Proper 22 :: Isaiah 5: 1-7 / Psalm 19 / Philippians 3: 4b–14 / Matthew 21: 33–46
This is the homily given at St. John’s,
Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, October 4, 2020.
“OUTWARD ACTION: A MATTER
OF INWARD INTENT”
(Homily texts: Isaiah 5: 1–7 & Matthew 21: 33–46 )
The chief
priests and their allies, standing around the Lord in the temple during Holy
Week, are having a rough time: Last week, we heard Jesus tell these leaders of
the people that the ones they hated and looked down on the most, the tax
collectors and the prostitutes, were going to enter the kingdom of God before
they did. Now, this week, the Lord lays out His Parable of the Tenants, which
is meant to describe the true intent of the chief priests, who should have been
exemplar examples of faithful stewardship of God’s people.
In Holy
Scripture, vineyards are often used to describe God’s people. We hear it in
today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah. It is also found in Psalm 80:8 – 18.
Jesus picks up this imagery in today’s parable.
The basic
problem which is described in today’s parable is one of ownership and one of
stewardship, and one of inner intent and outward action.
God is the
owner of the vineyard (and, yes, we could also say, its designer). The chief
priests and their allies are simply to care for what belongs to someone else,
to God.
Jesus hits
at the basic problem with the attitudes and the actions of the chief priests
and their allies, for they’ve mistaken stewardship with ownership. No, the
vineyard doesn’t belong to them, no matter how much they might try to take it
by force, the vineyard belongs to someone else (God).
It would be
acceptable, I think, to think that the caretakers of the vineyard had been
hired, and had maintained their position as stewards, by some early indication
of their trustworthiness and reliability. But somewhere along the line, they
betrayed that trust, placed in them earlier on.
What’s
going on in the parable is a basic truth: Inner dispositions of the heart are
often manifested in outward actions.
Jesus will
cite this truth in another way. He said, “…what comes out of the mouth proceeds
from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil
thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
These are what defile a person. (Matthew 15:18 – 19)
St. Paul
will pick up this theme. Writing to the early Christians in Ephesus, he says,
“…to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to pun the new self, created
after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:23 –
24)
In truth, in
order to live lives of integrity (defined, in this case, as a life whose
outward actions reflect one’s inner dispositions and orientation toward God),
we will need the help of the Holy Spirit.
Our role in
working with the Spirit is to be open to the Spirit’s work within us. We can
open the door for that to happen, in order that we might be faithful caretakers
of God’s vineyard in our time and place.
AMEN.
