A song of the vineyard

Isaiah 5.1-7 Against the Lord’s vineyard

Philippians 3.4b-14 I run towards the goal of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus

Matthew 21.33-43 This is the landlord’s heir: come, let us kill him

 

‘Turn now, O God of hosts, look down from heaven;

behold and tend this vine; preserve what your right hand has planted’

(Psalm 80.14)

 

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The thread that connects our Old Testament and Gospel readings is the vineyard and in the scriptures the vineyard is an image of Israel.

 

And let’s be clear: this is not about the modern State of Israel or Jewish people today.

 

It is about the biblical, House of Israel, God’s first-called People.

 

As our first reading made clear: ‘for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel’ (Isaiah 5.1-7).

 

But all is not well in the vineyard.

 

The prophet Isaiah is issuing a warning to the house of Israel.

 

He is saying that the vineyard, that God gives out of love, is meant to be a fruitful place, because the Lord has cleared the stones from the soil, made it fertile and hewed out a wine vat.

 

The vineyard is ready to flourish and be fruitful.

 

All is not well in the vineyard.

 

The Lord, Israel’s lover, ‘expected [the vineyard] to yield grapes, but instead it yielded wild grapes’.

 

What’s going on?

 

The prophet says that Israel has not tended the vineyard as it should; the cultivated grapes have been neglected and gone wild, fertility has leached out of the soil.

 

It is a tale of the neglect of the gift that God has given; oh, so human.

 

You might see parallels with human care of the creation: neglect, exploitation and desolation is ruining the vineyard entrusted to humanity.

 

But this is more specific.

 

Israel, in Isaiah’s vision, is a sign to the nations of the One True God’s desire to be in relationship with a people which is faithful to him.

 

Israel is a microcosm of what the whole human race is to be: a sign of the faithfulness of God, that the people who walk in darkness can indeed see a great light: Israel is to be ‘the Galilee of the nations’ (Isaiah 9.1).

 

Israel awaits expansion, when the hems of its tents are stretched out, to embrace even the Gentiles (cf Isaiah 54.2).

 

Isaiah is asking if Israel is worthy to be the sole tenant of the vineyard?

 

It is this image that Jesus picks up in his parable of the wicked tenants of the vineyard.

 

He is making the same point as Isaiah declares and describes the vineyard in the same way as Isaiah does.

 

But Jesus transforms the metaphor of the vineyard, where all is not well, to tell us of himself.

 

It is not just that not all is well in the vineyard, but the vineyard is mistreated and neglected; instead of being fruitful it is filled with violence, covetousness and greed.

 

He develops Isaiah’s point that, ‘The Lord expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!’ (Isaiah 5.7)

 

Jesus is saying that the tenants of the vineyard have consistently mistreated it and tend to violence.

 

Who are the tenants? Well, the chief priests, elders of the people and Pharisees conclude, correctly, that they are the wicked tenants Jesus is talking about. (Matthew 21.45)

 

And they are about to lose the vineyard for good: ‘Therefore I tell you’ says Jesus, ‘the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom’ (Matthew 21.43)

 

This is where our Biblical antennae should be twitching.

 

Vineyards. They have vines. Who said, ‘I am the True Vine and my Father is the vinedresser’? Who said, ‘I am the vine; you are the branches?’ (John 15.1,5)

 

Of course! The True Vine growing in the vineyard is Christ, the only Son.

 

The son, thrown out of the vineyard and killed by the usurpers is the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is sent to the vineyard and is crucified outside the city walls.

 

Yet this will fulfil the scriptures, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’ (Matthew 21.42 quoting Psalm 118.23)

 

God builds on the foundation of his Son who is despised and rejected, expelled from the vineyard.

 

And there our Biblical and ecclesial, that is things relating to the church, our Biblical and ecclesial antennae twitch further.

 

Jesus describes the Apostle Peter as the rock on which he will build his Church (Matthew 16.18)

 

This Church is the household of God, described in the St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians as being  ‘built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone’. (Ephesians 2.19,20)

 

We are now entrusted as the Church, the New Israel, with custody of the vineyard, as Jesus said to the Chief Priests and elders of the people, ‘‘Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom’ (Matthew 21.43).

 

The vineyard is redeemed, bought back, by the blood of Christ, the Son who is slain.

 

As the grape is crushed to make the juice from which comes the wine, so Christ’s blood is shed for the world and to give birth to the Church, his Body, to inhabit the vineyard and to make it fruitful.

 

The challenge now for us, in the vineyard of the Church, is to remain faithful to Christ: to be ‘a people who produce the fruits of the kingdom’; yearning to be holy; expanding our catholic vision; filled with apostolic zeal.

 

May our prayer be, in the words of the Psalm today, ‘Turn now, O God of hosts, look down from heaven; behold and tend this vine; preserve what your right hand has planted’ (Psalm 80.14)