Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time · Year A · Matthew 21:33-43
The tenants in the vineyard
For Sunday, October 4, 2026
Update, October 3 · Matthew 11:25-30 · Philippians 4:6-9
We heard a different Gospel this weekend. St. Francis of Assisi died 800 years ago today, and his feast lands on a Sunday this year. Most years the Sunday wins. This year Pope Leo XIV proclaimed a Franciscan Jubilee Year, January 10, 2026 to January 10, 2027, a year of prayer for charity, harmony, and peace among peoples. Working within that direction, our pastor opted for the Gospel the Church gives to St. Francis.
In Matthew 11, Jesus praises His Father for hiding these things from the wise and the learned and revealing them to little ones. Then the invitation: come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. The truth sits in plain sight. Children see it. The people sure they already know walk right past it. Francis was a rich merchant's son who gave all of it away and named his brothers the lesser ones. It is his Gospel for a reason.
The second reading, from Paul's letter to the Philippians, ties in beautifully. Here is what our family took away: when life stacks too much on our plates, start with a prayer instead of a panic. Ask God to take your worry, and ask for whatever else is good on your mind. Let Him know what you are grateful for while you are at it. His peace will settle in, slowing down all that useless noise that He does not want in heads and hearts.
Either Gospel, all good things to talk about. The vineyard Gospel below stays, for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, the green season.
Third vineyard in a row. Two Sundays ago the owner paid every worker a full day. Last Sunday a father asked two sons to go work in his. This Sunday a landowner plants one from scratch: a hedge around it, a wine press dug, a tower built, everything a vineyard needs. He leases it to tenants and goes on a journey. At vintage time he sends servants for his share. The tenants beat one, kill another, stone a third. He sends more. Same treatment. Then he sends his son, thinking they will respect him. The tenants see the heir coming and say to each other, kill him and the inheritance is ours. They throw him out of the vineyard and kill him.
Jesus asks the chief priests what the owner will do. They answer right away: put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease the vineyard to tenants who will hand over the produce. Same trap as last week. They have judged themselves, and Jesus says so. The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.
Look at what the tenants wanted. They already had the fruit. They had the whole vineyard, built and handed to them, and a landlord far away. What they wanted was to have it with no owner. Nobody to send for a share, nobody to answer to, nobody to thank. Kill the son and it is ours. Everything the parable calls wretched comes out of that one wish.
Isaiah sings the same vineyard in the first reading, and the psalm answers: the vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel. He planted it. It is His. The last line says who gets it: people who produce its fruit. Tenants, working it, handing the produce back. Which is a way of asking what each of us has been handed, and who it is for.
Five minutes at the table
- We have heard three vineyard stories in three Sundays. Which one do you remember best, and what was the point of it?
- The tenants were handed a finished vineyard and still wanted to get rid of the owner. Why do you think what they had was not enough for them?
- Walking out of church this weekend: do you have any responsibilities you are grateful for? Whom do they serve?
Class discussion topics
Sept 30 — Chosen Lesson 2, “What makes me happy?”
“What makes me happy?”
The lesson asks it straight, and the videos put it to people on the street. The answers come back the way our room's did last week: money, a good job, a family, health, being famous. Then the lesson looks at the famous ones. Elvis, Hendrix, Cobain. Everything the world hands out, and it ended; for Elvis on a bathroom floor. The lesson's line is that your stomach growls because it needs food, and there is a growl in the soul that only God fills.
Sunday's tenants are that lesson in one story. They were handed a finished vineyard, hedge, press, tower, and a landlord who left them alone. Everything on the list. They wanted one more thing, to have it with nobody to answer to, and it wrecked them. The lesson asks the same question in its own words: can I just be a good person without God? Its answer is the picture of waking up surrounded by every gift you ever wanted and never once wondering who gave them.
In class we go around the room on what makes you happy, and then the harder one: who is the happiest person you know, and what do they have? Then Sunday's tenants, who had everything and were wretched. The happiest person you know probably has less than they did.
The memory verse this week is where the program gets its name. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people. Same idea as the vineyard's last line. It goes to the people who produce its fruit.
The challenge of the week is one of two. Five minutes a day with every screen off, asking God to be heard. Or a real message of encouragement to somebody who is sick or having a hard time. If a phone goes quiet for five minutes this week, that is why.
For the ride home: ask which of the three vineyards they remember, and who owned it.