27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

 Is. 5:1-7; Phil. 4:6-9; Mt. 21:33-43

In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, the little prince discovers a garden filled with roses and is disappointed. Until then, he had believed that the single rose on his tiny planet was unique. Now he sees thousands that look exactly like her. Later the fox teaches him something important: his rose is special not because she is the only rose in the universe, but because he has spent his time caring for her. He watered her, sheltered her, listened to her complaints and protected her. Love had invested itself in that rose. Something similar lies behind Isaiah’s beautiful song of the vineyard. God says, “My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines” (Isaiah 5:1–2). Nothing was neglected. The soil was prepared, the stones removed, the best vines planted, a watchtower built and a winepress prepared. Naturally the owner expected good grapes. Instead, “it yielded wild grapes” (Isaiah 5:2).

The sadness of the passage lies in God’s question: “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?” (Isaiah 5:4). It sounds almost like the disappointment of a parent who has given everything to a child and wonders what went wrong. Isaiah explains the image clearly: “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel” (Isaiah 5:7). God expected justice but found bloodshed; he expected righteousness but heard the cry of the oppressed. Israel had been rescued from Egypt, led through the wilderness, given the covenant, the commandments, the prophets and the Promised Land. Psalm 80 uses the same image: “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it” (Psalm 80:8). God had planted carefully, but privilege had not automatically produced fruit.

Jesus deliberately takes up Isaiah’s vineyard in today’s Gospel. A landowner plants a vineyard, puts a fence around it, digs a winepress, builds a tower and leases it to tenants (Matthew 21:33). The listeners who knew Isaiah would immediately recognize the picture. But Jesus adds something disturbing. When the owner sends servants to collect the fruit, the tenants beat one, kill another and stone another (Matthew 21:35). It is Israel’s tragic history with the prophets. Jeremiah was persecuted and imprisoned; Zechariah was killed (2 Chronicles 24:20–22); Elijah had to flee for his life. God kept sending messengers. Finally the owner says, “They will respect my son” (Matthew 21:37). Instead, the tenants say, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him” (21:38). Jesus is speaking, only days before Calvary, about himself.

There is almost a strange humour in the tenants’ thinking. They behave as though killing the heir will somehow make the vineyard theirs. It is like a tenant who throws away the landlord’s letters and then announces, “Wonderful! The house must belong to me now.” Yet human beings can sometimes behave similarly with God’s gifts. We receive life, intelligence, relationships, opportunities, creation and faith, and gradually begin behaving like owners rather than tenants. The biblical word for the proper response is “fruit.” Jesus says, “The kingdom of God will be…given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom” (Matthew 21:43). The question is therefore not how impressive the vineyard looks but what grows inside it. A vineyard can have an excellent fence, an expensive tower and a magnificent signboard—and still produce sour grapes.

Mary offers the opposite picture: a life that bore fruit precisely because she did not treat God’s gifts as her possessions. At Nazareth she receives an astonishing vocation and responds, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Her vineyard was certainly not protected from storms. Simeon warned her, “A sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:35). Soon she had to flee with Joseph and the infant Jesus into Egypt (Matthew 2:13–14). She knew the anxiety of losing Jesus for three days (Luke 2:48), the misunderstanding surrounding his public ministry, and finally the agony of standing “near the cross of Jesus” (John 19:25). Yet suffering did not make her vineyard bitter. At Cana, when the wine ran out, she noticed the embarrassment of an ordinary family and quietly brought the need to Jesus: “They have no wine” (John 2:3). Her suffering enlarged rather than closed her heart. She continued producing the fruit of trust, compassion and faithful presence.

Perhaps that is why St Paul’s words to the Philippians fit these vineyard readings surprisingly well. Paul is writing from imprisonment, yet he says, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6). He does not pretend that there are no problems. He himself is in chains. Instead, he describes what can grow even in difficult soil: “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (4:7). Then he recommends the kind of soil in which good fruit grows: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable…think about these things” (4:8). What repeatedly enters the mind eventually affects what comes out of life.

St Thérèse of Lisieux understood this beautifully. She never travelled to distant countries as a missionary and never founded a great institution. Much of her short religious life consisted of ordinary community life in a Carmelite convent, including living with people whose habits sometimes irritated her. One sister especially tested her patience, yet Thérèse deliberately treated her with such kindness that the sister reportedly believed Thérèse had a special affection for her. Her “Little Way” was precisely this: holiness could bear fruit through small acts done with great love. The vineyard of God does not always produce spectacular grapes. Sometimes its finest fruit appears as patience with the person at the next table.

A modern example comes from Doc Hendley, an ordinary bartender and musician in North Carolina who learned about the enormous number of people lacking safe drinking water. He did not begin with wealth or humanitarian expertise. He began with what he knew—organising events in bars and music venues—and raised money under the name “Wine to Water.” Eventually he travelled to Darfur and worked with local communities repairing wells and providing clean water. The initiative grew into an international humanitarian organisation. His story is striking because an ordinary skill, offered rather than merely possessed, became useful to people he had never met. The vineyard image becomes very practical here: the important question is not whether our piece of land looks like somebody else’s, but whether something life-giving can grow from what has been entrusted to us.

And perhaps this is where Isaiah’s vineyard, Paul’s prison cell and Jesus’ parable finally meet. God has invested much in the human vineyard. But the fruit God seeks is not extraordinary religious performance. Isaiah names it as justice and righteousness. Paul speaks of truth, goodness and peace. Jesus speaks of producing “the fruits of the kingdom.” Mary shows those fruits in trust when life becomes uncertain and in compassionate attention to others even after experiencing suffering herself. The saints show that fruit can grow in hidden places, and ordinary people show that a small gift can become unexpectedly fruitful.

The simple message of today’s readings is: life is God’s vineyard entrusted to us for a time; what finally matters is not how impressive the vineyard looks, but whether someone finds good fruit growing there.

Satish Selvarance