October 8th, 2023 - Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today’s vineyard parable highlights the rejection the servants of God will inevitably suffer when they try to gather in the harvest of grapes in the Lord’s vineyard.  This story is right out of a horror movie, when an innocent, benevolent property owner leases out his vineyard to tenant farmers, and then goes off on a journey. These tenants seize, torture, and finally kill the owner’s representatives when they come to collect his grapes at vintage time. Even the owner’s Son is a victim of this shocking violence. This parable delivers the awful truth that many servants of God have been rejected on the road to salvation – the prophets who paved the way for Christ’s coming, the apostles who preached the gospel of Christ in hostile surroundings, the martyrs who gave their lives as a compelling witness to the Lord. Because he was fully human, Jesus experienced the full gamut of rejection; he knows it hurts. My friends, to be human is to experience rejection. But if we are faithful to Christ, God will vindicate us in the end and we will have our share of the grapes, our share of Christ’ spoils at harvest time.