Gospel reflection for Oct. 4, 2026, 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
The image shown above is from Pixabay.com
For the third consecutive weekend, we focus on the vineyard. We first saw the landowner pay those who worked for one hour the same wage as those who worked 12; then the landowner who asked his two sons to work the vineyard, one refused but went anyway and the other said yes and then did not go. Now we see the vineyard workers of an absentee landowner go rogue and kill his son when he comes to collect the rent. Jesus used this image to reflect the various struggles that the Church would endure over time. These workers put their self-interest over the common good. The struggles within the Church today grow out of this same tendency.
This weekend the church celebrates the 800th anniversary of the Transit of St. Francis of Assisi. He died during the night of Oct.3 1226 and the next day his body was taken to the church in Assisi for the funeral Mass and burial. Here is a man who, having recovered his childhood faith as a young man, gave all that he had to work for the Kingdom of God, to live the Gospel and to conform his life to Jesus Christ. His work in the vineyard of the Lord bore then and continues to bear now, great fruit for the Church and in building-up the Kingdom of God.
In contrast, the vineyard workers in the parable we hear this weekend are solely concerned with their own benefits, with a small view of the world, and no concern for anything greater than themselves.
The audience and the context of this parable are also very important. Jesus told this parable immediately after the parable we heard last weekend. While there was a crowd around Jesus in the Temple precincts as he taught this parable, it was clear that was addressing the Pharisees and Sadducees who were also listening to him.
The two audiences were listening differently from each other. The crowds were drawn in and fascinated by this boldness and his message. The Pharisees and Sadducees, already stiffened by the prior parable, were attentive to the criticism which was being leveled against them.
With the plot to get Jesus off the scene was already well underway, the Pharisees and Sadducees did not need much more fodder against him, and Jesus was ready to serve them exactly what they were hoping to hear.
In the parable the absentee landowner sent men to collect the rent that was due, but workers abused them and sent them away empty handed. This they did a second time, until finally the landowner sent his son, thinking that they would respect him as his father’s representative and the rightful heir. Instead, they saw their opportunity and killed him. Jesus, then, pointed out that the landowner would exercise justice against them and turn the farm over to a more worthy group of workers.
As Jesus had previously spoken against the religious authorities as those who had killed the prophets, and most recently with the death of John the Baptizer, it became clear that Jesus was warning them about the consequences of their plotting.
They had no concern for justice, nor were they concerned about obedience to the Mosaic Law or the tradition of the elders, they only wanted to use their position as occasions to support their own avarice and the power that they exercised over the people.
Jesus knew well what they were thinking and how they would respond. On one hand we can say that he hoped that they would hear his words, recognize their sinfulness, and experience conversion. On the other hand, all this served to do was to harden their hearts against him.
Ignorant of how throughout their own history, they suffered greatly due to their ancestors’ rebellion against God, they believed that their alliance with the Roman overlords was the guarantor of their protection.
The hope and promise of the Kingdom of Heaven was subservient to the power they had in the present, propped up as they were by the Roman authorities. They did not realize that the Romans had the real control, and that they were themselves expendable in the Roman hegemony.
The Pharisees and Sadducees will witness the death of this itinerant Rabbi by the end of that week. They expected then that this apocalyptic fervor and promises of a Kingdom were silenced, just as had so many prophets before him.
Yet, within the lifetime of some present that day, the very majestic Temple precincts in which they heard this parable and then sealed the fate of Jesus, would be leveled and burnt to the ground by the very empire they sought as their refuge from the Kingdom of Heaven.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.