27th Sunday 2020
Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 79; Philippians 4:6-9; Matthew 21:33-43
Unless it was bearing grapes at the time, I wouldn’t recognise a vine if I fell over it. I recall a previous parish which possessed a very attractive modern set of tabernacle veils. The green one was embroidered with a leafy plant which looked to me like ivy but which, I was assured, was a vine.
To the people of Palestine in Our Lord’s day, a vine would have been immediately recognisable, as viticulture (the care of vines) was an important local industry. To Christians throughout the centuries the vine has had particular significance as the bearer of grapes, the source of wine, which Jesus changed into His blood. We recall too one of His great “I am” (ego eimi) sayings from St. John’s Gospel, “I am the vine” which would have immediately struck a chord with His audience.
Hence, it is not surprising that the vine occupies such a prominent place in the scriptures. Isaiah, writing in the eighth century BC uses the vineyard, and the vines enclosed there, as a symbol of Israel. This is a beautiful passage in which the prophet expresses God’s love for His people, in terms of the tender and skilful care with which Isaiah’s friend prepared a vineyard from scratch, clearing the ground, adding all the buildings which might be needed, and planting the best quality vines.
This is an allegory of God’s care for His chosen people, preparing for them the land of promise, tending them by the work of the judges and prophets, giving them every opportunity to grow and flourish in the love and knowledge of Him.
Yet, says Isaiah, all this love, all this careful attention, have been in vain. The people have let God down. In terms of the allegory, the vineyard has produced sour grapes: this represents the people’s abandonment of God, their worship of false gods, their neglect of justice. In response, the owner will allow the vineyard to go to rack and ruin: in practice, God’s people endured a succession of attacks and invasions, culminating in the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel, and the deportation of the inhabitants of the southern kingdom of Judah to Babylon, the latter event occurring more than a century after the time of Isaiah.
Today’s psalm pursues a similar theme. Once again, Israel is a vine, brought out of Egypt, and planted in a well prepared vineyard. For the psalmist, the destruction envisaged by Isaiah has already taken place. At first, the psalmist claims to be shocked and puzzled: “Then why have you broken down its walls?” Then he implicitly accepts that it is Israel’s own fault, by promising that, if God rescues them from present distress, “we will never forsake you again”.
Our Lord, in the Gospel, produces a parable which has explicit echoes of Isaiah’s allegory. Now however, the villains are not unfruitful vines but murderous tenants, who want to claim the vineyard for themselves. The vineyard is now not Israel but the Kingdom of Heaven, yet it is still the chosen people who are at fault, attacking and murdering the owner’s servants, who represent the prophets, and preparing to murder Jesus, the owner’s Son.
What is threatened is not the destruction of the vineyard, but its transfer to other tenants, the Gentiles, the new people of God. All is fine for us: the vineyard, the Kingdom, is given to us, and all we have to do is to produce its fruits.
Oh dear! Can we honestly say that we have done so or are doing so? Over the centuries have we, the Gentiles, the new people of God, behaved any better than the original chosen people? They, as a people, have suffered persecution at our hands: was that bearing fruit for God? Admittedly, the Church has done many good things, has produced many holy men and women, but it has also been guilty of many grave offences, not the least of which is the clerical abuse crisis. We still have a very long way to go, a massive amount of work to do, if we in our turn are not to deserve the strictures of Isaiah, of the psalmist, and indeed of Our Lord Himself.
