A Little Known Saint: Gilbert of Sempringham (1083-1189)

Gilbert of Sempringham is hardly a household, or familiar ecclesiastical, name! The first time I ever encountered it was during my formation to become a professed Oblate of the Order of Julian of Norwich. I noticed in the Ordo for October 13 that the commemoration of St. Gilbert was observed as a Solemn Holy Day in the Order. Apparently it didn't bother me enough until four years later, October 17, 2001, when I emailed Fr. John Julian, OJN, founder of the Order and made enquiry. His reply: "That's an easy one! St. Gilbert is the second Patron of the Order of Julian of Norwich because he was the founder (in the 12th century) of the Gilbertine Order: the first religious order actually founded in England, and the first one with BOTH monks and nuns in the same Order. 


In fact, during my visit to England in 1982 (which resulted in the founding of the Order), I had also visited Sempringham as well as Norwich. So, on the plane home, when I decided to begin OJN, it was that recent visit to Sempringham which gave me the impetus to make ours a 'mixed' order. So, he's #2 for us, immediately after our Blessed Mother Saint Julian. 


And aside from all that, he was a fantastic guy, on a first-name basis with St. Bernard and Pope Eugenius III; he sheltered Thomas Becket when he was fleeing from Henry II; he was a great favorite for pilgrimages, and has dozens of healing miracles to his credit; and he was the first person to go through the then-new papal process to be recognized as a saint, and the Pope actually personally composed the Collect for his feast. Sadly, he is little known now."


Gilbert was the son of Jocelin, a wealthy Norman knight. When Gilbert showed no signs of becoming a soldier, his father sent him to Paris to study. Gilbert returned as a master of arts, and opened a school for children of the poor in Sempringham, paying special attention to training in religion. His father provided him a living from the rents of part of his land, but Gilbert redistributed most of this to the poor.


He became a clerk in the household of Bishop Robert Bloet of Lincoln, and was ordained at age 40 by Bishop Robert's successor, Alexander. Gilbert returned to Sempringham as Lord when his father died in 1131. That same year Gilbert began advising a group of seven young women who were living in enclosure with lay sisters and brothers, and he decided that the community should be incorporated into an established religious order. After several new foundations were made, he travelled to the Cistercian Abbey of Citeaux and requested that the Cistercian monks take over the community. They, however, declined to take on governing a group of women. 


With Pope Eugenius III's approval, Gilbert drew up a Rule for the nuns and continued the community with the addition of Canons Regular to serve as spiritual directors, while Gilbert himself served as Master General. It was a strict Rule, mirroring Gilbert's own austerities and concern for the poor. The community became known as the Gilbertine Order or the Gilbertines. Eventually, 26 monasteries were established and flourished until Henry VIII suppressed the English monasteries in the 16th century. When Gilbert was 90, some of the lay brothers revolted against him, but Pope Alexander III lent his support. Blind in his advanced years, Gilbert resigned as Master General and devoted himself to prayer and the communal life, living to be 106 years old. He was canonized in 1202. 

Arthur Carl Kreinheder, CSC - An Ecumenical Giant

On this day in 1989 the world lost an ecumenical pioneer, and I lost a beloved friend.

Father Arthur Kreinheder, C.S.C. was an American Lutheran Benedictine monk and founder of a Lutheran religious order, The Congregation of the Servants of Christ.


Arthur Carl Kreinheder was born on October 1, 1905, in St. Paul, Minnesota. His father, Oscar Carl Kreinheder (1877-1946), was a pastor of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the president of Valparaiso University from 1930-1939. After a successful career as a businessman, Arthur went to study theology in 1950 at Lund University in Sweden, living in the St. Laurence Foundation.
Already before he had been in touch with the Taizé Community, and briefly, in 1955, became a novice in the Taize Community, founded by Brother Roger Schutz.


Fr. Arthur was ordained to the priesthood in 1956, in Lund, by Bishop Anders Nygren and Bishop Gustaf Aulen "for ecumenical work in the United States among Lutherans." He established St. Augustine's House at Oxford, MI, and founded The Congregation of the Servants of Christ, a Lutheran Benedictine community, in 1958 when some other men joined him in observing the monastic life and the daily offices of prayer. Through Fr. Arthur, from the beginning a connection was established with Östanbäck Monastery in Sweden after St. Augustine's foundation. Fr. Arthur was a leader in Christian ecumenism, particularly in the Detroit, MI area, and he was the U.S. secretary of the League for Evangelical-Catholic Reunion. Fr. Arthur died at age 84 on Friday, October 13, 1989, in a Pontiac, Michigan, hospital. He had never recovered fully from a stroke he suffered the preceding July. He is buried in the cemetery at St. Augustine's House.


I first met Fr. Arthur in 1964, during our class' Tirocinium year in Detroit just after our ordination as priests of the Society of the Precious Blood. After reading about him and his single-handed effort to establish his community, I called him and asked if I might visit St. Augustine's House, the first of many times I would go there during that year and spend time with him. He would graciously share the liturgy or the Office and a meal, and introduce me to any number of interesting people who also visited. During that time, though a fair number of postulants came to St. Augustine's , none seemed to remain. For many years Fr. Arthur was the lone member of the Congregation of the Servants of Christ, until Fr. Richard Herbel came and became Prior in 1983.  


Fr. Arthur wrote to me in February, 1983, from Florida where he'd moved several years before because of his health, and said that he was in the process of deciding whether to return to St. Augustine's House. He chose not to do so, and my last communication from Fr. Arthur was a letter on August 15, 1984, two years after I'd been received as an Episcopal priest, in which he says: "What great joy to receive your letter - with so much good news - with photographs - and with your membership for The Fellowship of St. Augustine...You will be glad to know that Fr. L. L. Love, an Episcopal priest, who is also a nurse, is here to take care of me. Praise God for all His Blessings.  In Christ's love, Arthur."


In March, 1965, Fr. Arthur had come to our parish house at St. Anthony's in Detroit, along with Pastor Max Lackmann, internationally known Lutheran ecumenicist of the League of Evanglical-Catholic Reunion, as well as Pastor Larry Gotts, of Grace Lutheran Church, Detroit, social activist, and one of the prime movers in establishing and getting us young priests involved in the establishment of the Interfaith Community Center in Detroit.


But perhaps my fondest memory of Fr. Arthur was of one of my earliest visits to St. Augustine's House. It was late afternoon or early evening, perhaps in the fall or spring, and Arthur and I were standing on the porch overlooking the quiet natural surroundings. After a moment of peaceful silence, Fr. Arthur quietly exclaimed: "God is so lavish!"


May Arthur continue to support us from Christ's presence in our quest "that all may be one"!

Our Lady of Walsingham

Our Lady of Walsingham is a title used for Mary, the mother of Jesus. The title derives from the belief that Mary appeared in a vision to Richeldis de Faverches, a devout Saxon noblewoman, in 1061 in the village of Walsingham in Norfolk, England. Lady Richeldis had a Holy House built in Walsingham which became a shrine and place of pilgrimage.

The Holy House, containing the simple wooden structure which Richeldis had been asked to build in imitation of the home in which the Annunciation occurred, became both a shrine and the focus of pilgrimage to Walsingham. The chapel was founded in the time of Edward the Confessor, about 1053, the earliest deeds naming Richeldis, the mother of Geoffrey of Favraches as the founder. In 1169, Geoffrey granted 'to God and St. Mary and to Edwy his clerk the chapel of our Lady' which his mother had founded at Walsingham with the intention that Edwy should found a priory. These gifts were, shortly afterwards, confirmed to the Austin Canons of Walsingham by Robert de Brucurt and Roger, earl of Clare. By the time of its destruction in 1538 during the reign of Henry VIII, the shrine had become one of the greatest religious centres in England, and Europe, together with Glastonbury and Canterbury. It had been a place of pilgrimage during medieval times, when due to wars and political upheaval, travel to Rome and Compostella was difficult.

Royal patronage helped the shrine to grow in wealth and popularity, receiving visits from Henry III, Edward II, Edward III, Henry IV, Edward IV, Henry VII, Henry VIII and Erasmus. It was also a place of pilgrimage for English queens - Catherine of Aragon was a regular pilgrim and her successor, Anne Boleyn, also announced an intention of making a pilgrimage. Its wealth and prestige did not, however, prevent its being a disorderly house. The visitation of Bishop Nicke in 1514 revealed that the prior was leading a scandalous life, that, among many other things, he treated the Canons with insolence and brutality; the Canons themselves frequented taverns and were quarrelsome. The prior William Lowth was removed and by 1526 some decent order had been restored.

The suppression of the monasteries was part of the English Reformation. On the pretext of discovering any irregularities in their life, Thomas Cromwell organized a series of visitations, the results of which led to the suppression of smaller foundations (which did not include Walsingham) in 1536. Two years earlier the Prior, Richard Vowell, had signed their acceptance of the king's supremacy, but it did not save them. Cromwell's actions were politically motivated but the Canons, who had a number of houses in Norfolk were not noted for their piety or good order. The prior was evidently compliant but not all of the community felt likewise. In 1537, two lay choristers organized 'the most serious plot hatched anywhere south of the Trent', intended to resist what they feared, rightly as it turned out, would happen to their foundation. 11 men were executed as a result. The suppression of Walsingham priory came late in 1538, under the supervision of Sir Roger Townshend, a local landowner. Walsingham was famous and its fall symbolic: Bishop Latimer wrote of the image of Our Lady: "She hath been the Devil's instrument, I fear, to bring many to eternal fire; now she herself with her older sister of Walsingham, her younger sister of Ipswich, and their two sisters of Doncaster and Penrhys will make a jolly muster in Smithfield. They would not be all day in burning".

According to Wriothesley, Windsor Herald, who wrote the informative Chronicle of England during the reigns of the Tudors: - "It was the month of July, the images of Our Lady of Walsingham and Ipswich were brought up to London with all the jewels that hung around them, at the King's commandment, and divers other images, both in England and Wales, that were used for common pilgrimage . . . and they were burnt at Chelsea by my Lord Privy Seal". Two other chroniclers, Hall and Speed, suggest that the actual burning did not take place until September.

The buildings were looted and largely destroyed, the sub-prior executed, but the memory of it was less easy to eradicate. Sir Roger wrote to Cromwell in 1564 that a woman of nearby Wells, had declared that a miracle had been done by the image of Our Lady after it had been carried away to London. He had her put in the stocks on market day to be abused by the village folk but concluded 'I cannot perceyve but the seyd image is not yett out of the sum of ther heddes'.

The site of the priory with the churchyard and gardens was granted by the Crown to Thomas Sydney. All that remained of it was the gatehouse, the chancel arch and a few outbuildings.

After nearly four hundred years the 20th century saw the restoration of pilgrimage to Walsingham as a regular feature of Christian life in the British Isles and beyond. There are both Roman Catholic and Anglican shrines in Walsingham.

In 1897 Pope Leo XIII re-established the restored 14th century Slipper Chapel as a Roman Catholic shrine, now the centre of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. The Holy House had been rebuilt at the Church of the Annunciation at King's Lynn (Walsingham was part of this Roman Catholic parish in 1897).

Father Alfred Hope Patten OSA, appointed as the Church of England Vicar of Walsingham in 1921, ignited Anglican interest in the pre-Reformation pilgrimage. It was his idea to create a new statue of Our Lady of Walsingham based on the image depicted on the seal of the medieval priory. In 1922 the statue was set up in the Parish Church of St. Mary and regular pilgrimage devotion followed. From the first night that the statue was placed there, people gathered around it to pray, asking Mary to join her prayers with theirs.

Throughout the 1920s the trickle of pilgrims became a flood of large numbers for whom, eventually, the Pilgrim Hospice was opened (a hospice is the name of a place of hospitality for pilgrims) and, in 1931, a new Holy House encased in a small pilgrimage church was dedicated and the statue translated there with great solemnity. In 1938 that church was enlarged to form the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Father Patten combined the posts of Vicar of Walsingham and Priest Administrator of the Anglican shrine until his death in 1958.

There is frequently an ecumenical dimension to pilgrimages to Walsingham, with pilgrims arriving at the Slipper Chapel and then walking to the Holy House at the Anglican shrine.

The Wedding Garment of Servant Ministry

With 56 references to “the kingdom”, Matthew leads all the Gospel writers in presenting Jesus’ teaching about “the reign of God”. Over the past 13 Sundays, you and I have heard Jesus spell this out in the Gospel passages. In Matthew’s parable of the wedding feast today (22:1-14) the implications of Jesus’ previous answer to a two-fold question from the Jewish chief priests and elders in Chapter 21:23 are spelled out: viz., “What kind of authority do you have for doing these things?” and “Who gave you this authority?” For three years Jesus tried to convey his vision of the reign, the kingdom of God, but it seems that, no matter what image he used -- a mustard seed, a pricey pearl, a treasure hidden in a field, vineyard workers’ payroll, two sons’ responses to their father’s request for field help, or the actions of tenant lessees of a rich man’s vineyard -- most people, the Apostles included, didn’t quite “get it”. 

Biblical scholar Marty Aiken suggests that you and I look at today’s parable through new eyes. When Jesus says that “the kingdom of heaven is like...or...is compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son”, it’s not in the sense that those entities are so much alike as to be almost identical, but rather to demonstrate a clear contrast between the two. The Greek words Matthew uses amount to something like, “The kingdom of heaven may be made like a man, a king who prepared a wedding party for his son.”  Jesus is contrasting how a human kingdom operates differently from the way God’s reign does.

Matthew’ account begins with a king preparing a real wedding shindig for his son, who, by the way, isn’t mentioned again in the parable after v. 2. The king sends servants to invite the guests. Matthew says bluntly, “They didn’t want to come”, a tip-off that there’s already “trouble in River City” between the king and his subjects. Not to be put off, the king sends the servants out again to pointedly urge them to come, since he’s already gone to great lengths to cater an expensive and sumptuous meal, which is now ready and waiting. “Come”, the king fairly commands, “to the wedding banquet!”

The response of those invited isn’t only unenthusiastic, but downright rude and mean-spirited: “...they made light of it and went away.” The Greek word for “making light of” has the sense of intentionally and negligently disregarding the invitation, of “blowing it off”. It’s a colossal social snub: first, to their king; second, to the king-as-host who’s already issued two invitations; and third, because their actions show that they prefer the cozy refuge of their fields and businesses to the king’s company or to that of the rest of the community. Jesus portrays the guests as irresponsible, ignoring the obvious, deliberately and with fully awareness.  He doesn’t seem to be saying that they were simply lazy or ungrateful.  He’s saying that they bore a responsibility to to have acted differently and with proactive foresight, and failed. Even more, there’s an underlying sense that they’re putting themselves in danger by disregarding their sovereign. Naively hoping that life will just go on as usual, they’ve, in effect, isolated themselves, taking shelter in their farms or businesses, from which, they believe, they’ll be able to manage their contact with the rest of the world outside. In an ultimate act of negligence these guests turn their back on the wedding feast. They probably think that they can leave the king and any dangers he might present behind. And they overlooked another danger which was prevalent among themselves, and made their “isolationism” particularly perilous. 

Jesus clearly recognizes other people in their community who can’t depend on a farm or business to manage their world. These are the ones who eventually “…grabbed [the king’s] slaves, abused them, and killed them,”  thus bringing on everyone a catastrophe. These people, whom Jesus calls “the rest”, start the visible violence, even though they weren’t likely any more or less violent than the others.  But since they have no farm or business to define them, their disgruntlement is more apt to be expressed in visible violence. And it was. 

Predictably, the underlying tensions between both parties, the royal authority and his subjects, explode. “The king was enraged”, says Matthew. Everyone, king and people, has lost the opportunity to keep things in balance. Instead of living in mutual relationship, king and guests have drawn up sides, each a violent twin of the other. The king “sent his soldiers to destroy those murderers and set their city on fire”, leaving behind destruction and utter tragedy. And Matthew covers all of that in one line!

The scene then changes abruptly. The determination of the king to continue with the festivities, having apparently controlled his violence for the moment, is demonstrated by his sending his servants out into the wider community to invite “everyone they found, both evil and good”, i.e., anyone and everyone. Though the king’s recent “doing in” of the A-list invitees may have been an incentive to respond, this time there’s definitely a full house!     

The king enters the banquet hall and, almost as if he’s being led by radar to someone he’s already looking for, the king spots a man who’s not wearing a traditional wedding garment. We can reasonably assume that, given his earlier nasty display, now momentarily controlled, the king is still prepared to lash out at anyone who refuses to follow his rule book. Marty Aiken suggests that we view the inappropriately dressed man’s meeting with the king as something quite intentional, done deliberately, not accidentally or through negligence.  When the king confronts him as to how he got in to the feast dressed this way, Jesus describes the man as “speechless”, or as an old Southern expression has it, “plain ol‘ dumb”.  Aiken suggests that the man has chosen to personify the silent dumbness of the people, appearing before the king almost as “one who isn’t there”.  It’s possible that Jesus was trying to recall to his hearers’ minds those rich passages in the prophet Isaiah about the “suffering servant of God”, a reference to be applied only too soon to Jesus himself . In other places also the Hebrew Scriptures witness to the belief that servants will arise in Israel whose “sufferings will have the effect of drawing on to themselves the sufferings of the nation as a whole, so that the nation may somehow escape.”  The man without the wedding robe puts himself in the people’s place at the time when they themselves are suffering as victims, making himself the victim for all, both people and king. Perhaps in relating this scene, Jesus was thinking of Isaiah’s description of the Suffering Servant: “…He was despised and avoided by others...It was certainly our sickness that he carried, and our sufferings that he bore, but we thought him afflicted, struck down by God and tormented. He was pierced because of our rebellions and crushed because of our crimes. He bore the punishment that made us whole;...we had all wandered away, each going his own way, but the Lord let fall on him all our crimes…” (53: 3-6) Here, among people who are suffering because they failed to respond earlier, the man without the wedding robe stands silently before them. Again, in Isaiah’s words: “...like a ewe silent before her shearers, he didn’t open his mouth.” As will happen with Jesus in his suffering and death, we see human power and authority’s wrath kindled and falling on this silent man.  

Notice, also, the interchange between the king and the man without the wedding robe.  Every occurrence of “he” or “his” in the parable, except for this one, refers only to the king:  “he noticed”, “he said”. Here the words, “And he was speechless”, could be understood as a reaction of either the man and the king, or both.   This man standing before him renders the king at a loss for words. He has caused the startled king to “lose it”, to no longer fully control the situation. As Isaiah notes, in the very heart of the Suffering Servant passages, “Just as many were appalled by [him]….he will astonish many nations. Kings will be silenced because of him… (52:14-15)

The king’s next move parallels his previous rage at the murder of his slaves. Reacting in the time-honored way in which authority always tends to react when threatened, the king orders a sacrifice. “Tie his hands and feet and throw him out into the farthest darkness.” Matthew parallels Isaiah’s comment:  “...He was eliminated from the land of the living, struck dead…” (53:8)

In telling this parable, Jesus returns to the earlier two-fold question of the chief priests and elders: by what authority does Jesus operate?; and who gave him his authority? Jesus’ disciples listened to this parable along with the representatives of the ruling powers, as well as with all the others who expected Jesus to initiate a rebellion. However, by way of the parable, Jesus intimates that he does and says what he does by the authority of and as the Suffering Servant of God. Neither the ruling authorities nor the people are prepared for that! He tells them that he’s about to take on to himself the violence that already rules all of their lives. As to who gave him this authority, Jesus’ response is, ironically, “You did.” The Suffering Servant receives his authority by giving himself in love, even in the face of the violence, the sins, and the suffering of all humankind.  The Suffering Servant of God is called into being by a broken world.

 

As you and I gather here again today for this most incredible celebration, the wedding feast of the Eucharist, Jesus’ parable demonstrates for us how the reign, the kingdom of God operates. It teaches us who have gotten here, each in varying, sometimes astounding, and even peculiar, ways, that we’re favored guests, that we’ve been invited and welcomed into this fellowship, this community, as part of the reign, the kingdom of God in Christ. It’s not the final stop on our journey. That will come later. 

God has already anticipated our worry, as guests, about what to wear to the feast, and we find ourselves clothed in faith, hope, and love through our baptismal covenant. When we look into our spiritual mirrors, we see reflected back the image of Jesus, the Suffering Servant of God, who “Though he was in the form of God,...did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. But...emptied himself by taking the form of a slave…[and] humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross…” As honored guests of Jesus the Suffering Servant, it’s not enough to be nourished and cared for so lavishly ourselves. Our weekly Eucharistic feast, needs to spill out into our daily lives and into world outside these doors through our own servant ministry.  

You and I know already have an idea of what we’re up against in that world: where loved ones and others in our lives battle cancer, AIDS, mental illness; where people lose jobs, see their paychecks dwindle, and have their homes foreclosed on; where children, the elderly, veterans, and the disabled suffer without proper health care; where snipers shoot people randomly on our streets; where our government engages in multiple wars, knowing that some of our brightest and best young women and men are facing death in a far off desert; where there is increasing general fear and hopelessness as divisiveness, anger, retaliation, and terrorism blossom throughout the world.

 

Nevertheless...you and I are called to servant ministry in Jesus’ name that allows us to see beauty in every person; to recognize and celebrate one another’s gifts; to pray for one another; to share our resources, and give generously from what we have; to seek out the lonely and the disheartened, and to outdo each another in love. 

Wherever your role, or mine, as a suffering servant of Christ leads us, may we cling in our hearts to St. Paul’s words, and “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, whatever is excellent, and whatever is worthy of praise”, don’t only think about them, but model them, live them, share them.

“...the God of peace...be with you” 

Il Poverello

"St. Francis spent the last few days before his death in praising the Lord and teaching his companions, whom he loved so much, to praise Christ with him.  He himself, in as far as he was able, broke out with the Psalm:  I cry to the Lord with my voice; to the Lord I make loud supplication.  He likewise invited all creatures to praise God and, with the words he had composed earlier, he exhorted them to love God.  Even death itself, considered by all to be so terrible and hateful, was exhorted to give praise, while he himself, going joyfully to meet it, invited it to make its abode with him.  'Welcome,' he said, 'my sister death.'"  (St. Thomas of Celano, Second Life.)

"When the hour of his death approached, Francis asked that all of the brothers living with him be called to his death bed and softening his departure with consoling words, he encouraged them with fatherly affection to love God.  He spoke of patience and poverty and of being faithful to the Holy Roman Church, giving precedence to the Holy Gospels before all else.  He then stretched his hands over the brothers in the form of a cross, a symbol that he loved so much, and gave his blessings to all followers, both present and absent, in the power and in the name of the Crucified.  Then he added:  'Remain, my sons, in the fear of the Lord and be with him always.  And as temptations and trials beset you, blessed are those who persevere to the end in the life they have chosen.  I am on my way to God and I commend you all to His favor.'  With this sweet admonition, this dearly beloved to God, asked that the book of the Gospels be brought to him and that the passage in the Gospel of St. John, which begins before the Feast of the Passover be read.  Finally, when all God's mysteries had been accomplished in him, his holy soul was freed from his body and assumed into the abyss of God's glory, and Francis fell asleep in God."  (St. Bonaventure, Major Life.)

Lord of the Vineyard

Myrna, my beloved secretary for eleven years at Holy Trinity Church, Ukiah, shared with me a love of Merlot. Although not an Episcopalian, she very nevertheless assiduously read the Scriptures passages as she typed the bulletin each week, and would often raise questions. As we discussed them one day, she remarked: “There sure are a lot of vineyards in these readings!” Indeed, there are, and it’s particularly fitting to be thinking about them in the context of the annual grape crush here in Sonoma and surrounding counties. 

As Isaiah uses it (5:1-7), vineyard is a common metaphor for the beloved, a lover, the house of Israel, the people of Judah who are “God’s pleasant planting”. Notice that it’s Godself, in the Isaiah passage, who digs and clears, and plants, and builds a watchtower, and hews out a wine vat, and waits patiently, expectantly for a yield of grapes. But all that God gets in return from the beloved are sour grapes.

Long before the time of Isaiah’s ministry, people had cried out to God in the words of Psalm 80: “Restore us, O God of hosts...Turn now, O God of hosts, look down from heaven; behold and tend this vine; preserve what your right hand has planted” (vv. 7; 14-15). And God did...in so very many ways. for centuries. Yet in Isaiah’s time, for all God’s previous tender care of the people, they still deliver only “wild grapes”. “[God] expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!” (Isaiah 5:7b) Through Isaiah, God predicts the logical consequences of unfaithfulness and non-responsiveness on Judah, God’s vineyard. It will be destroyed. “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?” (Isaiah 5:4a) 

Matthew’s Gospel (21:33-46) speaks of another vineyard owner. As in Isaiah’s passage, the owner plants, fences, digs a wine press, and builds a watchtower. This owner, however, leases the vineyard out to tenants, “and went to another country…” One might ask several questions: Who are the tenants? friends whom the owner could trust, or strangers? Did the owner make clear the terms of upkeep? Whatever the case, the owner returns at harvest time, expecting a juicy and profitable yield. He sends slaves to collect the produce three times, but the tenants brutally beat the first, kill the second, and stone the third. Inexplicably, Matthew says, “again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way.” We find ourselves wondering “Why in the world would he ever do that?”

The real kicker is that, after at least six slaves, probably more, are gravely injured, either beaten and/or killed, the owner sends his son to collect the goods. Amazingly, in a 1st century Palestinian context, all of this behavior is both feasible and believable. It was Rome’s practice to award conquered land to warriors and statesmen [we’d probably call them “politicians” today!] who frequently became absentee landlords with tenant farmers. The tenants would often rebel in order to acquire land for themselves. Since, by snuffing out the son(s) of the owner, the land was considered owner-less, the tenants might claim it as their own. More unbelievable than the tenants in this case, however, is the owner who, even after what they did to the slaves, would risk sending his son. Could it be that Matthew wanted to convey a sense of God’s utter patience with people: even to the point of absurdity?

The wicked tenants in Matthew’s story do not disappoint, and promptly and with finality “do in” the innocent son: “...they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.” Upon which, Jesus poses a question, which you and I recognize from the context as being a “loaded” question: “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?? The disciples unhesitatingly and unanimously conclude, as well might you and I: “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at harvest time.” 

Jesus‘ response suggests that the disciples, and you and I, should bear in mind what has already happened previously in Chapter 21 of Matthew’s account: 

- Jesus had made a triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, symbol of royalty, and drew branch-waving crowds out to cheer him on as “the Son of David” (21:1-11;

- Jesus had lashed out in anger at the buyers and sellers in the temple courtyards, and overturned the moneychangers‘ tables 21:12-13);

- Jesus had immediately confronted the chief priests and scribes when they tried to call him on people assigning to him a clearly Messianic title: “the Son of David” (21:14-16);

- Jesus had cursed a fig tree because he was hungry and found no fruit on the tree (21:18-22); 

- Jesus confronted the chief priests and elders a second time when they demanded his credentials of authority. In a crafty move, he agrees to tell them, but only if they’ll explain if John’s baptism came from God or of human origin. When they refuse on the lame grounds that “We don’t know”, Jesus refuses to answer their question (21:23-27); 

- Finally, Jesus had just raised a parable about two sons, whose father had asked each of them to go and help him out in his vineyard. One flat out refused, but later changed his mind and went. The other eagerly agreed to go, but, for whatever reason, didn’t go. “Which of the two did the will of his father?, asks Jesus. The hearers respond: “The first.” Jesus reminds the hearers whose hearts were hardened against Jesus and his message that tax collectors and prostitutes, two groups of pariahs in society at that time, had readily accepted John’s preaching of repentance, whereas they had not. Just so, he says, it’ll be the tax collectors and prostitutes who come into God’s reign, and not them: “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him...even after you saw it, you did not change your minds…” (21:28-32) In today’s parable Jesus reinforces that by saying: “...the reign of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” 

Who owns the vineyard? Unquestionably, God and only God owns the vineyard: the world, the Church, us, our lives. Scripture scholar Robert Kysar notes: “We may forget that we are servants who have been entrusted with the responsibility of being the Church. We may forget that we are little more than tenant farmers responsible for what God has given us.” 

Throughout history God has sent faithful servants, down to the present time. And God has sent us God’s own Son, Jesus. Who is the Lord of the vineyard? God in Jesus is. Our task as servants and tenants of the vineyard is to acknowledge this by living our lives in a way that says that we believe it; to take the gifts which God has given to each of us and use them for the good of the community, the Church, and the world; to be responsible stewards, filled with gratitude for the time, talent and treasure with which God has smothered us in this country, even at our worst, compared to many places in the world.

St. Paul, in the Epistle (Philippians 3:4b-14), is at his most eloquent in describing what must motivate us in working as faithful tenant-servants in the vineyard: “...whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ...I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord...I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection...I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus made me his own…”