October 5, 2008: 27th Sunday in OT, Cycle A

Today’s Gospel is comprised of one of the very strangest parables in the entire corpus of the parables of Jesus: the “owner” of a vineyard abandons his property, leasing it to tenants, but not sticking around to pay attention to what they do; then after many murders of those he had sent to claim some of the harvest, he sends his son, who was also killed by those voracious thugs. Then the question: NOW, what do you think the “owner will do?” And the only intelligent answer would be “NOTHING!” He hasn’t done anything, yet! He’s shown no concern for daily management, or any number of deaths; why do we think his reaction to this one would be any different, just because it was his son? He must not have cared too much about his son to begin with! And this is the interpretative clue–there was only one ruler of Judea who didn’t love his children, and had a number of them murdered, for fear they were plotting to replace him, and who spent as much time "outside" the country as in it, as he "buttered up" the Caesar. That was King Herod, the Herod reigning when Jesus was born. Here, Christ is simply looking at history, and asking us to learn from it. And what do we learn? Violence begets violence–there is no end to it. Herod was followed by procurators like Pilate! The pain has only increased through rebellion. St. Paul urges us to be peaceful so that the God of peace may be with us, and only thus can we avoid being “overrun with thorns,” and ruined, as Isaiah’s vision instructs. Can we make our peace, today? God bless.