SUNDAY, TWENTY SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Is 5: 1-7; Ps 80: 9, 12-16, 19-20; Phil 4: 6-9; Mt 21: 33-43
NEED TO BE RESPOSIBLE STEWARD
God speaks to us in different forms and different ways. Only if we are responsible and watchful, shall we receive his real message and eventually be able to respond to it. Otherwise, we will be failures because we have lost something very important and precious, and we may not even realize that we have lost this great pearl. As we celebrate Twenty Seventh Sunday of the Ordinary Time, today’s readings invite us to reflect and find out how each of us have lived our lives as responsible stewards of what is entrusted to us!
The first reading and the Gospel passage speak about the Vineyard. As we know very well whoever plants the vineyard always expects good harvest because of the hard work and the care which accompany the efforts. In the first reading God is the owner of the vineyard. The vineyard which He planted was the nation of Israel, the people whom He chose as his own. He sent prophets time and again to teach them to live in the right way and to show them the true and saving paths. From reading the history of Israel, we understand that the people of Israel, they did not listen to the prophets instead they rejected them and lived as they wanted and even persecuted the prophets, not even refraining from killing some. In other words, they failed to produce good fruits. The first reading ends saying: “…and He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry!”
In the Gospel, we see almost the same story. Jesus tells the parable to inspire us how in the Old Testament people of Israel who represented the vineyard, failed to listen to the prophets and how they rejected them even to the extent of persecuting them. On the other hand, we also notice the scrupulous care taken by God who is the owner of that vineyard and His patience and mercy. He repeatedly gives opportunities for repentance. The tenants who represented the religious leaders knew what Jesus claims to be but choose to reject and stay neutral as well as indifferent for the sake of own power and authority. Though they knew it, they chose not to stand by that just to hold on to their high position in society. In other words, they produced sour grapes.
In the parable, Jesus wanted to make us realize that after the prophets God sent His own Beloved Son that is Christ Himself who was nailed to the Cross. We could very much understand that the life which we enjoy at present is the vineyard which God has planted and which He has entrusted to each one of us that we may take care of it and produce good fruits. Do we make him proud through our actions? Jesus is the Living Word that we hear always, to which we need to respond! Do we do that in life? He comes to us through our parents, through our teachers, through our elders, through all those in authority, and even through our good friends, how generously do we listen to them? What is our response? Do we produce good fruits or bad fruits? How is our behavior and attitudes? So how could we qualify ourselves if we consider us as the tenants of our own lives?
We are not the owners of our lives but only the tenants who must give an account to the owner! We need to be consciously aware of this truth and try to produce good fruits and surely not sour ones. Besides we need to be consciously aware of God’s blessings and gifts which He bestows on us every day and every moment and respond to it more creatively and effectively. It does not mean that God abandons His promises rather, Jesus is saying that those who reject Him will lose their privileged role in God’s kingdom. The kingdom will be entrusted to the people who are responsible stewards who bear fruit. This includes all faithful Jews and gentiles together, the community of believers. The vineyard was planted to produce grapes. Likewise, God expects lives marked by faith, justice, love, obedience and righteousness, not just religious activity only. The tenants reject both the servants and the Son, symbolizing Israel’s history of rejecting God’s messengers and ultimately, the Messiah. Jesus warns that rejecting Him leads to judgment, while those who receive Him and bear spiritual fruit will share in God’s kingdom.
Response: The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel.
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