Save as PDFIn the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!
Today the Holy Gospel again tells us the parable of Christ about a vineyard – the saddest and bitterest parable about cruelty of mankind. This parable is about how the Lord calls upon people, waits for their answer, sends His messengers and envoys. But the people don’t want to receive them and listen to them, rise against them, up to the rising against the Son Himself who was sent by the Heaven. But the master from this parable didn’t simply send his servants to the vineyard. He expected the tenants of this vineyard to give some fruit of their work to their master, landowner, because neither the land nor the vineyard belonged to them.
If we think over it, we will understand at once that everything we have doesn’t belong to us either. Everything has been given to us. And the life itself has been given to us. Today we have it, but tomorrow we may lose it. And the health itself has been given to us. Today we have it but tomorrow we may lose it. A lot of things we have, don’t belong to us, but are a gift which we may lose. And as it is a gift of God, we must increase it and return something to the One Who gave it to us.
According to the patristic interpretation, the landowner who planted the vineyard is the Lord God and grapes are the chosen Judaist people. The fence round the vineyard is the Law of Moses which protected the people of God from paganism and obscentity. A tower and a winepress in the middle of the vineyard are the church and a sacrificial alter, the tenants who were given the vineyard by the master, are Judaist elders and priests whom the Lord entrusted His people. The servants sent by the master for the fruit and trashed and killed by the vinedressers are the prophets of God. The master’s Son who was killed is the only-begotten Son of God, having been put to death by the high-priests and the Pharisees. The wretched death of the wretched vinedressers carried out by the owner is future destruction of Israel by Roman forces and other vinedressers, who will be rented out this vineyard, are pastors of the Christ Church to guard God’s people, who since the Pentecost have been any people who accepted the Saviour.
Since the coming of Christ the new vineyard of God has been spreading all over the world. The whole mankind is included in this vineyard. And this new vineyard is the Christ Church with the Apostles, Martyrs, Saints, Confessors, Venerables, pious kings and queens – all those, who work properly in the Lord’s vineyard. This is a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, as the Word of God tells us. [1 Peter 2,9]
When we confessed and came up to the Communion Cup, we, thus, testify to our wish to come to Him. His light has penetrated us. Let’s try to feel how this light illuminates all dark ins and outs of our soul. Let’s try to tell ourselves that we don’t want to be those careless slaves. O, Lord, you send me your omens and I will try to listen to them, I will try to hear them, I will try to change my short life and make it worthy of Your call, Your holiness, our love. And then, if you come to me, when my life is weighed on scales, when the harvest time in the vineyard comes and you will tell me – You have done little because of your sickness, but you have done this little work in aspiration of your heart and I will accept it with love.
But how sad it will be if it turns out that we have nothing, all is empty and fruitless. Then, the end of our way will be as sad as the end of this parable. How often the people, who imagined that they had a grace and spiritual wealth, turned out to be rejected. Let it not be with us! Therefore, the Lord’s Word is not only the Word of consolation, not only the Word of encouragement and love but also the Word of warning to protect all of us from evil and everlasting destruction. Amen.