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Today is October 5th , Trinity 20
First Reading: Isaiah 5.1-7
Let me sing for my beloved my
love-song concerning his vineyard: 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 built a watch-tower in the midst
of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it
yielded wild grapes. And now,
inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard
that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it
yield wild grapes? And now I will tell
you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be
devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be
pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the
house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting: he expected
justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!
Psalm 80.7-15
You have made us the derision / of our /
neighbours: and our / enemies / laugh us to / scorn.
Turn us again, O / God of / hosts: show the light of your countenance, /
and we / shall be / saved.
You brought a vine / out of / Egypt: you drove / out the / nations and /
planted it.
You made / room a/round it: and when it had taken / root, it /
filled the / land.
The hills were covered / with its / shadow:
and the cedars of / God / by its /
boughs.
It stretched out its branches / to the / Sea:
and its / tendrils / to the / River.
Why then have you broken / down its / wall:
so that all who pass / by pluck / off its
/ grapes?
The wild boar out of the wood / tears it /
off: and all the / insects of the / field de/vour it.
Turn again, O / God of / hosts: look down from / heaven / and be/hold;
Second Reading: Philippians 3.4b-14
If any of you think you can
trust in external ceremonies, I have even more reason to feel that way. I was circumcised when I was a week
old. I am an Israelite by birth, of the tribe of Benjamin, a pure-blooded
Hebrew. As far as keeping the Jewish Law
is concerned, I was a Pharisee, and I was so zealous that I persecuted the
church. As far as a person can be
righteous by obeying the commands of the Law, I was without fault. But all those things that I might count
as profit I now reckon as loss for Christ's sake. Not only those things; I reckon
everything as complete loss for the sake of what is so much more valuable, the
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have thrown everything away;
I consider it all as mere garbage, so that I may gain Christ and be completely
united with him. I no longer have a righteousness of my own, the kind that is
gained by obeying the Law. I now have
the righteousness that is given through faith in Christ, the righteousness that
comes from God and is based on faith.
All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his
resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death, in the hope that I myself will be
raised from death to life. I do
not claim that I have already succeeded or have already become perfect. I keep
striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won me to
himself. Of course, my friends, I
really do not think that I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is
to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead. So I run straight toward the goal in
order to win the prize, which is God's call through Christ Jesus to the life
above.
Gospel: Matthew 21.33-46
Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the
people: 'Listen to another parable.
There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine
press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to
another country. When the harvest time
had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat
one, killed another, and stoned another.
Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them
in the same way. Finally he sent his
son to them, saying, "They will respect my son." But when the tenants saw the son, they said
to themselves, "This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his
inheritance." So they seized him, threw
him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those
tenants?' They said to him, 'He will
put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other
tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.' Jesus said to them, 'Have you never read in
the scriptures: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the
cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is amazing in our eyes"? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God
will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of
the kingdom. The one who falls on this
stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.' When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard
his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared
the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
Post Communion Prayer
God our Father, whose Son, the light
unfailing, has come from heaven to deliver the world from the darkness of
ignorance: let these holy mysteries open the eyes of our understanding that we
may know the way of life, and walk in it without stumbling; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen
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