During deaconate formation, we once had a teacher that compared the Gospels of Jesus to a mirror. He suggested that many people look into the mirror, the Gospel, and in the reflection, they think they see an Apostle, when what is really reflected is something a little less desirable. When we read, or listen to, the Gospels, the reflection in the mirror is how we look in the eyes of God. Sometimes we look pretty good, other times not so good. In today’s Gospel Jesus tells a parable that he is holding up like a mirror in front of the Jewish religious leaders. He wants them to see what they look like in the eyes of God, and what they see is not a pretty picture. He wants them to recognize themselves in the story.
In the parable, the landowner represents God, and the vineyard represents the nation of Israel. The tenant farmers are the chief priests and elders, the ones God has entrusted with the vineyard, the spiritual care of his people. The servants sent by the landowner are all the prophets God had sent over the centuries urging the religious leaders and the people to recognize their sin and turn back to God. The son of the landowner who is killed by the tenants is Jesus, himself. Using this parable, Jesus is telling the religious leaders, “This is what you look like to God. You have rejected every messenger he has sent and now you are rejecting me. So, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to others to care for and do with it what God wants.”
This parable isn’t just directed to those people 2000 years ago. It is also directed to us. We are the others that Jesus referred to; the ones who have been given God’s Kingdom to care for and do with what God wants. We need to look into today’s Gospel, this mirror, and see what we look like in the eyes of God. We have been put on this earth as tenants in God’s vineyard. God created the earth and everything on it and has given it to us to use and care for. The earth belongs to God. We are its’ tenants. God has entrusted us to produce good fruit in return for what he has given us. So how have we responded? What have we returned to God for all the gifts of creation that he has entrusted to us? Have we cared for these gifts, protected them, and used them as God intended us to use them?
Today’s Gospel is also very fitting as the first weekend in October the Church also celebrates “Respect Life Sunday”. We are especially challenged to look at how we care for and protect the most precious gift that God has entrusted to us, the gift of life. And that means every life, from the life of the unborn, the life of the dying, the life scrounging through the garbage dump for food, the life on death row, and the lives of those we love as well as the lives of our enemies; every life, because each life comes from God and has been created in his image and has been redeemed by the blood of Christ. Even if that life has been twisted and corrupted by the world or the forces of evil, it still belongs to God, not us or society. God has entrusted all life to our care and protection. So, we need to work and pray for a world in which every life is sacred, valued, and safe.
There is so much that destroys life in our world today, but nothing on such a large scale as abortion. A recent poll showed that most Americans by more than two to one believe that abortion is the taking of a human life, but many also claim that the taking of that life is justified. Since the Roe V. Wade decision in 1973, our nation has “Justified” the taking of nearly fifty million lives thru abortion, lives that had no choice, no chance of survival. As Christians we must reject the false solution of abortion. It does not solve any of society’s problems.
Death is not a solution either to the suffering of the terminally ill. As people of life, we know that God is not calling us to “pull the plug”, or prematurely bring death on by our own hands. In what little work I’ve done as a deacon serving in hospitals, I’ve seen the power of patients to inspire love from their family members and caregivers, how God uses them to bring forth goodness and holiness from those who care for them.
Neither is death a solution to crime. God is calling us to affirm that even though someone may be entrapped in all kinds of sin and evil, they may still be redeemed. For example, St. Dismas. Dismas, by tradition since the fourth century, is the name given to who we commonly known as “The Good Thief”. A man who led a lifetime of crime and only in the last moments of his life repented and asked Jesus to remember him, as he hung on a cross beside Christ.
God has entrusted his vineyard and all the gifts of his creation to our care and protection, and none more precious than the gift of life. So, we must keep working to change hearts and keep raising awareness on all life issues. We must keep working to protect all life. And may our Lord Jesus Christ give us the strength and the courage to do so, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, AMEN.