{"id":1557,"date":"2017-10-04T16:42:08","date_gmt":"2017-10-04T16:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/batkol.info\/?p=1557"},"modified":"2017-10-04T16:42:08","modified_gmt":"2017-10-04T16:42:08","slug":"the-27th-sunday-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ratisbonne.org.il\/bk\/2017\/10\/04\/the-27th-sunday-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"THE 27th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR"},"content":{"rendered":"
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REFLECTIONS ON THE READINGS FOR<\/p>\n

THE 27th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR, 08 OCTOBER, 2017, CYCLE A<\/p>\n

Isaiah 5:1-7;\u00a0 Psalm 79:9,12-15,19-20;\u00a0 Philippians 4:6-9;\u00a0 Matthew 21:33-43<\/p>\n

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Download<\/a><\/p>\n

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The theme of God\u2019s unfailing love for us \u2013 a love which we so often spurn \u2013 runs through our readings today.\u00a0 The Bible offers a startling panorama of such spurned love and Isaiah\u2019s Song of the Vineyard is a poignant reminder of it.\u00a0 At the outset we are not told who the speaker is, nor what the relationship is between the parties of the love song.\u00a0 Only later do we learn that God is the one who is singing of God\u2019s beloved Israel.\u00a0 God\u2019s attentiveness for God\u2019s people and land is expressed in the verbs \u201cdug, cleared, planted, built, hewed out\u201d.\u00a0 Such verbs speak of complete and demanding devotion.\u00a0 Tragically, the people fail to live up to their high calling, so \u201cthe vineyard\u201d is destroyed, abandoned \u2013 the people go into exile.\u00a0 Instead of the \u201cjustice\u201d (Hebrew:\u00a0 mishpat) God had sought, there had been \u201cbloodshed\u201d (Hebrew:\u00a0 mishpach).\u00a0 Instead of the \u201crighteousness\u201d God expected (Hebrew:\u00a0 tzedakah), Israel produced \u201coutcry\u201d (Hebrew: \u00a0tze\u2019akah). With such remarkable wordplay in the Hebrew text, the poet has moved from the language of agriculture to that of relationships within society\/community, always the most important concern of the prophets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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This text and its imagery are taken up in imaginative ways in the New Testament.\u00a0 Today\u2019s gospel is a midrash\/commentary on Isaiah\u2019s song.\u00a0 Matthew gives the story a decisive christological turn:\u00a0 the accent now is not on the vineyard as such, but on the \u201cowner\u2019s son\u201d who is heir, murdered by the tenants.\u00a0 The relationship of vine and branches is taken up in John\u2019s Gospel:\u00a0 \u201cI am the vine, you are the branches.\u00a0 Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing\u201d (John 15:5).\u00a0 So the branches are expected to \u201cbear fruit\u201d as in Isaiah\u2019s love song.\u00a0 Here, the fruit is \u201clove\u201d, but such love is not far removed from Israel\u2019s notion of \u201cjustice and righteousness\u201d.\u00a0 In all the gospels, as in Matthew, the parable becomes an allegory of the rejection of Jesus by the Jerusalem establishment.\u00a0 Tragically, the interpretation of the transfer of the vineyard to other tenants has fostered anti-Semitism throughout the ages.\u00a0 The parable as spoken by Jesus had a more fundamental meaning:\u00a0 the utterly illogical action of the owner in sending the son reflects the pattern in which a long-suffering and compassionate God reaches out to humanity in the face of the most blatant forms of apostasy and idolatry (see Hosea 11-12).\u00a0 This parable expresses what the Jewish writer, Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his book, God in Search of Man, has called \u201cthe divine pathos\u201d, which is the great paradox of biblical faith \u2013 God\u2019s loving pursuit of humanity.\u00a0 Today\u2019s gospel is often called \u201cThe Parable of the Wicked Tenants\u201d; a better title for it might be \u201cThe Parable of the Long-Suffering God\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Matthew does not revel in the destruction of the wicked tenants, but turns their fate back on his hearers, his emerging Christian community, stressing twice that they must bear fruit.\u00a0 He wants them to look to their Jewish heritage not only as a warning but as guidance for their life.\u00a0 And we must do the same.\u00a0 Isaiah summoned the earlier tenants to justice and righteousness:\u00a0 \u201cCease to do evil.\u00a0 Learn to do good, search for justice, help the oppressed, be just to the orphan, plead for the widow\u201d (Isaiah 1:17).\u00a0 Those of us who do not bear similar fruit will hear the ominous words of Jesus, \u201cI never knew you.\u00a0 Depart from me, you evildoers\u201d (Matthew 7:23).\u00a0 This is also Paul\u2019s call to the Christians at Philippi, which he wants to be a community \u201cbearing fruit\u201d \u2013 \u201cLet your tolerance\/gentleness be evident to everyone\u201d. The basic sense of the Greek word epeikes in the text here for \u201ctolerance\/gentleness\u201d is \u201cseemly\/decent\/just\u201d, so Paul could be pleading for these Christians to be good citizens or members of this community which clearly was experiencing internal problems.\u00a0 Echoes of both Isaiah and Matthew.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The psalmist says in Psalm 79, which also speaks of Israel as God\u2019s \u201cvine\u201d, destroyed because of the people\u2019s spurning of God\u2019s love:\u00a0 \u201cGod of hosts, turn again, we implore \u2026 and we shall never forsake you again.\u201d\u00a0 That is the prayer of the Jewish community as it celebrates its New Year (last Saturday was Yom Kippur, the great Day of Atonement) at this precious time of penitence and \u201creturning\u201d to the God who loves us so much\u00a0 – and it is our prayer, too.<\/p>\n

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This week\u2019s Sunday Gospel Commentary was prepared by<\/p>\n

Sr Margaret Shepherd, NDS, London, UK<\/p>\n

margaretashepherd@gmail.com<\/p>\n

[Copyright \u00a9 2017]<\/p>\n

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PLEASE NOTE: The weekly Gospel commentaries represent the research and creative thought of their authors, and are meant to stimulate deeper thinking about the meaning of the Sunday Scriptures. While they draw upon the study methods and sources employed by the Bat Kol Institute, the views and conclusions expressed in these commentaries are solely those of their authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of Bat Kol. \u00a0Questions, comments and feedback are always welcome<\/p>\n

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Bat Kol Institute for Jewish Studies, Jerusalem<\/p>\n

1983-2017<\/p>\n

\u201cChristians Studying the Bible within its Jewish milieu, using Jewish Sources.\u201d<\/p>\n

gill@batkol.info Website: www.batkol.info<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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REFLECTIONS ON THE READINGS FOR THE 27th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR, 08 OCTOBER, 2017, CYCLE A Isaiah 5:1-7;\u00a0 Psalm 79:9,12-15,19-20;\u00a0 Philippians 4:6-9;\u00a0 Matthew 21:33-43 \u00a0 Download \u00a0 The theme of God\u2019s unfailing love for us \u2013 a love which we so often spurn \u2013 runs through our readings today.\u00a0 The Bible offers a startling panorama…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":1552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":"","_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ratisbonne.org.il\/bk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ratisbonne.org.il\/bk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ratisbonne.org.il\/bk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ratisbonne.org.il\/bk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ratisbonne.org.il\/bk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ratisbonne.org.il\/bk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ratisbonne.org.il\/bk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ratisbonne.org.il\/bk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ratisbonne.org.il\/bk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ratisbonne.org.il\/bk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}