The Tenants Who Killed the Owner's Son
Oct
5
Written by:
Sunday, October 05, 2008
27th Sunday Ordinary Time
October 5, 2008
In this century, science has helped us discover our place in the universe. It always helps to know how things really stand, and what is really important in our lives. Our Lord helps us to understand by telling us the parable of the owner and the tenants in the vineyard (Matthew 21:33-43). The owner took great care to get everything ready for his tenants, protecting the vineyard and providing a tower to live in, a wine-press to work with, grapes and land to cultivate and a wall to keep intruders out.
The tenants received all of this with the expectation that they would share some of the fruit with the owner at harvest time: in other words, they had to pay rent. The owner set all this up with great care and then went away, but he monitored things from a distance. But when the owner sent delegates to collect the rent, they were beaten up or killed, one after the other.
What is the problem here? The workers in the vineyard forgot that they were tenants. We all find ourselves as residents of this earth. We did not create it. We are here for a specified time and a specified purpose. If we forget that we are tenants, temporary residents here, we may become selfish and think everything belongs to us to do with as we please. We begin neglect the needs of others or our duties to God. When God sends us reminders that our rent is due, we can respond with hostility and hardness of heart like the tenants in today's gospel.
In each of our lives, God wishes to provide what we need to bear fruit for him. Sometimes his providence takes the form of good times and pleasant things, and sometimes suffering, but all of this is given us for a time so that we might bear fruit and share it with him and others. Thus the point of life is ultimately not to amass a hoard for our own use, but to offer a fruitful life to God which takes the form of sharing with our neighbor.
Periodically, God will send a "servant" to test us and see if we have some fruit to give him. These often take the form of tests. For example, we may wake up with a headache; we bear fruit by not dumping that headache on everyone else! We are at work and a co-worker needs help; we offer it in a spirit of love, even though we have other things to do. We are in traffic and show patience. We take the time to listen with interest to our aunt who has told the same story 100 times already. And so on!
God shows almost infinite patience with us. He waits for us to learn generosity with him and others and to discover the real meaning of life. At the end of our time as tenants, God will appear to ask us for our "rent!"
Father Gary