1st Sunday of Mesore
Background
Today is the 1st Sunday of Mesore and the Church arranges the readings of the first three Sundays of this month to speak about how the Lord cares for His Church.
Introduction
Today the Gospel Reading according to St Luke showed us one of the very important parables that the Lord preached: The Parable of the Wicked Vinedressers. The Lord preached it near the end of His ministry in Jerusalem and its meaning was very clear to the Pharisees and Chief Priests and Scribes - so much so that they sought to lay hands on Him after hearing it.
A vinedresser planted a vineyard. And the Gospel of St Matthew gives us many details about this vineyard - he set a hedge around it, he dug a winepress in it, he built a tower. Then he leased it to some vinedressers, and went away for a long time.
When it was vintage-time, when it was time for the vineyard to produce fruits, the man sent his servant to go and get some of that fruit. The vinedressers beat the servant and sent him away. So he sent another servant... again, they beat him and sent him away empty. Then he sent a third... again, they wounded him and cast him out.
So the man sends his son, and the gospel says specifically: "his beloved son" - but when the vinedressers saw him, they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. And the Lord tells them "Therefore what will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those vinedressers and give the vineyard to others."
And the chief priests and scribes UNDERSTOOD the Parable, so they said "Certainly not!"
They understood that:
- The man refers to God
- The vineyard refers to Israel
- The vinedressers refer to them, the keepers of Israel in that day
- The servants refer to the prophets
- The son refers to the Lord Jesus Christ
The message of the parable was that they had persecuted and cast out all of the servants that God had sent - the prophets. And that now God sends His Son - His beloved Son - and He is rejected, and He will be killed. And God will destroy them and give the vineyard - give Israel - to someone else.
And the Lord drives home the idea by referring to the prophecy of Psalm 118 - "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone."
This is the symbolic or prophetic meaning of this parable. The Lord prophesies His death at the hands of the Jewish people, and the giving of the Heavenly Kingdom to others; to Gentiles. We, the Christian people. The New Israel.
There are also several spiritual meanings to be taken from this parable and from today's readings, about the concept of Stewardship.