Sunday Music: Bach Cantata BWV 101
It is the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Today’s Bach cantata is “Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott: (Take away from us, Lord, faithful God):
Today’s Gospel reading is Matthew 21:33-46:
The Parable of the Tenants
“Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
“The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
“But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
“He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
“‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?“Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.
The text of today’s piece is available here. It contains these words:
Take away from us, Lord, faithful God,
the heavy punishment and great suffering,
which we, with countless sins
have too much deserved.
Protect us against war and precarious times,
against plagues, fire, and great misery.Do not deal with us wicked servants of sin
according to your justice;
let the sword of the enemy rest!
Highest, hear our pleading,
so that, through sinful acts,
we might not be destroyed like Jerusalem!
Happy listening! Soli Deo gloria.
And, once again, our pastor turned the Parable of the Tenants into a Vote for Democrats homily. We should, he said, vote for those who would preserve the environment, making sure we knew exactly whom he meant when he mentioned that some people were “driving the wrong vehicle.”
There is one family in our small parish which drives a plug-in Chevy Dolt, but, Alas!, here in eastern Kentucky our sparktricity comes from a coal-burning power plant. 🙂
The Dana in Kentucky (9f85a3) — 10/4/2020 @ 10:27 amYour pastor was adhering to the Pope’s 2015 encyclical, I would say, Dana:
I would even say “faithfully adhering”. The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office would approve.
nk (1d9030) — 10/4/2020 @ 11:04 amWhen the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.
We could also start a discussion as to how Martin Luther might have interpreted this Parable, but maybe we shouldn’t, the Thirty Years War being over and all? 😉
nk (1d9030) — 10/4/2020 @ 11:09 amHis Holiness the Pope can issue all of the encyclicals he wishes, but a problem arises when pastors are preaching during services in ways which endorse, or condemn, particular political candidates. That’s the kind of thing which creates challenges to the Church’s tax exempt status.
The Dana in Kentucky (9f85a3) — 10/4/2020 @ 11:10 amOkay, Dana. You were there, I wasn’t.
nk (1d9030) — 10/4/2020 @ 11:24 amOur Windy City barrister wrote:
It is a very small parish; just 26 people took communion today, though there’s at least one adult woman, a rather cute redhead, who does not. Our pastor also serves another parish, which is even smaller than ours.
I had no problem at all with our pastor holding a meeting, not a religious service, to discuss
global warmingclimate change last winter; that’s something entirely different, in that it wasn’t a religious service, and was not significantly different from him renting out the meeting room for any other kind of meeting. If a political candidate wishes to rent that room to press his case, that’s fine with me.But when a priest starts preaching for one party over the other during Mass, he’s stepping on a line which could lead to the loss of tax-exempt status, and is stating that the Lord favors one candidate over the other, based on religion, during the service. I’m pretty sure that the left would scream bloody murder if preachers started doing so advocating the re-election of President Trump.
Of course, our priest is not going to change the vote in any significant way: the Bluegrass State voted very heavily for Mr Trump in 2016, and will do so again.
The Dana in Kentucky (9f85a3) — 10/4/2020 @ 4:21 pmNext sunday a funeral hymn from bach. Does he have a good one?
asset (4ffa3d) — 10/4/2020 @ 11:01 pm