A Divine Renovation

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, October 8th, 2023:
Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Matthew 
21.33-43

Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people: “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country.

“When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way.

“Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

“Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “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.”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?

“Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”​

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Have you ever seen that GIF where a man in a movie theatre compulsively eats popcorn while watching a melodrama unfold on screen? That is how I envision myself watching the events of today’s Gospel, because it’s a real nail-biter!

Sometimes the parables are convoluted to me, but the parable of the tenants reads so directly it’s quite shocking. In it, the landowner represents God, the slaves are God’s people, and the son is Jesus. Similar to the story of salvation history for the Israelite people, when the slaves are sent out to reap the harvest, they face hostility and death. Finally, after the landowner makes repeated attempts to draw the fruits of labor to himself, the son is sent, only to be rejected and killed — a clear parallel for the Son of God.

Scene set and events described, Jesus pauses at the crux of the parable to ask the chief priests and elders what they think the landowner will do. As they respond, their lack of self-knowledge and reflection is hard to believe: while they correctly answer that God will end the terms of the tenants and give the fruits of the vineyard to a better people, they fail to make the connection that it is they who play the part of the cruel tenants.

The irony is not lost: those who "see and know," are actually blind and unlearned. They do not understand they have rejected the cornerstone — a reference from Psalm 118 which Jesus uses to speak of Himself — before He takes a stunningly direct approach to get His point across: The kingdom of God will be taken away from you.

It’s breathtaking how uncompromising Jesus is when He needs to be. He’s not seeking unnecessary conflict, but He’s not at all afraid to take down a whole system or structure in order to bring about the Kingdom. A “divine renovation” of the heart! Remodeling requires that building errors be rectified so a secure foundation can be laid: the Cornerstone, to be exact.

So the parable of the tenants is as much a proposal to me today as it is to the leaders of the time when Jesus shared it. What structures have I, knowingly or unknowingly, built within myself that keep me from bearing God’s fruit? Where have I been blinded by my own propositions, opinions, or assumptions of how things should operate or exist? 

Jesus, give me courage to surrender to Your design, that I might bear fruit from Your goodness. Help me to build my life upon You.




Michelynne Gomez

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