Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Octoechos Tone 4; Our Venerable Father Pimen.
1 Corinthians 16:13-24; Matthew 21:33-42.
Read Matthew 21:33-42
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Though the chief priests and the Pharisees were correct in perceiving that Jesus was speaking about them, we miss the point if we read this parable as saying that the Church replaces Israel. St. Paul wrote in Romans 11 that, “lest (we) be wise in (our) own conceits,” there remains in history a divine mystery in the continuance of Israel and the Church together. Though these words were first spoken to others, they continue to apply to us. If we see ourselves in any way in the role of “other tenants”, we then will be expected to produce the fruit the Pharisees did not.
The “vineyard” is valued and protected – it has a “hedge around it” and a “tower”. The “vineyard” has purpose – it has a “wine press in it” and the “householder” wants “to get his fruit”. We have intrinsic value to God, created in his image. We have God-given purpose. John the Baptist called people to, “bear fruits that befit repentance.” The apostle Paul prayed that Christians may “lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”
But value and purpose are determined by God, not this world. St. Peter made clear in his first letter that when Jesus quoted Psalm 118, he was speaking of himself: “The very stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Today’s gospel reading is a call for us not to devalue ourselves and to pursue our purpose. In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus makes the vineyard metaphor even more intimate: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”