We are Loyal Trustworthy Workers of God’s Vineyard – A Lesson from Three Vineyard-Related Parables

In the northern hemisphere, this is the harvest season for grapes.  In the Middle West and East Coast regions of the United States, this is when we enjoy harvesting concord grapes.

Interestingly, as to reflect the grape harvest season, for the last 3 Sundays (25^th Sunday, 26^th Sunday, and 27^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A), Gospel readings have a theme of vineyard. These Gospel readings are: Mathew 20:1-16 (25^th Sun), 21:28-32 (26^th Sun), 21:33-43 (27^th Sun). 

The parable in Matthew 20:1-16 is bout vineyard workers complaining about their wages to the vineyard owner.  The vineyard workers who started working at the crack of dawn felt unfair, when they found out that the vineyard owner paid the same wage to those who came to work in late hours and did less work.  But, the vineyard owner insisted that he was not treating his workers unfairly as he sure paid what he agreed to pay with each of his workers.  The vineyard owner also told these complaining workers to leave his vineyard with what they received.

In this parable, God is the vineyard owner, and we are the vineyard workers.  The vineyard is the place that God provides for us to be and act as who we are and are to become in the eyes of God.  The vineyard owner went outside the vineyard to invite those who have no jobs to work in his vineyard. It means that God reaches out to those who are not treated for their self-worth by the place where they are. Then, God invites them into His domain so that their lives will have meaning and purpose by working in God’s “vineyard”.

 In Matthew 21:28-32, one son did not say “yes” but actually changed his mind and went out to work in the vineyard, while the other son said “yes” but never did the work, when their father asked them to work in the vineyard.

This parable reminds us of the importance of conversion, an act of turning our minds and hearts from a life of sin to a new life of doing the work for God.  In this parable, doing the work for God is juxtaposed to working in the vineyard.

While some people filling the pews every Sunday only live with empty “pious platitude”, there are people who are considered as outsiders by these pious platitude church goers, actually doing the work for God.  To point out the hypocrisy of those only live with empty “pious platitude”, Jesus referred the son who did not say “yes” to his father but actually did the work to tax collectors and prostitutes, who converted from their former lives of sin to do the will of God.  Thus, vineyard is where we do the will of God, upon our conversion – turning our lives from sin, Satan’s lure, to God.

The last of these three vineyard-related parables, Matthew 21:33-43, is the parable of the tenant vineyard workers, who hijacked the vineyard, abusing the trust that the vineyard owner put on them.  The vineyard owner worked hard to set up a nice vineyard with great care and leased it to his tenant workers.  These workers are to produce good fruits by the harvest season. However, when harvest time nears, instead of showing the progress of their vineyard work to the vineyard owner’s servants, they beat and killed these servants.  Finally, when the vineyard owner sent his own son to the vineyard, the tenant workers threw him out of the vineyard, killed him and stole his inheritance.

In this last vineyard-related parable, God is the vineyard owner, who set the vineyard up to lease.  The tenant workers in the vineyard are the hypocrite religious leaders at the time of Jesus. They are the ones who turned the Temple, the house of God, the house of prayer (Isaiah 56:7), into a den of thieves (Jeremiah 7:11), as Jesus confronted them when he cleansed corrupted Temple (Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-48). In other words, what Jeremiah 7 describes as false religious teachers, are projected into the hypocrite religious leaders who manage the Temple and deconsecrated this holy house of prayer. And, they are further juxtaposed to these tenant vineyard workers in the parable of Matthew 21:33-43.

The vineyard is the world that God set up for us to bear fruits.  We are not only called to work in His vineyard to bear its fruits but also to be judged by the fruits we produce (Matthew 7:19-21), as Jesus taught in his Sermon on the Mount, echoing John the Baptist’s challenge to the hypocrites in Matthew 3:10. What was a tree that cannot bear good fruits in Matthew 3:10 and Matthew 7:19-21 is now projected into the desecrated vineyard hijacked by corrupt tenant workers in Matthew 21:33-42. Thus, there is a progressive thematic development leading to this vineyard-related parable in the Matthew’s Gospel to remind us how important it is for us to be faithful to God, not abusing His trust in us, and to bear abundant fruits in His vineyard. Not abusing God’s trust in us means not abusing God’s gift of free will.

Originally, vineyard is a metaphor of Israel, the nation of the first chosen people in the Old Testament, as in the first reading for the 27^th Sunday, Isaiah 5:1-7, describes.  However, because of Isaiah’s prophesy of salvation of the world (i.e. Isaiah 45:22, 52:10, 15,  56:7, 60:3, 66:18) and elsewhere in the Old Testament prophecies (i.e.  Zechariah 9:10) and Psalm (i.e. Psalm 22:27-28, 72:8-11), on the universality of salvation, the salvific dominion of God is applied not just the nation of the first chosen, Israel, but extended to all nations on earth. This extensive dominion of God’s salvation is projected into the vineyard metaphor throughout these parables read in these three Sundays:  Mathew 20:1-16 (25^th Sun), 21:28-32 (26^th Sun), 21:33-43 (27^th Sun).  However, Matthew 21:33-43 indicates that unrepentant sinfulness, as in the rebellious tenant workers who hijacked the vineyard, has turned the salvific world into desolation, filled with sins of greed and so forth, in a similar ways the Temple had turned from the God’s sacred house of prayer into a desecrated den of robbers.

The first reading for the 27^th Sunday, Isaiah 5:1-7, is a prophetic prototype of the 27^th Sunday’s Gospel reading, Matthew 21:33-43, to prophesize a possible consequence of not just unrepentant sins but rather progressively escalating sins.

The progressive nature of unrepentant sins begins with our selfishness – our attachment to “our will”. -This makes it difficult for us to accept the will of God, which is emphasized in the vineyard-related parable for the 26^th Sunday Gospel, Matthew 21:28-32. This selfishness, our clinging to our own will, a misuse of God-given free will, makes us complain like the vineyard workers in the 25^th Sunday Gospel reading, Matthew 20:1-16. However, as indicated in the 26^th Sunday Gospel reading, Matthew 21:28-32, like the son, who first did not say “yes” to his father to work in the vineyard but changed his mind and actually worked, we are given a chance to turn our hearts and mind from a life of sin – a life of abusing free will -  to a life to do the will of God, by accepting the will of God with the gift of free will that we have. But, if we fail to convert our life from a life of abusing free will – a life of sin – to accept and do the will of God, then, we will be like the rebellious tenant vineyard workers, who killed not only the vineyard owner’s servants but also his son, and stole his inheritance, as described in the 27^th Sunday Gospel parable, Matthew 21:33-43.

It is the harvest time for concord grapes in North America. We will rejoice as we see abundant fruits in the vineyard at this time of the year. 

It is also when the end of the liturgical year draws near. It means that Gospel readings are more geared to draw our attention to the end of time to prepare for the coming of Christ the King.  We start this season of our eschatological preparation with these three vineyard-related parables from Matthew’s Gospel this liturgical year (Year A).

We must ask now, “Are we still complaining about the term we agree with God, because we have not yet overcome our selfishness?”, “Are we still living a life of free will without the regard to the will of God?”, “Have we turned our hearts and minds to do the will of God?”, or “Are we becoming like the tenant vineyard workers, who hijacked the vineyard and stole the vineyard owner’s son’s inheritance, because we refuse to convert our hearts and minds to the will of God but continue to abuse free will?”

Both Isaiah 5:1-7 and Matthew 21:33-43 also remind us that God will impose a judgment upon those who remain unrepentant and refuse to convert.

God will take the vineyard away from those who hijacked and stole the inheritance of the vineyard owner’s son.  It means that the Kingdom of Heaven, the domain of God’s salvation, will be taken away from such unrepentant progressive sinners at the time of the final judgment. Their names will not be found in the Book of Life.

Though it is already the harvest time for concord grape.  However, the eschatological harvest time in God’s vineyard has not yet come. It means that we still have time to become loyal vineyard workers, worthy of His trust, to our vineyard owner, who generously provides us with the place and opportunity to do meaningful work for the will of God.  As we turn ourselves from a life of sin, a life of abusing free will, to a life to do the will of God in the God’s vineyard, we will turn the vineyard abundantly fruitful field of harvest, when Christ, the Son, returns.