People's Prayers: Prayers of the People: Grape Expectations, 19th Sunday after Pentecost ’26 Yr A

Sunday, October 4, 2026; Readings: Isaiah 5:1-7, Psalm 80:7-14, Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-46

My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines…he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. [Isaiah 5:1b-2]

Restore us, O God of Hosts…you have brought a vine out of Egypt…You prepared the ground for it…look down from heaven; behold and tend this vine, preserve what your right hand has planted. [Psalm 80:7a, 9a, 14b]

…in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteous from God based on faith. [Philippians 3:8b-9]

Jesus said [to the Chief Priests and the Elders]…There was a landowner who planted a vineyard…Then he leased it to tenants…the harvest had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce…the tenants seized the slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another… When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do? They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death…” Jesus said to them…,“Therefore I tell you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you…” …the Chief Priests and the Pharisees…realized that he was speaking about them… [Matthew 21:33a,b; 34-35, 40-41, 45]

In the first reading, Isaiah opens with what is known as the "The Song of the Vineyard" the short version of a much longer poem. This love-song to his beloved and the vineyard has much of the same description of preparation that Jesus, who knew Isaiah’s writing very well, is using, imagine! In this case, after all the work to dig, and clear, and plant, Isaiah says he expected it to yield grapes. However, it yielded wild grapes.* Obviously today it’s easy to discover which wild grapes are edible and which are not. But Beloved clearly wasn’t happy with the results of his hard work and worked as hard or harder to destroy it all. Isaiah says clearly in verse 7 that the vineyard is the House of Israel and the people of Judah. Those in his hearing knew exactly what he was saying in this piece and the much longer message, that Judah is called to pass judgment on itself.

In a parallel to the Isaiah passage, the psalmist recounts the story of the vine brought from Egypt, and tells those of its time and us now that the vine failed the Lord’s expectations. Despite all the work and planning for it to flourish, it denied its roots, so God broke down a protective wall and allowed the wild beasts to ravage it. The psalmist then pleads to God to restore and preserve what God’s right hand has planted.

Paul recounts some of his personal history and achievements in this piece of Philippians, and while on one hand he measures those achievements as a loss he then says: ...this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. [Philippians 3:13b-14]

The Gospel this week is back in the Vineyard with workers whose expectations far exceed grumbling about hourly pay for the fruits of their labor. This time Jesus tells the Chief Priests and Elders a parable about the tenants running the vineyard who twice trounced the owner's slaves coming to collect the owner's share of the produce. One was beaten, one was stoned, and another killed. The second group sent were treated the same way. Finally the owner sent his son, believing that, as things are meant to go, his son would be treated with all due respect. But even the son was killed because the tenants assumed that they could "get his inheritance." [Matthew 21:38b] At first glance, I wondered if these tenants could be the disgruntled workers of the previous vineyard parable working longer hours for the same pay as those who worked fewer.

At second glance, with the group-think irrationality of the tenants’ actions, I feel as if I'm reading a headline about a local, national, or even international situation. In this country alone the epidemic of school shooting tragedies and murders based on racism, gender identity, and sexual orientation, etc., prompts me to wonder what was/is the expected outcome by the perpetrators? More recently there are “official” and non-official every-day actions of politically-fueled rage with its too-often cruel disregard and treatment aimed directly at illegal and legal immigrants. Then there are increasingly too many individual drivers who act as if they’re entitled to some kind of thrill-seeking to make the roads as perilous as sitting on a railroad track with an oncoming train. Also, there seems to be ever-escalating instances of personal behavior being more important than caring about the inherent dangers for themselves and others. The headlines on air, online, and in print tell us that “Life” is getting meaner by the moment, as we watch here and abroad to see that, not unlike in Jesus' own time, brutality is the tool of cowards, especially in groups, who know no other way but swaggering bravado to express the fear of their own impotence however, and if, unconsciously.

And then there's the third glance where in this week’s Gospel Jesus is giving a local lesson to the disciples about what is happening then and what is to come while the ever-watching Chief Priests and Elders unhappily get the picture about who's who and what's what in this parable. And as they should and do know, God is pretty clear in The Law about how we are to behave ourselves and toward one another. In our times, we may not be able to make the world less mean, but we can each add more Christ-meaning within ourselves, and then extend it to the world. Here's to a new variety of grape expectations!

* Interestingly, for me, was an editorial development that arose in my review of the readings beyond the citations. It serves my desire for ever-greater understanding of each week’s passages thematically as well as theologically. I often use BibleGateway.com rather than pick up one of the multiple Bibles of varying English translations sitting next to me a on a bookcase. This week I wanted to refer back to a verse in Isaiah without going to one of the hard covers or to what the Parish Office sent to me as the full readings for the coming Sunday. Something on the Bible Gateway didn’t match what I remembered about what was sent. I went back to what I had received from the Parish and then back to the Bible Gateway website and looked for the passage under the NRSV tab again. It used the word rotten for the grapes in verses 2 and 4 rather than the wild that came from the office ~ I know what the Parish is using. I went to my shelf for several of editions of the NRSV by different publishers and all said wild. I went back to Bible Gateway and checked their King James Version, their New King James Version, and The Orthodox Jewish Version and all said wild. Then, I went to my shelf and looked at my copy of The Hebrew Bible which said rotten, and The Jewish Study Bible which said wild. Back on Gateway I looked at a number of paraphrases and others listed as translations for what my personal opinion believes as those that are used in more “conservative” churches, and most used, bad, sour, or worthless, while one used sour and wild. Yet I would consider King James and New King James as used in “conservative” churches. What fascinated me most was that Gateway’s Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition and the 1599 Geneva translations both used wild. My adventure in this quest took quite a while and highlighted and underlined what many of us understand about the acceptance-without-question of many for the literal nature of the source materials and translations. Sadly, many people in the pews do not.

LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY

Leader: ~ Beloved God, our Master Planter, we, Your humble tenants, often lose sight of our temporal presence on this fragile Earth, our island home. As we strive to accumulate more earthly goods, our actions seem to show that we value the gifts of Your hands ever less. Grant us the care and consciousness to recognize our call to produce the good fruits of Your kingdom and give to others as You have given to us.

O God of Hosts

RESPONSE: Restore us, Receive us, and Help us grow our Faith

~ Beloved God, our Master Planter, climate issues, war, violence in our streets, and severe poverty all surround us. Let us raise our voices to be heard in the halls of the political leaders in our country, our community, and our world, for significant action on behalf of all Your people and for this planet. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

O God of Hosts