Anyone who has ever tried to grow anything knows that you can put a surprising amount of work into a small patch of ground.
You clear it. You dig it. You take stones out. You plant. You water.
You keep an eye on the weather.
You chase things away that want to eat what you have planted.
And after all that, you stand there looking at it and think:
“Well, you could at least grow.”
That is the feeling in Isaiah’s first reading.
God says: “My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.”
He has done everything for it.
He dug the ground. Cleared the stones. Planted good vines.
Built a watchtower. Cut out a winepress.
Nothing was neglected.
And then comes this almost heartbreaking question:
“What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?”
God is speaking about Israel.
He chose His people. He taught them. Protected them.
Gave them His Law. Sent them prophets. Called them back again and again.
And He looked for fruit.
Instead He found injustice.
The sadness of the reading is not simply that the vineyard went wrong.
It is that it had been loved so much.
Then Jesus takes exactly the same image in the Gospel.
Again there is a vineyard. Again it has been carefully prepared.
But now the problem is the tenants.
The owner sends servants to collect what is due.
They beat one. Kill another. Stone another.
Then the owner says: “I will send my son; they will respect my son.”
But they see the son coming and say:
“This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.”
That is the heart of the parable.
They want the vineyard.
They do not want the owner.
And that is one of the clearest pictures of sin in the Gospel.
We want the gifts. We are less certain about the Giver.
We like life. We like love. We like family. We like freedom.
We like the beauty of creation. We like the good things God has made.
But then God says: “This is how these things are meant to be used.”
And suddenly we can become like tenants who have forgotten that the vineyard is not ours.
Imagine renting a house and after a few months changing the locks, refusing to pay the rent and telling the owner that he is no longer welcome because you have decided the house belongs to you.
Spiritually we can often do exactly that.
We receive life from God and then say: “But it is mine.”
We receive our body from God and say: “I decide entirely what it means and what it does.”
We receive truth from God and say: “I will keep the parts that suit me.”
The vineyard is His.We are stewards.
And then in our gospel the Son comes.
Jesus is speaking about Himself.
The prophets were rejected.
Now the Son has come to Jerusalem.
And He too will be taken outside and killed.
But then Our Lord quotes the Psalm:
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”
That is where the whole parable suddenly opens into hope.
Human beings reject Christ.
God makes the rejected Christ the foundation of salvation.
The Cross looks like the great human refusal of God.
And God turns the Cross into the place where mercy is offered to the world.
That is the beauty of our faith.
God is not defeated even by our rejection of Him.
He can take the very place where human beings say no and make it the place from which grace flows.
But Jesus still asks for fruit.
“The kingdom of God will be given to a people producing its fruits.”
We should not hear that and think only about somebody else.
The vineyard has now been entrusted to us.
We have received an extraordinary amount.
The Gospel. The Sacraments. The Holy Eucharist.
Confession. Two thousand years of Catholic faith.
And God still asks: Where is the fruit?
You can have a lovely garden wall, a new shed, perfect tools, and not a tomato worth eating.
Everything is present except the thing the garden was actually for.
Religion can become like that.
Everything outwardly in place.
We know where to sit. We know the prayers. We know when Mass is.
We know what Catholics believe.
All good things.
But the purpose is fruit.
Is Christ actually making us more holy?
Are we more truthful? More patient? More faithful in prayer?
More willing to do the good when it costs something?
Not spectacular things.
Fruit usually grows quietly.
Nobody hears an apple appearing.
Growth is slow.
Grace often is too.
But over time there should be something there.
And that is where Saint Paul gives us something very practical.
“Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely… think about these things.”
He understands that what we allow into the mind eventually affects the life.
If you spend all day feeding resentment, it should not surprise you if you become resentful.
If you constantly feed anxiety, anger or scandal, they grow.
The mind is rather like soil.
Something will grow in it.
Saint Paul says: choose carefully what you plant.
Then he says: “Do not be anxious about anything.”
Which, if we are honest, sounds easier in church than it does when we are alone with our thoughts.
We often solve nothing and worry about everything.
We can replay a conversation from three weeks ago.
We can plan disasters which have not happened.
We can carry responsibilities which were never actually given to us.
Saint Paul does not say: “Pretend there is nothing wrong.”
He says: “By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
In other words: Give the vineyard back to its Owner.
And then Paul says:
“The peace of God… will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
That word guard is important.
Isaiah’s vineyard had a watchtower.
Now Saint Paul speaks of God’s peace standing guard over the heart.
Not making life trouble-free.
Guarding us in the middle of trouble.
Christian peace is not the absence of bad news.
It is knowing who owns the vineyard.
God has already done so much.
He has given us existence. He has called us through Baptism.
He has spoken His Word. He has given His Son.
He forgives us when we return.
He feeds us with the Body and Blood of Christ.
And then He waits for the fruit that He Himself makes possible.
Not because He needs our fruit. God lacks nothing, needs nothing.
He wants fruit because He wants us to become what we were made to be.
