, declare themselves to be “god”, considering themselves the only architect of their own destiny, the absolute owner of the world. By ridding himself of God and not expecting salvation from him, man believes he can do as he pleases and that he can make himself the sole judge of himself and his actions.
However, when man eliminates God from his horizon, declares God “dead”, is he really happy? Does he really become freer? When men proclaim themselves the absolute proprietors of themselves and the sole masters of creation, can they truly build a society where freedom, justice and peace prevail? Does it not happen instead – as the daily news amply illustrates – that arbitrary power, selfish interests, injustice and exploitation and violence in all its forms are extended? In the end, man reaches the point of finding himself lonelier and society is more divided and bewildered.
Yet there is a promise in Jesus’ words: the vineyard will not be destroyed. While the unfaithful labourers abandon their destiny, the owner of the vineyard does not lose interest in his vineyard and entrusts it to other faithful servants. This means that, although in certain regions faith is dwindling to the point of dying out, there will always be other peoples ready to accept it.
For this very reason, while Jesus cites Psalm 118[117], “The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (v. 22), he gives the assurance that his death will not mean God’s defeat. After being killed, he will not remain in the tomb, on the contrary, precisely what seems to be a total defeat will mark the beginning of a definitive victory. His painful Passion and death on the Cross will be followed by the glory of his Resurrection. The vineyard, therefore, will continue to produce grapes and will be rented by the owner of the vineyard: “to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons” (Mt 21: 41).
The image of the vineyard with its moral, doctrinal and spiritual implications was to recur in the discourse at the Last Supper when, taking his leave of the Apostles, the Lord said: “I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit” (Jn 15: 1-2).
Thus, starting from the Paschal event, the history of salvation was to reach a decisive turning point and those “other tenants” were to play the lead as chosen shoots grafted on Christ, the true vine, and yield abundant fruits of eternal life (cf. Collect). We too are among these “tenants”, grafted on Christ who desired to become the “true vine” himself. Let us pray the Lord that in the Eucharist he will give us his Blood, himself, that he will help us to “bear fruit” for eternal life and for our time.
The comforting message that we gather from these biblical texts is the certainty that evil and death do not have the last word but that it is Christ who wins in the end. Always! The Church never tires of proclaiming this Good News, as is also happening today, in this Basilica, dedicated to the Apostle to the Gentiles who was the first to spread the Gospel in vast regions of Asia Minor and Europe. …
When God speaks, he always asks for a response. His saving action demands human cooperation; his love must be reciprocated. Dear brothers and sisters, may what the biblical text recounts about the vineyard never occur: “[he] looked for it to yield grapes but it yielded wild grapes” (Is 5: 2).
