Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Fifth Sunday in Lent

Then He began to tell the people this parable: “A certain man planted a vineyard, leased it to vinedressers, and went into a far country for a long time. Now at vintage-time he sent a servant to the vinedressers, that they might give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the vinedressers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent another servant; and they beat him also, treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. And again he sent a third; and they wounded him also and cast him out. “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Probably they will respect him when they see him.’ But when the vinedressers saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.’ So they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore what will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those vinedressers and give the vineyard to others.” (Luke 20:9–16)

The lord of the vineyard thinks to himself saying, “What shall I do?” We must carefully examine in what sense he says this. Does the householder use these words because he had no more servants? He certainly did not lack other ministers of his holy will. When a physician may say of a sick man, “What shall I do?” we should understand him to mean that every resource of medical skill had been tried without success. We affirm that the lord of the vineyard, having practiced all gentleness and care with his farm but without benefiting it in any way, says, “What shall I do?” What is the result? He advances to still greater purposes. “I will send,” he says, “my son, the beloved one. Perhaps they will reverence him.” Observe in this, that after the servants, he sends the Son as One not numbered among the servants but as a true Son and therefore the Lord. Although he put on the form of a servant for the dispensation's sake, he was God, very Son of God the Father who possessed natural dominion. Did they honor him who was sent as Son and Lord and as One who possesses by inheritance whatever belongs to God the Father? No, they murdered him outside the vineyard, having plotted among themselves a foolish and ignorant plan full of all wickedness. They say, “Let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.”

Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Luke, Homily 134