Scripture Study for

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Understanding the Word

By Br. John R. Barker, OFM

The prophet Isaiah sings of “my friend” who had a vineyard. Israel  is often spoken of in the Bible as the vine God has planted or the  vineyard God has cultivated. God has put a great amount of work and  care into the vineyard, giving it everything it needs to produce a “crop”  of righteousness and fidelity to God, only to find the wild and useless  grapes of injustice and bloodshed. Just as a vineyard owner might  rightly and prudently abandon the vineyard, so God might do the  same to Israel. The oracle, then, is meant to justify the divine decision  to bring judgment and exile to Judah, absent the desired repentance.

It is clear from Paul’s letter that the Philippians struggled with  internal tensions as well as outside opposition. Although the Christian  path is difficult—Paul himself has likened it to a prize toward which  one constantly strives—it is in fact a joyous struggle because it  involves becoming more like Christ and it occurs “in Christ.” This  transformation is slow, and perhaps painful, but it manifests itself in  peace, kindness, calm. The struggle the Philippians are undergoing  tests their resolve to follow Christ, but they must know that it is a  path marked out by what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and  gracious. In a word, it is the path to excellence on which they travel  with their God and Messiah. 

In this third vineyard-owner parable, the tenants rebel and take  over the vineyard as if it belonged to them, refusing to recognize the  rights of both the vineyard owner (God) and his son (Jesus). The  curious feature is the statement that they killed the son in order to  acquire the inheritance, which suggests a desire to appropriate to  themselves his authority. The chief priests and the scribes, then, are  being accused not of failing to recognize the authority of Jesus but  seeking to destroy him precisely because they do recognize him as the  son. Jesus accuses them of profound malice in seeking to appropriate  to themselves his authority over the vineyard (Israel). 

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