Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 5:1-7; Matthew 21:33-43

How could the tenants in today's Gospel behave so atrociously? Did they think that the owner would let them get away with such mayhem? Did they somehow believe that they were irreplaceable? And are we really any different? Generation upon generation, we have taken the fruit of this planet to fulfill our desires, with little regard for the Landlord's intentions. We ignore sign after sign that we are doing evil to our family and to ourselves. Even those who see the truth fall prey to our anthropocentric lies; falsely believing that it is the vineyard that is in mortal danger. No, it is we the tenants who face that wretched death. And there is no shortage of siblings waiting in the wings to replace us. Our family is not limited to one minor species of talking monkeys. Nor are we the favorite child, as depicted in the fantasies of corporate religion. Our Parent will happily lease this kingdom and its bounty to another people, unless we wake up and see that we are not the artists of this world, free to use it however we might will, but merely the audience for a grand master and their most magnificent work.

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Matthew 21: 33-43

We reap what we sow. When we focus on greed, our fruit is death. When we focus on charity, our fruit is love. The evidence of this simple truth is all around us in the world today. It's obviousness is overwhelming; so we have to find ways of hiding from it. We fight over economic and political ideology. We play chess games with real people as pawns. Anything to avoid the reality that we have badly abused the "vineyard" given to us by God, that we are producing sour fruit. Life has a way of humbling the proud, especially those who proclaim that they are too great to fall. God desires good fruit, and one way or another she will get it. Do we want to be his tenants or not?