Be Generous to God's Nurturing Love

Homily For The 27th Sunday In The Ordinary Time Year A, October 8, 2023.

“To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything.” – Thomas Merton

Sunday Readings

My Dearest Friends In Christ,

Today is another beautiful Sunday and a day of divine encounter with God. We ask God who has called us together as one family in His presence to fill us with His enduring and life-changing words, so we can be productive with all that He has endowed us.

The readings of today are a continuation of last Sunday’s encounter between Jesus and the Jewish authorities who challenge Him. Jesus often uses parables to respond to them. The readings, in general, remind us of our failure to respond generously to God’s nurturing attention and the need to be appreciative of God’s kindness and generosity to us His people (His vineyard).

The first reading and the gospel speak to us about God’s vineyard and all that God does to provide fertile ground, care, protection, and all else that is required to make His vineyard productive and flourishing. It tells us how the caretakers failed to render an honest accounting of His produce. The Old Testament often used the picture of a vineyard to speak of Israel (Deuteronomy 32:32, Psalm 80:8, Jeremiah 2:21, and especially Isaiah 5:1-7).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 755) in one of her images of the Church, describes her as land, a choice vineyard, that has been planted by the Heavenly Cultivator. The true vine is Christ who gives life and fruitfulness to the branches; that is, to us, who through the Church remain in Christ, without whom we can do nothing. The readings can be better understood when we read what Jesus says in John 15:5. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of Mine that assumes no fruit, He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.“

It is clearer to us now, that we the members of the Church, and God’s children, are the vineyard and branches of the vine cultivated by God the Vine and endowed with every good thing we need to flourish. As branches of this Vine, we have failed to be productive and appreciative in rendering to God what is His due.

The gospel used the image of the landowner going on a journey to describe how God entrusted creation, His Church, the human family, and earthly resources to humanity as caretakers. God entrusted nature and the world to us to protect, increase, and multiply( cf. Gen. 1:28). Instead of protecting, increasing, multiplying, and caring for nature, we are endangering it. We destroy human lives. We destroy terrestrial and aquatic life. We destroy nature and scramble over its resources instead of caring for it and offering it back to God who endowed her as a gift to us. Industrial pollution, indiscriminate dumping of refuse, deforestation, and carbon emissions, to mention but a few, are the ways we destroy what God has given. Isn’t Mother Nature revolting against us now as we complain about global warming and changes in climatic conditions? Let us be protectors of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment.

A deeper reflection on the gospel will lead you to a profound appreciation of the love and attention with which God cares for His vineyard, which we are. And how, instead of rendering Him an account and giving Him the produce of His vineyard, as its custodians and beneficiaries, we become maliciously ungrateful. This gospel opens our minds to the various ways we reject God and His blessings in our daily lives.

Why are men and women of our generation ungrateful? It was greediness that blindfolded the caretakers of the vineyard to the point of reacting violently by rejecting and killing the only son of the owner of the vineyard. This verse foreshadowed the world’s rejection of God’s only Son and His eventual crucifixion by the Jews ( and you and me daily through sin) on the cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. Every act of greed is a rejection of God. It is the greed in our hearts that contributes to scarcity in a world abundantly blessed with innumerable resources by a provident God. “Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward and learning to enjoy whatever life has and this requires transforming greed into gratitude.” – St. John Chrysostom.

This parable also unveils the common temptation to want to take possession of our lives. it has been given to us and we have been sent to work on it. We want more. We want to own the vineyard and become our own masters. On the contrary, Jesus teaches us that life/the vineyard can never become our possession. There will come a day when we are required to give it back and account for what we’ve done with it.

The servants sent by the owner of the vineyard to collect His produce from the tenants represent all the prophets, apostles, pastors, evangelists, and all those sent from God to plant and harvest His word in us, but we persecuted them (cf. John15:20) and often even caused their death. There is still ongoing persecution in the Church. It may not be manifest and bloody, but it is latent in the attitude of many in the worshipping community. We need to purify our intentions and count ourselves blessed for those who answered God’s call to serve us. We must appreciate them for their services to God and humanity and pray for them.

The first reading highlights God’s disappointment with Israel, and us, who instead of producing good fruit produced wild grapes. God has invested so much in every one of us. Anyone who has labored so much expects positive results. In the same way, God expects us, His children, to bring forth fruits worthy of emulation: fruits of holiness, peace, and love. Paul our brother understood this expectation from God when he admonished us in the second reading to aim at whatever is perfect, pure excellent, honorable, and gracious. That is what God expects from us. If we continue to be unappreciative of God’s gift to us, then His gifts shall be taken away from us and given to those who would be more productive with them.

Jesus is our cornerstone. Although the Jews and many others rejected Him, may we never reject Him but acknowledge Him as the Vine, without whom we the branches will wither. He is the foundation without Whom our faith is meaningless. I wish you the best for this new week.

“Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.“(cf. Phil 4:6)