The parable of the vineyard, first told by the prophet Isaiah, becomes in the mouth of the Lord Jesus the summation of all sacred history. The Lord makes it clear that the whole history of the Almighty's attempts to proclaim His will and His truth to humanity was a history of resistance. The messengers through whom God addresses people were 'sometimes beaten, sometimes killed.' In this series the Lord also speaks of the final Messenger - of Himself, who, according to the word of the prophets, came into the world to open to people the possibility of salvation - a possibility that did not exist before and does not exist outside Christ.
The bitter words of Christ expose the religious leaders who constantly resisted the saving action of the Creator for the sake of their own quite base interests - and here we, too, have something to think about. After all, this is not about some pagans who are 'darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart,' as the apostle Paul writes in today's passage from Ephesians. It is not even only about bishops, theologians, and ascetics, as we might render 'chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees' in our own terms. All who are called by God, all who have taken upon themselves the responsibility of being His people, turn out to be wicked workers in God's vineyard.
That is why today's words of the apostle are so important, calling us to 'be renewed in the spirit of our mind,' so that we do not become the same kind of worthless workers.
