Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jan 15 2025

Bearing Fruit: Not Just for Vineyards

God’s relationship with people is at the heart of both the first reading and the Gospel, but there is a difference. In Isaiah, destruction comes to the vineyard; in the Gospel, it comes to those entrusted with the care of the vineyard.

Isaiah’s song highlights the people’s failure—the house of Israel and the people of Judah—to bear fruit, to provide the Lord who has lovingly tended this vineyard with anything more than wild grapes, that is, bloodshed and violence against each other. Because of this, the owner will turn his back on them, no longer giving care but letting it be trampled underfoot, no longer pruning or hoeing, but allowing thorns and briers to take over. This song is demanding conversion. In Jesus’ parable, the focus is on those entrusted with the care of the vineyard. Jesus addresses the chief priests and the elders in Jerusalem, not only criticizing their failure to care for the people adequately, but also their rejection of those God sent to call them to conversion. The parable calls all religious leaders to remember that authority is for service.

Bearing fruit in our lives, being true and honorable, just and pure, lovely and gracious is the fruit God desires from all, as Paul reminds the Philippians. God’s people, but especially their leaders, have a responsibility to bear fruit. No one is let off the hook. God expects a return for love so lavishly given.

Consider/Discuss

Have you ever tended a plant or grown a garden? What did this experience teach you?
What fruitfulness God is asking of you?
Is there anything that prevents you from making a return to God for all that has been given to you?

Responding to the Word

St. Paul calls us to set aside anxiety and to make known to God any requests we have for more fruitful lives. In prayer we will find that “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Jan 15 2025

Scripture Study for

The first reading tells a story about a vineyard. The vine dresser diligently performed each step of the process to produce grapes. However, not only was there no abundant harvest, but wild, useless grapes sprang forth. This unnatural yield was not due to poor cultivation. Rather, the vineyard itself had failed. It becomes clear that the prophet is really talking about the Israelites. Judgment is now passed on the vineyard (the people). God invested so much in the future of this people, and they scorned the attention of the vineyard owner. What began as a poem about friendship and devotion ends as a message of doom.

The tenderness with which Paul regards the Philippians is evident here. They are anxious and Paul offers them encouragement and direction. Rather than be anxious, they are admonished to turn to God in prayer. Paul is not advising some kind of magical exercise that will right every wrong, but an openness to God that itself can help people bear trying circumstances. They will then know the peace that only God can give, the peace that surpasses all understanding. He then exhorts them to live lives patterned after Christ. Christian thinking and behavior will open the believer to the kind of peace that only God can give.

Jesus too tells a story about a vineyard. When he is finished, he turns to the leaders and asks them to provide a legal ruling on the situation. They must have known that the parable was highlighting their own resistance to God’s directives, and they also would have known that whatever judgment they might suggest would fall on their heads as well. The sentence they passed was quite harsh, but it was actually no harsher than the conduct of the tenants. Just as the vineyard is taken from the wicked tenants and given to others, so the kingdom of God will be taken from the leaders and given to people who will produce fruits.

Jan 12 2025

God the Gardener

On this day of honor for St. Francis of Assisi, the prophet Isaiah describes how much God the gardener cherishes the vineyard—such care, such choice vines the divine hand has planted! That image naturally turns my thoughts to my relationship with my garden. I too get attached to my plants. I start my lavender and tomatoes from seed. I place them into soil that I have composted and manured. But my attachment is only a semblance of the devotion that God has for the human vineyard.

Last summer when I came back from vacation, the bunnies had chewed all my pole beans at ground level. The deer had chomped the tops off the sunflowers. Oh, I was exasperated. Imagine the angst when the stone fence around your vineyard is allowed to crumble so that wild beasts trample and eat all your grapevines. When you deeply care about something, you are more deeply hurt when it is not cared for.

Jesus’ parable mirrors the Old Testament prophets’ solemn warnings to the leaders of Israel. The “Great-I-Am” is looking for fruit. But there is no fruit. God’s distress is with caregivers who do not give care. Leadership means to cherish and tend the vineyard, to do everything necessary to bring it to fruition.

As we read this series of vineyard parables in Matthew, we might question whether God is very “nice.” We hear death and destruction, the wrath of the landowner and handing the stewardship to another— Jesus’ ending is not “nice.” Though American culture places a high value on “niceness,” there is no “nice” in the Bible. God is merciful. God is kind. God also wants justice. God intends for this vineyard to be treated right. Woe to those who do not.

Consider/Discuss

We throw our whole heart into many things in life—gardens, children, relationships, parish, school, job, business, and so on. What does it feel like when something we care about yields “rotten grapes”? What role does (or doesn’t) “righteous indignation” play in the Christian life?
In my early days of gardening, I was too “nice” to thin overgrown perennials and throw out diseased tomatoes. As a result, the whole garden suffered. What are the challenges to “just letting things go”? How do we balance that with pruning for the “greater good”?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord our God, you are true. You are honorable. You are good. Thank you for caring for each of us and all of us so deeply. In whatever role you give us in life, send us your grace to discern how we are to lead and care for those whom you entrust to us. Help us to listen carefully to your warnings and not be so self-assured that we do not hear your correction. Not to us, but to you, is the glory when our efforts bear good fruit.

Jan 12 2025

Scripture Study for

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).

Jan 06 2025

Ask, Then Act

The prophet Habakkuk asks God how long he (the prophet) will have to see violence, ruin, and misery. God answers with a vision to be written down and a call to wait patiently in faith. “The just one, because of his faith, shall live.”

Paul sounds a call to interior action, urging Timothy to stir into flame the gift of God: a spirit of courage, energy, and action. Though separated by over six centuries, the prophet Habakkuk and the apostles Paul and Timothy faced suffering and destruction; all three responded by witnessing to their faith in the God of Israel. For Paul, this faith finds expression in fidelity to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel answers two questions: how do we get this faith and what do we do with it in the face of trials? We get it by asking. Jesus tells the apostles it is not a matter of quantity but quality. A little faith can go a long way in producing results. While Luke’s version of this saying of Jesus is less dramatic than Matthew’s—with Luke faith can uproot a mulberry tree, while Matthew has it moving a mountain—the basic point is the same.

After his response, Jesus calls them to action. Faith flowers into service. Serving Christ, especially in the least and the needy, flows from faith. The vision faith provides carries us into making this world a better place, embodying the faith, hope, and love that can transform the world.

Consider/Discuss

How have you experienced the power of faith?
Has it helped you to get through difficult times, giving you strength to uproot any obstacle and toss it in the sea of God’s mercy?

Responding to the Word

Give us faith, generous God, to carry us through whatever trials and suffering might come in the future. We believe you are with us in all life’s circumstances and events, but darkness can sometimes cloud our vision. At those times, help our unbelief. Send your Spirit to strengthen us.