Orthodox Christian Church of the Holy Spirit
Orthodox Church in America - Archdiocese of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania
145 N. Kern St Beavertown PA, 17813
Thirteenth Sunday after Great and Holy Pentecost

Glory to Jesus Christ!  Glory forever!

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

“’Hear another parable: . . . .’”

Our Lord often uses parables to convey His message.  They are earthy ways to teach divine Truth, employing images common to the experiences of His audience to which they can relate.  Frequently, the subject of our Lord’s parables is that of the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God.  “’The Kingdom of God is like . . . .’” or “’The Kingdom of Heaven is like . . . .,’” Jesus would often begin.  But, in today’s parable of “’a certain householder,’” that is to say, a landowner, He does not begin with that familiar lead-in line, “’The Kingdom of Heaven is like . . . .’” 

He is in the Temple disputing with the chief priests and the elders of the people who are questioning His authority and from where that authority is derived (Mt. 21:23-27).  Of course, no matter what, they refuse to accept Him or His authority to do and say the things He has been doing and teaching, despite the manifold miracles testifying to His authority and from whence it comes.  Sometimes the parables are about the chief priests and the elders of the people, the scribes and the Sadducees and the Pharisees.  Sometimes they are about Israel herself and her spiritual state, something frequently addressed in the Old Testament by God and His Prophets.

Today’s parable is one of those.  Our Lord uses a beloved image from the Prophet Isaiah of a beautiful vineyard – a vineyard of the Well-beloved – set upon “a very fruitful hill.”  He “fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine press therein” (Is. 5:1-2).  Everything possible to ensure the success and protection, the fertility and productivity of the vineyard has been done by the Well-beloved One for His precious vineyard.  Everything absolutely necessary and critical to the life and well-being has been provided, just as does the householder in today’s parable.  And, then, having done so, the householder leases it out to some tenant vinedressers or husbandmen whose duty is to tend to this veritable garden or paradise and, in return, to give to the rightful owner that which is his just due at harvest time.  In short, they are stewards of this gift and as stewards they are entrusted with the landowner’s goods to render unto him what is his just due.

But, what happens?  What did they do?  Those sent to them by the householder were mistreated in various and sundry ways by these ungrateful and arrogant stewards, some more brutally than others.  Again and again, the householder sends his servants to receive from those stewards that which rightfully belongs to him, which was their duty to bestow.  But, they refused obstinately to do so.  Finally, the householder sends his only beloved son whom he fully expects will be received and respected.  Why should he think otherwise?  But, even this fails catastrophically!  Seeing their chance to have it all, the tenant vinedressers seize the son, drag him outside the vineyard, and murdered him in cold blood! 

When asked what a just response would be on the part of the householder to such a despicable and heinous immoral act, the chief priests and elders of the people get it right.  “’He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, who shall render him the fruits in their seasons.’”  It was only after their reply that the chief priests and elders of the people realized that the parable was really about them (Mt. 21:45)!  Their rightful judgment was a self-condemnation.  They were the wicked, no-good stewards of the vineyard.  “’Therefore,’” says our Lord, the true Master of the vineyard and the Son of the Householder Who is God the Father, “’the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof’” (Mt. 21:43). 

What went wrong?  Why did this go so badly?  God wonders aloud in Isaiah, asking, imploring, begging His wayward people, the apple of His eye for whom He has done all things well, His beloved vineyard from whom he rightfully expected the good fruits of justice and righteousness but instead received only oppression and a cry, “’What could have been done more to My vineyard that I have not done in it?,’” He ponders aloud.  “’Why, when I looked for it to bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?’” (Is. 3-7).  We hear in these plaintive words from God just how provocative and deplorable the spiritual condition of His people is to whom He had entrusted all things out of love.  His words echo the divine lamentations of the Great and Holy Week of the Passion of our Lord.  He strives with His people who spurn His advances and soil His love.  He yearns to understand that which is nonsensical and against all reason.  The Lover of all souls contends with His beloved despite all things.  He is a jealous God Who is zealous for the hearts and souls of His people (Ex. 20:5; 34:14; Dt. 5:9).  “’O My people, what have I done unto thee?  And wherein have I wearied thee?,’” He pleads.  “’Testify against Me!’” (Mc. 6:1-5).    

The divine Householder – our God – is longsuffering towards His wayward and errant sons and daughters, full of mercy and compassion, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance (Ex. 34:6-7; Nm. 14:18; Ps. 85 [86]:15; 144 [145]:8; Ek. 33:11; 2 Pe. 3:9, 15).  But, there comes a time of judgment upon such stubbornness and willful disobedience.  That’s what happened here in this parable.  Israel – the chosen people of God – lose their claim to the Kingdom because of their willful and stubborn disobedient hearts, because of pride, thinking of themselves more highly than they ought (Rm. 12:3, 16), forgetting who they were and to Whom they belonged, seeing themselves as masters rather than as dutiful sons and daughters, as owners and not as heirs and stewards.  If only they were like the disobedient son in another parable who repented and went and did as his father commanded (Mt. 21:28-31).  But, sadly, they are not.  Though they cling to their Abrahamic heritage as the chosen of God as some sort of guarantee, they cannot lay claim to their roots despite having Abraham as their father and the Covenant promises (Rm. 9:3-5).  In the words of St. Paul, they are not true Israelites (Rm. 9:6-7).  For Abraham himself rejoiced to see the day of Jesus Christ and kept the Word of God, unlike the tenants in our Lord’s parable (Jn. 8:37-47, 56).  They have a long history of despising those Prophets and servants of God sent to them for their salvation.  Ultimately, crucifying the Son of God and Saviour of the world outside the camp (Hb. 13:12). 

Beloved, the Sacred Scriptures are given to us so that we may learn and not repeat the sins of those before us (Rm. 15:4; 2 T. 3:16-17).  God has done everything absolutely necessary and critical for us and for our salvation and sanctification.  Not only has He created us in His image according to His likeness, but He has lavished His grace upon us in the Holy Spirit (Gn. 1:26-27; WS 2:23; Rm. 5:5; 1 Jn. 3:1).  Like Adam and Eve, He has set us in the Garden and Paradise of God, that is, He has set us in the blessed and fertile vineyard of His Church – the very Body of His Son, Jesus Christ (Ps. 79 [80]:14-19).  “[O]nce [we] were not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy” (1 Pe. 2:10).  As Gentiles, once we were “without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world,” but now we “have been brought near [to God] by the blood of Christ” (Ep. 2:11-18).  It is a divine Mystery, St. Paul says elsewhere, that Israel’s loss of the Kingdom has become our gain – all with the hope of Israel’s repentance (Rm. 9:1-11:36).  He has washed us in the waters of regeneration and anointed us with the oil of His good Spirit (Ts. 3:4-7).  We have the divine and holy Words of the Saviour Himself that are Spirit and Life (Jn. 6:63; 17:6,8).  He provides priests to hear our confession, thus granting us ample opportunity to repent and return to the ways of the Lord, and to receive absolution, confirming our repentance, so that God remembers our sins no more (Jn. 20:23).  He gives us the liturgical seasons of the Church so that we might bear their unique spiritual fruits in our lives, growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Ep. 4:13-16; 2 Pe. 3:18).  He gives to us the very holy Body and very precious Blood of His Son so that we might be united to His divine nature, eating and drinking the God-Man Himself (2 Pe. 1:4).  He bestows upon us each “an angel of peace, a faithful guide, a guardian of our souls and bodies” (Mt. 18:10; Litany before the Our Father).  And, if that were not enough, we have inherited countless brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers in the Faith, both living and departed, who surround us as a great cloud of witnesses, embracing us in love and fortifying us with their prayers (Mt. 19:29; Mk. 10:29-30; Lk. 18:29-30; Hb. 12:1).  And, if that still were not enough, we have our Panagia, our Lady and Mother, the Queen of Heaven, our Blessed and Most Holy Theotokos, our Steadfast Protectress of all Christians who honor her!  She intercedes for us all before the face of her beloved Son!  And all our God asks of us is to be faithful stewards of His saving and sanctifying grace, “to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with [our] God” (Mc. 6:8), to render unto Him the fruits of His Kingdom: our love and our obedience, our joy and our worship, unto the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ.     

“’He who has ears to hear, let him hear . . . [this] parable’” (Mt. 11:15)! 

 Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us.  Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ!  Glory forever!

PROPERS:

1 Cr. 16:13-24

Mt. 21:33-42

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