The Vineyard that God Entrusts to Us
Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Matthew 21:33–43 In this Gospel reading Jesus tells the story of a landowner who carefully plants and prepares a vineyard. The owner puts everything in place for it to produce a good harvest and then entrusts it to tenants. When the time comes for the harvest, the owner sends servants to collect what is rightfully his. But the tenants refuse. They mistreat the servants and eventually even kill the landowner’s son. It is a powerful story about God’s love, our responsibility, and the way we respond to what God has entrusted to us. The vineyard represents God’s people and, in a broader sense, the lives God has given each of us—our family, friendships, abilities, opportunities, material blessings, communities, and the gift of faith. As gifts entrusted to us by God, none of them should be taken for granted. The tenants made a serious mistake: they forgot that the vineyard belonged to someone else. They began to act as though they were...