Please read the Scripture passage before the homily.
Once upon a time, a big, generous and extremely wealthy person, who owned all the property in the world, planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it and built a tower. Then that person leased it to tenants and went on a journey.
Then those tenants, being shrewd and avaricious, decided they wanted the vineyard for themselves. So, they bought up all the lands around, getting the rights to the mineral deposits underground, pushed the native peoples off their rich lands onto “reservations”, and enjoyed their new life.
Do you get the idea that perhaps the homilist is speaking about a current county set between two oceans? If so, you are smart an intelligent indeed. When the people first heard this story from Matthew’s gospel, they would have caught references to the prophet Isaiah and understood the deep background behind the story.
Now, it is not the chief priests and Pharisees, nor is the wealthy and politicians of today, that the parable is about. It is about those of us who work for our own selves, without caring for the others, those of us who would do anything, perhaps even to killing, to promote our own agenda.
For we must learn that the vineyard does not belong to us, that we are only hired to take care of it for the one who owns is. This so whether the vineyard is the Church, our country, the resources of the planet, our position in the military, our family, our bank accounts and assets, or anything that we may think we have. We are tenants, not owners; we work for someone else, not for ourselves.
The early Christians would have recognized the coded references to the people and situations of their history and times. We are called to recognize ourselves in the coded language of the story.