Homily for 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
27th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Sept. 27, 2026
Matt 21: 33-43
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx

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“The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit” (Matt 21: 43).

Last Sunday’s gospel and today’s both come from Jesus’ last week.  He’s entered Jerusalem triumphantly—Palm Sunday—and has cleared the moneychangers and livestock merchants our of the Temple.  The chief priests and elders question his authority for such actions, plot against him, and try to trick him into saying something controversial that will either turn the people against him or cause the Roman authorities to act against him.

The opposition of these Jewish leaders is evident in the way Jesus presented a parable last Sunday, that of the 2 sons whose father tried to send them to work in his vineyard.  Today we have another vineyard parable.  As we heard in the 1st reading (Is 5:1-7) and the psalm response (based on Ps 80), the vineyard is Israel.

In this parable of the tenant farmers, Jesus predicts his own rejection by Israel’s leaders and his death:  “When the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir.  Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance’” (Matt 21:38).  The real inheritance isn’t Israel but the kingdom of God, which Jesus’ enemies think they can control.

But in their response to Jesus’ question at the end of the parable, they condemn themselves: the owner of the vineyard, they reply, will put those wicked tenants to death “and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times” (21:41).  The kingdom of God will be entrusted to the Gentiles, to all the nations of the world, not exclusively to Israel.  “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”

And so the Gospel was preached to and received by Greeks and Romans, then by every people in the Roman Empire, eventually everywhere on earth—even in the Bronx.

What is the fruit that God the Father expects us to produce?  He expects us to join his only Son, Jesus Christ, in worshiping him “in spirit and in truth,” as Jesus phrased it in his conversation with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in ch. 4 of St. John’s Gospel (4:24).

The Holy Spirit draws us together for worship on Sunday.  The fruit we produce is active participation in the Mass:  paying attention, saying the responses out loud, joining the hymns, and receiving the Eucharist.  When we travel—on vacation or for work—we make an effort to find a church where we can attend Sunday Mass.

Our spiritual fruit goes forth from Mass in how we live.  St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Galatians that the fruits of the Spirit are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (5:22-23).

The other part of our worship, and our fruitfulness, is truth.  That means more than not lying.  It means to honor truth in our attitudes, thinking, and behavior.  Perhaps Pope Leo shows us the most important way of living and worshiping in truth at this time with his emphasis on human dignity.  When he speaks and writes about modern technology, he insists that we control technology, not the other way around.  Technology—he refers to algorithms and AI, to markets and the purposes of tech—must serve and benefit people, not be a tool for manipulating us, much less destroying us, as some have begun to fear.

The dignity of the human person, of each one of us, requires that we respect the lives of the unborn, the elderly, and the sick, and not destroy them by abortion or assisted suicide.  Even convicted criminals, like Christa Pike in Tennessee, have a right to life if they’re not a threat to others.  Immigrants and refugees possess human dignity and must be treated with respect.  Ditto people of another ethnicity or race.  Ditto women on college campuses; no doubt you’ve been hearing about how a woman says she was treated at Cornell University recently.

Worship the Lord in spirit and truth.  Bear the fruit that the owner of the vineyard expects of us, and so we will inherit the kingdom of God.