Well, the vineyard of the Lord is the House of Israel, as is the response to this weekend’s psalm. And that’s in the Old Testament period. Then came today’s gospel, when Christ declared that the management of the vineyard is being taken away from the Temple priests and given to somebody else. Who could that somebody else be? This story in the gospel comes towards the end of the gospel according to S. Matthew, and comes during Holy Week, just before the Last Supper, when a new Order of priests is established by our Blessed Lord. He meant to replace the Temple religion with something else, to replace the Temple priests with His Apostles, whence the Church became the ‘new Israel.’ And the Temple priests and the Pharisees knew it…
“‘…Hear ye another parable. There was a man an householder, who planted a vineyard, and made a hedge round about it, and dug in it a press, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a strange country. And when the time of the fruits drew nigh, he sent his servants to the husbandmen that they might receive the fruits thereof. And the husbandmen laying hands on his servants, beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants more than the former; and they did to them in like manner. And last of all he sent to them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But the husbandmen seeing the son, said among themselves, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, and we shall have his inheritance. And taking him, they cast him forth out of the vineyard, and killed him. When therefore the lord of the vineyard shall come, what will he do to those husbandmen?’ They say to him, ‘He will bring those evil men to an evil end; and will let out his vineyard to other husbandmen, that shall render him the fruit in due season.’ Jesus saith to them, ‘Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? By the Lord this has been done; and it is wonderful in our eyes. Therefore I say to you, that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.’ And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard His parables, they knew that He spoke of them.”
Gospel of S. Matthew, 21: 33-45 [link]
In our readings this week then is the sad story of Israel, the ‘chosen people’ of God, as we learned to call them when we watched films like the Ten Commandments or perhaps read colourful children’s bibles and bible stories. We hear in the psalm the pathetic cry of a dispossessed people, conscious of how far they have fallen and calling plaintively to the God Who had built them up and could do that again.
How much God loves the Hebrew people the prophets tell us in the analogies they draw between His attachment to them and the love of a husband for his beloved wife. Our first reading this weekend is tied closely to our gospel reading this weekend, because Our Lord Jesus Christ takes up Isaiah’s parable and completes it for him. Isaiah had spoken about the Hebrew nation as a walled garden, a vineyard, carefully cleared, planted, and fortified against enemies that might ruin the work, and the divine farmer of dresser waiting for the harvest of grapes.
“I will sing to my beloved the canticle of my cousin concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a hill in a fruitful place. And he fenced it in, and picked the stones out of it, and planted it with the choicest vines, and built a tower in the midst thereof, and set up a winepress therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and ye men of Juda, judge between me and my vineyard. What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? And now I will shew you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted, I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will make it desolate: it shall not be pruned, and it shall not be digged, but briers and thorns shall come up: and I will command the clouds to rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Juda his pleasant plant; and I looked that he should do judgment, and behold iniquity, and do justice, and behold a cry.”
Prophecy of Isaias, 5: 1-7 [link]
We know the stories of the the planting of the vineyard in Abraham, and the fortifying of the vineyard with the law of Moses. The law was to consecrate the people to God and to solidify their practice of religion, protecting them from the idolatry of the tribes neighbouring them. I think we can appreciate that ourselves as Catholics, because within living memory many of us were conscious of a fortress-like monolith of faith, tradition and liturgical practice that united Catholics across the world. Just as we began to dismantle that fortress in the mid-twentieth century, so also did the religious and secular authorities of the Hebrews in their own time. We read about that in the chronicles of the Hebrew kings as foreign religions being established in Hebrew territory in an ancient multicultural enterprise. Such a thing is always risky, for the loss of religious stability is a lingering death for a religious community, and we have paid for it as they did. Only God above can measure the harvest of grapes from the vineyard, but we have seen the decline ourselves in the practice of the Catholic faith since the ‘60s.
But to come back to the Hebrew situation as summarised by the prophet Isaiah, the grapes were sour, the sweetness robbed by the distractions from the ancient religion afforded to the people, who were increasingly lost to idolatries of every type, and the subsequent misery and injustice the neglect of the divine law brought about. Now, says God (through the prophet), I shall ruin the walls of the carefully built vineyard and leave it to become a prey to every enemy. The prophecies end with resurrection, of course, for God will restore His vineyard. But the destruction would come first. As I said earlier, Christ completes the parable. During the ruin of the vineyard, the owner sends his agents to bring forth the produce of the vineyard. As prophets like Isaiah criticised the managers of the vineyard (the priests of the Temple and the nobility of Jerusalem), so Christ criticises in His parable the current tenants of the vineyard of His own time (the priests of the Temple and the Herodians, who were in league with the Romans, and desperate to be rid of Him).
The agents sent to bring forth the fruit of the vineyard are the Hebrew prophets, many of whom were known by tradition to have been murdered, even if this is not described in the Old Testament. The final agent sent is the Son of the owner, and this is an obvious reference to Christ Himself, and His hearers knew that well (as in the reading above). As the leaders of the people once slew the prophets, so now would their successors would arrange the public execution of the Son. What would be the result of this treachery? The hearers of the parable are clear about this and their conclusion is approved by Christ: they will be brought to a wretched end, and the vineyard turned over to more responsible men. Within forty years of the Resurrection of Christ, the Romans ruined Jerusalem and the Temple (AD 70), while the Apostolic Church grew beyond expectations throughout the Roman Empire, with its heartlands in Palestine, Antioch in Syria, Alexandria in Egypt, in Anatolia, Greece and Rome. And the descendants of the Hebrew nation – the Jewish people – who did not accept Christ and become Christian have sadly wandered as a dispossessed people from then and until very recently (with the modern state of Israel).
Sad this certainly is, but what happened to this Jewish people? Did they disperse and vanish after the deathblows dealt them by the Romans and other secular leaders over the centuries? No – rather, they rallied together and uniquely among all the races of the earth have stubbornly preserved their culture, history and language, and their great love for their ancient religion and for the God Who long ago called their ancestors to faith. I often mention that the relationship of God to Israel has been very like that of a bridegroom to his bride. We know that marriage grows stronger through trials, and faith sustains the marital union in difficult times, and that marriage provides a proving ground for virtue, building patience and character, etc. Certainly, modern Judaism has survived its worst days in the twentieth century and still stands proud today.
“For if God hath not spared the natural branches, fear lest perhaps He also spare not thee. See then the goodness and the severity of God: towards them indeed that are fallen, the severity, but towards thee, the goodness of God, if thou abide in goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the wild olive tree, which is natural to thee and, contrary to nature, were grafted into the good olive tree; how much more shall they that are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, (lest you should be wise in your own conceits), that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in. And so all Israel should be saved, as it is written: there shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is to them my covenant: when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, indeed, they are enemies for your sake: but as touching the election, they are most dear for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.”
Letter of S. Paul to the Romans, 8: 21-29 [link]
Unfortunately, the relationship between the Church and the Synagogue greatly deteriorated with time and modern Judaism, being in places built in reaction to the prosperity of the Church, can be very anti-Christian because of this, and because of a persecution against Jews carried out by some Christians over the last two thousand years. We must remember to pray constantly for the Jewish nation to accept their Messiah and so to unite with the Church of Christ in a joint quest to seek out and live lives of virtue, and so return humanity through the grace of God to union with Him. We have a common theological foundation and tradition that comes from the Hebrew origins of the Church, and (God willing) we shall one day march together. Here’s our Christian Pharisee S. Paul with some basic advice from our second reading this weekend…
“Be nothing solicitous; but in every thing, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things. The things which you have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, these do ye, and the God of peace shall be with you.”
Letter of S. Paul to the Philippians, 4: 6-9 [link]
