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Sunday, October 4, 2026 - Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Amy Current
Amy Current
Sunday, October 4, 2026
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First Reading: Isaiah 5:1-7

The prophet sings a sad, parable-like love song about the relationship between God and Israel. In this song Israel is compared to a promising vineyard. Despite God’s loving care, the vineyard that is Israel has brought forth “rotten grapes” of injustice and distress, when fine grapes of justice and righteousness were expected.
1 I will sing for my beloved
 my love song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
 on a very fertile hill.
2 He dug it and cleared it of stones
 and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it
 and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
 but it yielded rotten grapes.
3 And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem
 and people of Judah,
judge between me
 and my vineyard.
4 What more was there to do for my vineyard
 that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to yield grapes,
 why did it yield rotten grapes?
5 And now I will tell you
 what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
 and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
 and it shall be trampled down.
6 I will make it a wasteland;
 it shall not be pruned or hoed,
 and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds
 that they rain no rain upon it.
7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
 is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
 are his cherished garden;
he expected justice
 but saw bloodshed;
righteousness
 but heard a cry!

Psalm: Psalm 80:7-15

7 Restore us, O God of hosts;
 let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved.
8 You have brought a vine out of Egypt;
 you cast out the nations and planted it.
9 You cleared the ground for it;
 it took root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered by its shadow
 and the towering cedar trees by its boughs.
11 You stretched out its tendrils to the sea
 and its branches to the river.
12 Why have you broken down its wall,
 so that all who pass by pluck off its grapes?
13 The wild boar of the forest has ravaged it,
 and the beasts of the field have grazed upon it.
14 Turn now, O God of hosts,
 look down from heaven;
15 behold and tend this vine;
 preserve what your right hand has planted.

Second Reading: Philippians 3:4b-14

Paul reviews some of his supposed credentials, which no longer have any bearing in comparison to the right relationship he has been given through the death of Christ. The power of Christ’s resurrection motivates him to press on toward the ultimate goal, eternal life with Christ.
[Paul writes:] 4b If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
  7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
  12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Gospel: Matthew 21:33-46

Jesus tells a parable to the religious leaders who are plotting his death, revealing that their plans will, ironically, bring about the fulfillment of scripture.
[Jesus said:] 33 “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went away. 34 When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them in the same way. 37 Then he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”
  42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:
 ‘The stone that the builders rejected
  has become the cornerstone;
 this was the Lord’s doing,
  and it is amazing in our eyes’?
43 “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruits. 44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”
  45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

Additional Psalm: Psalm 78:1-8

1 Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
 incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable;
 I will utter dark sayings from of old,
3 things that we have heard and known,
 that our ancestors have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children;
 we will tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might
 and the wonders that he has done.
5 He established a decree in Jacob
 and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
 to teach to their children,
6 that the next generation might know them,
 the children yet unborn,
and rise up and tell them to their children,
 7 so that they should set their hope in God,
and not forget the works of God,
 but keep his commandments;
8 and that they should not be like their ancestors,
 a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was not steadfast,
 whose spirit was not faithful to God.

Additional Gospel: John 21:24-25

24 This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. 25 But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.