GIVING GOD HIS FRUITS
The Christian life and testimony are about giving God his deserved fruits for investing richly and graciously in us. We are the choicest vine planted on a well-prepared and fertile land. We are enriched in all graces and blessings to bear abundant fruits to the glory of God.
Therefore, a Christian needs to bear fruits that last and are commensurate to the grace and blessings lavished on us. No, to bear fruits is a waste of the kingdom project of God. Hence, the greatest tragedy of Christianity is a Christian who lives a fruitless life upon all the graces and blessings God bestowed on him.
The slow pace of God acting in the face of evil is not cowardice or weakness. Rather, it is his lovely mercy acting out infinitely.
THE FRUITLESS CHURCH
There is no doubt that the Church is turbulent. Its image in the world is shaky. It has lost relevance and importance among many people in the face of many scandals. Especially, the learned who could see through her struggles with a critical mind. Christians and the Church leaders could not justify their relevance and that of God today.
But the question is: do we represent God´s purpose for his vineyard? The Church must remain the noble and productive vineyard of the Lord through abundant fruit-bearing.
OUR THEMES
The first reading and the gospel of today are correlated in themes. They present us the image of the Church as the choicest vineyard of the Lord. Where God laboured and endowed with all classes of spiritual gifts, blessings and graces. It is destined to flourish, to bear fruits and show forth the glory, grace and mercy of God.
However, it faces challenges from the conduct and lifestyle of its occupants; the Christians and its leaders. Our lifestyles and driven purpose oppose the will of God. Making us antagonists instead of protagonists to God´s Kingdom, the truth and God´s prophets among us. Hence, there will be consequences and repercussions for our actions.
The message of the readings today is very clear: choose God and pray to God with complete confidence amidst struggles and failures. If we reject God, he cannot go against our own free will which He gave us. God’s choice is always love! Our choice is up to us.
FIRST READING: ISAIAH 5:1-7
The prophet Isaiah confronting the people of Israel remains them, they were the choicest vineyard of the Lord. They were intended and tended by God to bear the fruits of holiness. However, failure to bear fruits would mean disgrace, miseries and woes.
The prophecy of Isaiah 5:1-7 did not only remind us of the ceaseless effort and labour God in to plant us in his vineyard on a selective fertile soil. It also reminds us of his tender, loving care for us to be fruitful as intended. As such failing to bear better fruit, the vineyard with be left to wreckage and doom. He warns.
The Psalmist helps us to articulate perfectly the first reading: The vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel. The choicest people of God with its history of slavery, struggles, survivals and salvation. (Psalm 79)
SECOND READING: PHILIPPIANS 4:6-9
St. Paul´s writing to his beloved Christian community of Philippi encourages them and us to a spiritual life of prayer and goodness. He invites them to be imitators of him in doing whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, and whatever is commendable in Christ Jesus. As a Christian Church and community in the world.
This is how the will of God can be done and true peace of mind from anxieties and perplexities can be attained. Trust in prayers, supplications, and thanksgivings and live a worthy life of the Christian calling.
St. Paul invites us to live constantly in prayer and thanksgiving, to be able to keep faith in God´s grace, mercy and patience while striving to preserve what is good, noble pure, gracious and just.
THE GOSPEL: MATTHEW 21:33-43
The gospel message of the parable of today is clear: the Jewish nation is the vineyard and its owner is God. The cultivators to whom the vineyard is leased or charged with its welfare are the religious leaders and the people of Israel. The messengers who were successively sent were the prophets of God who were often rejected, maltreated and killed. Equally, the only son sent is Jesus Christ.
The Gospel of Matthew 21:33-43 has a similar message to the prophecy of Isaiah. Jesus brought the Jewish leaders to answer their unfaithfulness and wickedness in the face of God´s mercy, grace and patience.
THE CHURCH IS THE VINEYARD OF THE LORD
Invariably, the parable of the tenants in the vineyard in our time and era is the Church. The Body of Christ is meant to be the living presence of God of earth. A Church empowered by God´s grace, blessings and mercy to nobility and productivity. A spiritual endowment that transforms and transcends human dominance.
There are some essential points scored in this parable of today.
IT TELLS US MUCH ABOUT GOD.
(a)God’s trust in men and entrusted the affair of his vineyard: the Church without policing.
(b) It tells of God’s patience.
(c) We learn also of God’s judgment.
THE PARABLE TELL US TOO ABOUT JESUS CHRIST.
(i) It tells of the claim of Jesus as belonging to the succession of the prophets. Though, the other prophets were God´s messengers.
(ii) He is God´s Son, full of divine appeal for grace and mercy to all.
(iii) It tells of the sacrifice of Jesus. His mission was to redeem the rebelling of mankind.
(iv) In Christ Jesus, we see the fullest of God´s love for humanity.
FINALLY, THE PARABLE REVEALS TO US ABOUT THE NATURE OF MEN.
(a) There is a human privilege of the abundance of God´s grace, mercy and enrichment at the disposal of men.
(b) It tells us also of human freedom.
(c) The human answerability makes us aware that to all men comes a day of reckoning.
(d) It tells of the deliberateness of human sin. The cultivators carry out a deliberate policy of rebellion and disobedience towards the master.
(e) At the same time there is human resistance, rejection, rebellion and ingratitude. Over the ages, humans have always tried to replace God with their images, ideologies, and idiosyncrasies.
THE IMAGE OF THE GOSPEL AS THE VINEYARD OF GOD
The core point of today´s parable is that the Church is the choicest vineyard of the Lord. It is planted for a noble and productive purpose. Where we can grow to maturity in the sunshine of care and abundance of God’s grace. But the vineyard can fall into disuse, or fail to produce the expected fruits of graciousness and loving mercy. Human inclinations or influences can rob it of God´s intended purpose. Making it an instrument or source of bitterness or disillusionment to God himself and true believers.
OUR PRAYER
Lord Jesus Christ, when you entrusted God´s vineyard, your mystical body: and the Church to us. From all intents and purposes, you meant that the church becomes a noble and productive vineyard to all spiritually. Today, deliberate human mediocrities and excusable weaknesses have produced scandals, rivalries, divisions and manipulations instead of fruitfulness in love, grace, mercy and goodness. We pray that our lives may never be soured by bitterness or disillusionment in your Church. Amen
