4 October 2026, Proper 22 Year A
Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Assigned Lectionary Readings: Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:7-14; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46
“Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received this bread we offer: given from the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the Body of Christ.” “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received this wine we offer: fruit of the vine and work of human hands, it will become for us the Blood of Christ.” What I just shared with you are two prayers that I normally offer when I celebrate the Holy Eucharist at our Wednesday evening service. These are prayers that can be said at the preparation of the altar, and I find them especially meaningful because it helps show just how intrinsically linked our own efforts are as we offer these gifts made with wheat and grapes – things planted, grown, cultivated, and harvested.
I have been meditating on these prayers especially in light of the readings we have had over the past few weeks; the language of labor, fruit, and vineyards contain clear echoes to many passages of scripture from our lectionary. Last week, our lesson from Ezekiel gave a Hebraic proverb regarding sour grapes, and that was paired with a brief illustration from Jesus in the gospel about two sons, one who says they will not work in the vineyard, but does, while the other the son says they will, but then does not. A week before that the gospel of Matthew was Jesus comparing the kingdom of heaven to a landowner who goes out to hire laborers for a vineyard, and the owner goes throughout the day, repeatedly bringing in more laborers, with the crux of the issue being that everyone receives the same wage, no matter how long they labored.
This week is no different: Isaiah proclaims the word of the Lord who sings of the vineyard that he planted. And of course, the gospel from Matthew that we just heard of a landowner planting a vineyard, but who leased it to tenants that acted wickedly to those the landowner sent. On the one hand, the scriptures are giving us a very simple message, because every scripture has had to do with where we are—being in the midst of God’s creation—and what we are to do—to tend to this creation, such as loving our neighbor as ourselves—as the labor we have been called to. That is as true as it is whether the scripture has to do with vineyards, or Jonah being swallowed by a whale, or Paul writing about the self-less, self-emptying love and servanthood of Jesus Christ. The twentieth-century Norwegian novelist, Sigrid Undset, would say that “We are all bound to work in the vineyard where God is the husbandman. We have all been given our little vineyard, but the way in which we cultivate it is of great importance for the prosperity of our neighbor's vineyard... In fact all our vineyards are a part of the Lord's great vineyard, the Holy Church, and we are all bound to work here too.”
This interpretation is clear and undisputed, but I hope to add to this understanding just a little bit, because it is so often the case with the scriptures, multiple meanings converge and coexist simultaneously. For example, St Augustine on this gospel says that “God does also cultivate us… as a field, that he might make us better.” So not only are we the ones who work in the vineyard planted by the Lord, we are also the produce of the vineyard itself. We cultivate, and we are also the ones being cultivated, a word that means to till or plow, to inhabit, or to care and labor. All the imagery, all the symbolism, every illustration we are being given us pointing to a key theme: transformation. The prayers I shared with you in the beginning matter to me because, through worship, the language teaches us that our offering, through the Holy Spirit, is transformed into something greater, and yet it reflects everything else – the mystery of how creation continues to beget more creation; how intrinsically linked our labor, love, and creativity are with godly inspiration; and how from humble origins of dust and dirt – the very things we were born from, and the very things we will return too – that the potential for the greatest mercies and joys can be shown, through this process of transformation and becoming.
So the question I have for us is this: What are we becoming? We were formed to live a vocation to create, to tend to life with care and mercy, and to dwell within the wisdom of the Lord, with no subtext or purpose other than the fact we were made and called good. And yet, so many people seem to be gleefully hastening to abdicate this role through delighting in cruelty, or giving up our souls and creativity for empty productivity that cannot conceive of transcendence. What are we becoming? What are we cultivating – and what is cultivating us?
The late Orthodox bishop, Kallistos Ware, said this: “If I do not feel a sense of joy in God’s creation, if I forget to offer the world back to God with thankfulness, I have advanced very little upon the Way. I have not yet learnt to be truly human. For it is only through thanksgiving that I can become myself.” So what may seem strange, or counterintuitive, is that for us to fully uncover the image of God we bear through the Son of God, we have to continually discover what it means to be truly human. As Ware would say, to be truly human involves living a life of thanksgiving, which, at least in part, points to the Eucharistic feast of offering and creation. But I think there is something else to add.
After Jesus offers this parable, he asks those listening of what they think the landowner will do to the wicked tenants. Their response is understandable: “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” Now, this is a passage about judgment, but Jesus does not fully affirm what was thought about the landowner. If the landowner is God, then God is not rendering the judgment of a miserable death on those who did evil; if that were true, then what was anything about the life of Christ for? No – Jesus is the stone that was rejected, and it is mercilessness, greed, bloodshed, oppression, and so on – all those things that undermine the growth of the vineyard, the rocks make tilling the soil difficult, once they fall upon the cornerstone, they are broken; once the cornerstone falls on them, they are crushed. So I ask this of you: Continue to become truly human. Be a vineyard that grows and creates those things that affirm life; be those things planted in the vineyard of love and mercy that affirm life, so that other vines that are suffering, wilting, and damaged, know that there is truly a better way. We will again hear the Lord singing his love-song for this vineyard again. Thanks be to God.
AMDG