27th Sunday Year A

Gospel Matthew 21:33-43

"It was the Lord who did this and we find it marvelous to
behold"

The gospel for the 27th Sunday of the Year, begins with a parable
of a property owner who planted a vineyard, and leased it out to
tenant farmers, and then went on a journey. When vintage time
came, the property owner sent his slaves to obtain his share of
the grapes. But the tenants responded by mistreating his slaves
- some of whom they even killed. When he could not get his share
of the grapes, the property owner sent his son, thinking that the
tenants will respect his son. But the tenants knew that this son
would receive the vineyard as an inheritance from his father, the
property owner. And so they also killed him.


This parable Jesus spoke to the chief priests and elders of the
people was meant to make them discover that He was that son in
the parable, and His Father was the property owner. And the
slaves which the tenants mistreated, were the prophets who were
killed by the people Israel before Jesus became the prophet of
the new Israel.


We will be judged by the Lord by how we steward and shepherd the
gifts He has given us: our family, our work, our possessions, our
formal relationships, and friends. If we mistreat these people
or misuse the material things like the tenants in the parable,
the Lord will bring us to a bad end, and will give His blessings
to those who will take care of the gifts He has given us. The
lesson for us to learn in this parable is to respect everyone in
our social network, to treat them kindly, to be faithful in our
work and service of prayer to God, so that as Jesus inherited the
Kingdom from His Father, we shall also share in His inheritance:
a Kingdom filled with God's blessings, both material, and much
more importantly, spiritual - for both our family and our work.