27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Bishop of Lake Charles
Homily for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
"There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower." Matthew 21:33
The entire Mediterranean is surrounded by land covered with vineyards and olive groves. There is no surprise then that the Bible uses vineyards and olive groves as an image for the Kingdom of God. Without the oil of olives no one had oil for their lamps or for cooking. Without wine from the vineyard there was no beverage for drinking or curative for illness. It is no accident that St. Paul tells St. Timothy, "Stop drinking only water, but have a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent illnesses" (I Timothy 5:23).
When God speaks through the prophet Isaiah of His vineyard, He is speaking of Israel and Judah. "The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his cherished plant" (Isaiah 5:7). The vineyard is God's Kingdom, His Chosen People, and God is the owner of the vineyard.
So when Jesus speaks a parable about "a landowner who planted a vineyard", there can be no mistake that Jesus is speaking about God's Kingdom. And when he mentions the "son" of the landowner who goes to collect his share of the harvest, there is no doubt that the "son" is Jesus Himself. The wicked tenants seize the son, just as they did during Jesus' passion. They take him out of the vineyard, just as they took Jesus out of Jerusalem for the way of the cross, and they kill him, just as Jesus was crucified.
The lesson of this Gospel parable is extremely important. What Israel was incapable of giving the landowner, Christ actually does give Him. Christ is the vine that produces the authentic fruit. For this reason Jesus says the following in the Gospel of St. John: "I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower" (John 15:1).
For a vine to grow, the branches must be in tact with the vine. There must be communion. The branches must be united. There cannot be division and disconnection. Jesus expressed it this way. "Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Being united to Jesus means that we belong to Him. It is not an optional unity. The survival of the member depends upon this unity. It is the unity that the Church represents. This truth, this essential teaching, is what moves the Holy Spirit to have St. Paul write, "He put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body..." (Ephesians 1:22-23).
The Church is not accidental. The Church is not an excuse. The Church is called to be a reflection of the Kingdom of God. St. Paul puts it this way, "As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ" (I Corinthians 12:12). Sometimes people will point to scandals and say, "Oh, yes, all this talk about the Church as the Body of Christ is fine and good, but what about the scandals? How can the Body of Christ have both good and bad in it?" I think St. Paul answers that question too. He writes, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I do not need you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I do not need you'" (I Corinthians 12:21). Then he concludes, "God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there may be no division in the body" (I Corinthians 12:24-25).
This unity of the body is nowhere better expressed than in the unity of belief that we share. In the body we profess the same Lord, the same baptism, the same faith. We do not pick and choose. This is particularly true in essentials. What sense would make to believe in Jesus' divinity as an option? We could choose to believe that Jesus was Son of God or not to. This would contradict everything that we know as revealed in the Sacred Scriptures and in Sacred Tradition.
This Sunday is "Respect Life Sunday." Respect for life in all its forms, from the first moment of conception until death, is not an option. This has been and remains a fundamental moral teaching. As St. Paul will remind the Athenians, it is God "who gives to everyone life and breath and everything" (Acts 17:25). Evidence of a basic respect for life is found in the earliest documents of the Church dating back to the First Century (e.g. Didache). Just as the early Church found the pagan practices of abortion and infanticide reprehensible, so too the Church sees them as intrinsically evil acts. As I once heard stated, the only difference between a human being in the womb and human being on a deathbed is a question of time.
The importance of the Church in preserving the unity of faith and morals is no better seen than today. Where the world is not sure of what it believes and seems determined to reduce everything to relativity, the Church is one of the few that as a unified voice can speak up for essentials, that can present a coherent message on the fundamental issues that really matter. St. Paul realized this. That is why I think he concludes our second reading the way he does. He writes to the Philippians, "Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me" (Philippians 4:9).