Homily - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 10th October 2023

Homily

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

10th October 2023

The first reading and the gospel for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, talk about a vineyard. Both owners spend time preparing the ground, fencing it off, sowing seed, digging a winepress, and building a tower. Both had expectations of yielding rich produce.

Isaiah tells us his friend's vineyard produced sour grapes. In our world, we would associate “sour grapes” with someone complaining about everything and constantly grumbling about the situation they find themselves in. In the end, that person appears to others as being unpleasant, never satisfied, and they leave a bitter taste. Another way of describing them is they are being sharp with everyone because of their distastefulness.

Those who were “sour grapes” in Isaiah’s story, he revealed were the House of Israel and the Men of Judah, because they had rebelled against God and were complaining that God had abandoned them. God had provided everything in the vineyard that should have produce sweet grapes.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’s parable echoes Isaiah’s story, about a vineyard being set up in the same way. This time the owner let’s the vineyard out to tenants, expecting them to nurture the land so the vines grow to produce a fruitful harvest. Yet, each time the landowner sent his stewards to bring back the produce, they were beaten, killed, or stoned. The second group was treated no better, so the owner sent his son, believing he would be respected but instead, the tenants schemed to kill him and take his inheritance.

Isaiah tells us that the wall will be destroyed so wild animals can graze on it, the vine will not be pruned, and the place will be left to wreck and ruin, overcome by briars and thorns. In Matthew, Jesus warns us that the Kingdom of God can be taken away and given to people who will produce a rich harvest.

If we look at the world around us, we are told that we must make sacrifices so global warming can be prevented. We humans must act to prevent the world from being destroyed. Our scientists will be able to solve the problem if we listen to them. But is this not mankind’s pride in the false belief that we can solve the problem in the first place.

Why will people listen to scientists when they won’t listen to God. Left to our own devices, we have seen so many problems have not been solved. The planet is gradually heating up. The weather system is producing far more storms, and everywhere on the globe we are seeing the devastation of fires and floods. In winter, temperatures are reaching lower levels than have been recorded before, and during summers the heat causes fires that seem to be constantly alight. In 2019 in August alone there were 79,000 fires detected, compared to 16,000 in 2018. Half were in Asia, more than a quarter were found in South America, and 16% in Africa. Together, 93% of the fires were detected globally that year, leaving just 7% split between North America, Europe, Australia, and surrounding islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Back in 1950, there were around 2 million tonnes of plastic pollution. By 2015, this had increased to 448 million tonnes. This is expected to rise to around 1.3 billion tonnes in 2040. No matter what we do, problems seem to get worse. What’s going wrong?

Paul told the Philippians they needed to pray, ask God for help, and give thanks to him. If we can do this also, we will receive God’s peace, which in turn will guard our hearts and minds, through Jesus Christ. We are encouraged to fill our minds with everything true and noble, with everything good and pure, with love and honor. All those things that are considered virtuous and worthy of praise.

Can we? Are we still able to? In a world full of social media influencers, who seem to know better, giving their advice. What is needed is critical thinking, the ability to look at the pros and cons from an objective perspective. This may mean distancing ourselves from our favorite idols, the gurus who draw our attention away from God. The fearmongers who deliberately attempt to confuse us and play on our emotions to get us angry and offended, simply because of the language they use to trigger a response from us.

In another garden, two people were tempted to eat the fruit God had warned them not to. They were influenced by the King of Lies, duped into feasting on the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. All this did was get the two of them arguing against each other, in the blame game we see going on so much. Again, to confuse us into not knowing what to believe.

Instead of turning away from God, we need to focus on him, and not get distracted by all the lies being spread around us. We need to trust in him. When we do, Jesus says, he will call us his friends and he will teach us everything he knows, learnt from his Father. If we believe, repent, and turn back to our loving Father, peace will be with us. We are the ones chosen to go out into the world and bear fruit that is eternal.

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