13th Sunday After Pentecost

Matthew 21:33-42

In today’s Holy Gospel we heard the parable of the owner of a vineyard. The owner has equipped this vineyard with all that is necessary to produce fruit and to protect its healthy production. He rents out the vineyard to some cultivators to whom he entrusts its care and stewardship. Again and again he sends messengers to collect the rent and over and over again these messengers are ignored, ridiculed, even stoned and beaten. Finally, he sends his own son – expecting that they will respect him. Seeing the son of the owner, the wicked cultivators conspire to kill him in order to receive his inheritance.

The initial interpretation of this parable is obvious… Jesus is speaking directly and referring to the nation of Israel – that vineyard of the Lord which had been so well equipped by the promises and laws of God with all that is necessary to bring forth spiritual fruit. The many messengers sent to the vineyard are none other than the prophets of the Old Testament – the long succession of holy men and women who called the nation of Israel back to repentance and the ways of God and who were again and again ignored, rejected, despised, and killed. And the son is, of course, our Lord Jesus Christ – the Son of God Who was sent to the vineyard to speak directly, to show by living example, and to intercede for the people of God. This parable was spoken by Jesus on Tuesday of Holy Week just before His crucifixion. It was intended to awaken the Pharisees and the people of God to the terrible sins they had committed in the past against the prophets and the great sin they were about to commit against God’s own Son. It is a powerful parable and a clear forewarning of what was to come.

This enmity between the spirit of this world and the Holy Spirit of God continued into the Christian age. All of the disciples and apostles of the Lord met with resistance from the spirit of this world. Today we are celebrating two of the Apostles of the Lord… Apostle Bartholemew and Apostle Titus. Their lives and struggles for Christ testify to this battle between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of heaven… both men suffered for Christ and, in the case of Apostle Bartholemew, he met a martyric end.

Apostle Bartholemew was born at Cana of Galilee and was one of the twelve Apostles chosen by Christ. After the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, it fell by lot to the holy Apostles Bartholomew and Philip to preach the Gospel in Syria and Asia Minor. During their missionary journeys they underwent many hardships and tribulations – just like the messengers of vinedresser, they were stoned and they were locked up in prison. In the city of Hieropolis by the power of their prayers they destroyed an enormous serpent, which the pagans worshipped as a god. Because of the conversions happening due to their preaching and miracles, the local authorities had them arrested and they crucified both Apostle Philip and Apostle Bartholemew upside down. An enormous earthquake occurred and a fissure in the earth swallowed up the prefect of the city, together with the pagan priests and many of the people. Others took fright and rushed to take down the apostles from the crosses. Since the Apostle Bartholomew had not been suspended very high, they soon managed to take him down. The Apostle Philip, however, had met his martytic end upon the cross.

Apostle Bartholemew then went to India, where he translated the Gospel of Matthew into the local language. His travels took him to Armenia, where he cured the Armenian king's daughter of insanity; but the king's envious brother was enraged and had him crucified, skinned him, and finally beheaded him.

Christians buried the holy Apostle but because of the miracles happening over his relics the pagans threw his coffin into the sea. The coffin ended up at the island of Lipara where Bishop Agathon—who met it via a revelation in a dream—buried it in a church. His relics were later translated to Rome where miracles continue to occur to this day.

The Apostle Titus was a native of the island of Crete, the son of an illustrious pagan. In his youth he studied Hellenistic philosophy and the ancient poets. Preoccupied by the sciences, Titus led a virtuous life, not falling into the vices and passions characteristic of the majority of pagans.

News reached Crete about an amazing prophet Who was preaching and healing people in Palestine… Titus left Crete to go there and encountered this great prophet Who was more than a prophet: our Lord Jesus Christ. Saint Titus accepted baptism from the Apostle Paul and became his closest disciple. He accompanied Saint Paul on his missionary journeys, fulfilling the tasks entrusted to him. He was involved in establishing new churches and was with Paul in Jerusalem. Titus was numbered among the 70 Apostles and was ordained by Apostle Paul as bishop of Crete. He spent most of the rest of his life tending to his flock in Crete and died in old age at 97. Though Apostle Titus did not meet a martyric end, he certainly gave his life to Christ… forsaking an illustrious and socially accepted career as a pagan philosopher; instead embracing a life of poverty and service as a bishop of the fledgling Christian Church.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, just as He called His Apostles, Christ is calling us to be true Christians. Let us heed Christ’s words from this morning’s Gospel: ‘Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.’ God forbid that we would be neglectful and lazy with the treasures God has given us. Let us bear spiritual fruit! Let us be the light of the world! Christ tells us in the second Gospel reading from today: ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.’

Through the prayers and the examples of the holy Apostles Bartholemew and Titus, may God grant us His grace and may we live out our lives in such a way that we will be ready receptacles of that grace… letting Christ’s light shine through us to all the world.