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Homily for Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

READ: (Isa 5: 1 -7; Phil 4: 6-9; Matt 21:33-43)

REFLECT: Love God for God loves us always…

Today we are in the Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. The entire liturgy of the word manifests to us the unconditional love of God for us his children. God never contradicts himself in his nature and character. Although our God is just and true, he is always merciful, loving and compassionate to us, because he loves us. If God were given an option to save or destroy us or love or leave us, God would definitely take the choice of saving and loving us. Pope Francis very beautifully tells us about God’s love, “The first step that God takes toward us is that of a love that anticipates and is unconditional. God is the first to love. God does not love because there is something in us that engenders love. God loves us because he himself is love, and, by its very nature, love tends to spread and give itself. God does not even condition his benevolence on our conversion. If anything, this is a consequence of God’s love.”  That’s the love of God. Today, in what ways can we love God or manifest our love for God in our lives? Therefore, I would like to share with you three points of reflection based on the liturgy of the word

1. Never abandon God: 

Pope Francis very beautifully emphasizes the love of God saying, “It is not God who abandons us when we sin, but we who separate ourselves from him by choosing to sin, and that no matter what we do, God never stops loving us.” Yes, that’s what we see in the first reading from prophet Isaiah. We know from the bible that the chosen people were often depicted as ‘the vineyard of the Lord’. One such passage is what we see in the first reading from prophet Isaiah’s Song of the Vineyard, Where the Vineyard is Israel, the chosen people of God and the vinedresser is God himself. Very efficiently and effectively, prophet Isaiah makes known the good effort and the hard labor of God, the owner. Isaiah carefully observes how God in the creation of a vineyard (the chosen people Israel) has taken a great effort and interest in the growth of his people. That’s what the reading tells us too that God chose a fertile hillside, cleared the stones, planted the choicest vines, built a watchtower to protect it, and has cuts a winepress expecting a rich harvest, yielding good grapes. 

Therefore, with all due care and cultivation of the land on his vineyard, God, the owner expects a good yield of grapes from the chosen ones at time of harvest. Surprised and saddened to see that he receives wild grapes that could be of no use at all. For all the love, care and concern that God showed the chosen one’s the tribute that they gave to God were sour grapes that were tasteless. Disappointed much by the act of his chosen people, God pronounces judgment over them. He lifts His hedge of protection from the vineyard, permits animals and enemies to trample it underfoot, makes it a wild wasteland, and stops the life-giving rain upon its soil. Yes, this is what will happen to each one of us too, if we do not dispose according to the will of God in our lives. 

Today the song of Isaiah about the vineyard can be applied in our lives too. The song of Isaiah about the Vineyard is a reminder to all of us, how God loves us and pours out his graces in abundance for his people whom he created on earth. Just as each person in the vineyard was so specially created, planted, and cared for by God’s grace, so also we are special to God. God has created, planted, cared for us for a specific purpose. Just as people of Israel deserve no credit for their privileged status, so also we can never deserve credit for all the privileges we enjoy or experience, because all that we have are God’s. 

Just as God was so patient with the chosen people of Israel till they produce fruits, so also God is patient with us, giving us time and opportunity to yield good produce or to bear good fruits in life. But it all depends on our disposition to God. If we dispose well according to God’s plan and do his will, the Lord will bless us richly, pruning us with care, pouring the water like grace over us to grow and manure us with stamina to be steady in life. But if we don’t dispose well as per God’s plan, we shall wither away or face the destructive phase of life.  However, the point of the vineyard song is very clear that God has not abandoned the people of Israel rather they abandoned God. As a result of their own choices, God leaves them to their own plans and decisions to suffer the consequences of their sins that they have committed against God. So let us make use of the chance given by God by the choice that we make in life to bear fruit in plenty. 

2.              Trust in God:

Today, worries, tensions, confusion of mind, pressures of daily life, uncertainty about the future are the stumbling block to grow in the faith that we profess or live our lives as Christians. At times we are bothered so much that depression in life can lead to paralyze oneself as equal to doing and being nothing. Worries and tensions stop us looking at the brighter side of the future. What can become an anti-dote for worry is peace. The peace can be obtained through prayer. This is the point that St. Paul through the first reading from letter to Philippians reminds us and exhorts us. That’s why St. Paul begins saying, “do not be anxious about anything.” It is because of worries that the Philippian community faced, St. Paul exhorts them to have confidence and trust in God by prayer. Just as someone has very beautifully said, “prayer can cure anxiety,” so also here St. Paul after having said not to worry, encourages the Philippian community to have recourse to prayer for worries. 

In all surety, prayer is a powerful tool that can put us into the peaceful ambience of life, provided we understand prayer rightly and meaningfully. Perhaps, prayer shows our dependency on God by placing our lives in God’s hands with trust and confidence. Prayer is a commitment that we show to build our relationship and unity with God, thus contributing our share in the growth and spread of the kingdom of God. That’s why St. Paul in the first reading would urge us, “in everything, resort to prayer and supplication, together with thanksgiving and bring your request before God.” Yes, prayer brings us peace, when we place our trust and confidence in God. In order to be peaceful in life, we need to be prayerful. If we need to be prayerful, we need to fill the minds with holy and noble thoughts. That’s what St. Paul would tell us, “fill your minds with whatever is truthful, holy, pure, lovely and noble.” Such a filling in our minds can take place, when we grip on to God or associate with God through prayer. 

Indeed, it is an undeniable fact that St. Paul was a prayerful and persevering man in the service of God and in the service of one another. As a model person of prayer, he exhorts the Philippian community to put into practice all that was taught by St. Paul to the Philippian community. That’s why St. Paul says, “put into practice what you have learned from me, what I have passed on to you, what you heard from me or saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you.” Yes, we cannot separate what Paul said and did from the very style of his life he lived. St. Paul was always passionate about God and God’s works. He gave full commitment and dedication to God’s work and to God’s people. Today, St. Paul remains a model leader, who can inspire, challenge and change our lives for the better. 

Today, worries and tensions haunt us the human society. We are worried because we don’t place our trust in God. When worries and tensions replace our trust and confidence in God, our life becomes a branch that sways in the air without any support and strength. As St. Paul urges us to grow in faith through prayer and model life of holiness, let us seek for the grace to be prayerful and peaceful in life. Let us realize that when we become prayerful although we might be disturbed, we would obtain peace, because the peace is given by God himself. Perhaps, it is not only that the peace of God but also the God of peace himself will overshadow us with his love and care. Let us cast our cares and worries unto God through faith in prayer. 

3.              Recognize our gift of freedom from God: 

Pope Francis tells us, “Human freedom discovers itself to the fullest when it understands that it is generated and sustained by the loving freedom of the Father, revealed in the Son in the face of Mercy. Under his compassionate gaze, every man can always resume the path of the ‘risk of freedom.” Yes, God has given us freedom and respects our freedom too. Realizing and recognizing the gift of freedom God has given us or gives us daily would solve every trauma that we experience in human life. But most of us fail to realize the gift of freedom that God gives us and therefore we lose sight of God’s graciousness and greatness in our lives, thus become a victim to the judgment of God.  

Today’s gospel reading presents before us the parable of the bad tenants. The parable clearly points out how God the owner and author of life has given us the tenants on earth to till the land, take care of it and to produce good fruits in due time.  In the gospel reading of the day we find that the house holder sends his servants to the tenants to get his fruits that were produced in householders land. But the sad fact is that they kill all the servants whoever was sent. Finally, they even dared to kill the son of the householder. 

Indeed, this parable indicates the suffering, passion and death that Jesus was to undergo. The householder is God, who owns the entire creation or the land on earth. Servants are the prophets and messengers sent by God to get his fruits from the land on earth. The bad tenants, who killed the servants and householders’ son, are the chief-priests, the Jewish authorities who were responsible in killing the prophets of the Old and the New Testament, including Jesus the Son of God. When we keenly observe the parable we find that the produce of the land was quite good but there is an improper and undue way of giving what the land owner or the master of the land deserved. Therefore, the problem was not the production of the vineyard but the tenants, who did not serve the purpose for the work they have appointed; they have taken authority to themselves and misused power and betrayed the trust the householder placed on them. They kill all the servants sent by the House holder including his own son, whom he thought they would accept and respect. But their response is quite weird, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance” (21:38).

All the more, the twist of the parable is that Jesus in the parable focuses on landowners’ own son, who was killed, becomes the cornerstone. It indicates the Christological aspect of how Jesus was rejected, made to suffer, crucified, killed and died. Although, it was God’s plan and will that Jesus should die and redeem us back to God the Father, we see the role of chief-priests, Jewish authorities and leaders of the synagogues instigating or triggering people to move away from the focus. Therefore, the leaders of the Jewish society were in a way responsible for the killing of Jesus. They did not have proper understanding of God’s son; they did not understand God’s plan or will; they thought to themselves that what they said and thought were eternal truths that people should listen and practice; they thought that they owned the land and people and forgot that it is God, who owns the land and the people.

Today, such feelings and attitudes are prevalent in our societies too. The leaders of the church, society, state and the family too think that they own everything and forget that it is God who owns everything and we are just passersby and caretakers of the land and the people. It is because of the misguided understanding of exercising authority or leadership roles in life. The moment we lose control of the track that we are supposed to be, the entire movement that we make becomes faulty and folly. So we need to understand rightly as leaders of the church, society, family or those in leadership and authority that will enable us to serve God and his people better. An unsteady focus and misguided understanding of leadership and authority would only create hurdle and havoc in the path of proclamation of good news and in our service to humanity. 

Another aspect that we could see in today’s parable is the freedom given by the landowner to the tenants. That’s why the landowner did not watch over and supervise their activity. There is a trust placed in the tenants by the landowner. That’s why the landowner has not laid down any particular norms or methods of production of the land; we see here that landowner was not a taskmaster, who demanded a lot in the production activity in the land, because he understood the importance and the hard work of labourers and laboring but everything turns opposite when the freedom of the landowner is misused and the trust is betrayed, while he sends his messengers and his own son to get the produce of the land. 

That’s how God too has worked with us and works with us. God gives us freedom and places trust over us, but it’s we who misuse the freedom and betray his trust over us by acts of improper exercising of authority and leadership and above all no proper understanding of God plan or will in our lives. So we need to understand that God respects our freedom; God gives us chances often but we don’t make use of it. God loves us so much but we don’t understand or value it. So let us understand that when we realize and recognize the gift of freedom that God has given us, we would love God all the more; when we love God the more, God would give us the grace to exercise our Christian leadership and authority sincerely, genuinely for the good of whole humanity, according to God’s plan. 

RESPOND:

Do we abandon God for the sake of selfishness, self-satisfaction and self security or God abandons us? 

Do we trust God in times of worries and tensions or do we replace trust and confidence with worries and tensions of life?

Do we recognize the gift of freedom that God has given us or do we devalue and fail to realize the freedom and confident that God has placed in us? 

Let us never abandon God, trust him all the more in times of worries and tensions, and recognize the freedom of God endowed to us to love God and his people genuinely. Amen. 

God bless us all! Live Jesus!

Fr. Ramesh George MSFS

rameshvkmsfs@gmail.com

9500930968