The New Israel Must Bear Fruit (27A)

I call today the "three C" Sunday, because of three words beginning with the letter "c."  The readings are complex.  Their message is crucial.  But we have to make it concrete.

I found three distinct messages in today’s readings, which are closely connected, and I’d like to deal with them one by one.

The first message is: God is never the cause of our failure, because he has done all that is needed to assure our success.

In just a few words, Isaiah sums up the entire history of Israel.  The prophet begins by describing God's care and concern for his people, and then he chronicles their infidelity.

And then comes the rhetorical question.  The owner of the vineyard has done everything possible to assure a fruitful vineyard.   Can it be the fault of the owner that the harvest is sour grapes?

The answer, of course, is no. It’s not the owner who’s to blame, and both this reading and the psalm describe what comes next.  The vineyard will be trampled and parched.

This scary theme continues in today’s Gospel reading, where Jesus re-tells Isaiah's story, but with a twist.  The vineyard itself is no longer the focus; the tenants are.  And the sour grapes are replaced by vicious murder.

Clearly, we’re still talking about Israel, but this time her history of infidelity to God's covenant is overshadowed by a foretelling of the crucifixion.  So there’s our second message: The ultimate infidelity is the rejection of God's Son.

On account of this, the vineyard is taken away entirely from the old tenants, and let out to a new people, the Church.

This reading of the parable is very comfortable.  It puts Isaiah, Psalm 80, and the words of Jesus in a nice historical box.  It doesn't come too close to us, even if we do admit some solidarity with our ancestors in faith.  It's all about the past.

But then Jesus goes and disturbs us in our comfortable pews.  The final words of the Gospel today are "Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruit of the kingdom."

I don't want to sound flippant, but we've just been zapped!  Historically, Jesus was speaking to the chief priests and elders who were in his audience, but actually, here and now, he is speaking to you and to me. 

And there’s the third message: We are the new Israel, the people who must produce the fruits of the kingdom.  And if we do not, we’re no better than the vineyard overrun with weeds, we’re no better than those tenants who scorned the landowner and killed his son.

In the face of such a direct hit, we might be tempted to do some spiritual wiggling in order to get back to our comfort zone.  After all, I wouldn't kill anyone; and I certainly would share my produce—if I had a garden.  This is, after all, a parable, and these metaphors can mean what I want them to mean.

The Word of God does not give us that "out."  The New Testament makes it perfectly clear what God expects from his people.  In Matthew's Gospel, John the Baptist tells the crowds "Bear fruit worthy of repentance."  St. James says that peacemakers sow seeds that will bear fruit in holiness.

Look at the long catalogue of the gifts of the Spirit which St. Paul gives in 1 Corinthians chapter 13: Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; it is never rude or selfish, always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope—what are these but the fruits of the Spirit-filled life?

What are the beatitudes—mercy, poverty of spirit, humility and so on—if not the fruits which God wants from his vineyard?

We could spend weeks examining ourselves in the light of the harvest of holiness that Scripture describes in every detail.

And what about the weeds which threaten the vineyard of the Church, the scandals we hear about from time to time, the tensions in our families, in our parish, in our lives? How do we pull up the weeds that choke the abundant life God wants us to live?  In other words, how do we face up to weakness—our own and others’— in light of our Scripture this morning?

Today's second reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians suggests three answers:

First, we should recognize that the Lord of the Harvest is never deaf to the cry of his people.  The psalmist today acknowledges the sorry state of God's vineyard, but he doesn't hesitate to say “turn again, O God of hosts”—take another look, don’t give up on this vine you yourself have planted.

In other words, we must pray for the Church and for ourselves. St. Paul calls us to peaceful prayer, to a confidence in God's providence that casts out anxiety and tension.  "Do not worry about anything," he says.  Pray instead.

Second, we must work at it. We must make a conscious effort to grow in the faithful following of Christ.  Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received, St. Paul says, and the God of peace will be with you.  Scandals in the Church are most hurtful to those who themselves know they are part of the problem and not part of the solution.  A calm personal conscience makes it easier to deal with the failures of others, because you know for yourself that Christian living is not as impossible as the media wants us to believe.

Finally, we must find our comfort in Christ.  St. Paul says that God's peace will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

If you feel sometimes that life’s just too much for you, you’re probably right.  But it’s not too much for the Lord, who gives peace to those who ask Him.

So when you get right down to it, today's message isn’t all that complex. But it’s crucial for Christians living in the concrete circumstances that each of us face every day in the vineyard of the Lord.

Looking in the Mirror (26A)

When I look in the mirror, I see a nice-looking man in his mid-forties.

Then I look at my drivers’ license and it tells me the truth.  And the truth is, I am well into what the golfers call “the back-nine” or jockeys call “the home stretch.”

In other words, I am old enough to take the Bible seriously on the subject of salvation. Ezekiel is warning me in our first reading; St. Paul is encouraging me in the second reading; and Jesus is speaking to me in today’s Gospel.

I want to go to heaven, but I know that’s not automatic—even for and especially for a priest.

In fact, judging by today’s readings, it’s not automatic for any of us.

There was once a man who told his friend “I don’t go to church. It’s full of hypocrites.”

“That’s not a good reason,” his friend replied. “There’s always room for one more.”

In today's parable, Our Lord tells us religious people to beware of hypocrisy.  Beware of talking the walk, yet walking where you want.

It wouldn't be difficult to devote an entire homily to this theme.  Every one of us who professes the Christian faith knows the danger of preaching what we don't practice—if only because we see it in others!

What's more, we can all think of examples of people who profess no faith, or who never darken the door of a church, but whose lives reflect a charity or compassion that few of us manage to achieve.

Lip-service counts for little, even in human affairs.  That's why the first message of the parable is so easy for people to understand.

But there's more here than just a warning against hypocrisy, especially the religious kind. The wise scripture commentator William Barclay says that to understand the parable correctly we need to recognize that it isn't really praising anyone.

Neither of the two sons is the kind of child to bring real joy to the father's heart.  Although the one who actually does something is way better than the other, both miss the mark.

The ideal child would be the one who accepted the Father's directions willingly and then carried them out.

And so it is with the real world.  There are people who preach and profess what they don't practice, sanctimonious people who put piety ahead of virtue.   And then there are the folks who practice but don't profess, people who show goodness while shunning religious observance.

That second class, the "anonymous Christians," as someone called them, are much more pleasing to God than the religious phonies.

But neither of these two groups of people is anything like perfect. Again the important point is that the best people are those in whom the talk and the walk meet and match.  And it’s the best sort of people that we hope to become.

So let's not leave church this morning all resolved to swap our profession of faith in Christ with good deeds.  That heresy leads nowhere.  A sincere and mature faith in Christ fuels good deeds, and makes them better.

Finally, the parable reminds us that how we do a thing does matter.  Sure, to promise to do something and not to do it is worse than not doing it all.  But it's also true that a lack of courtesy and respect can take the shine off even the best of good deeds.  We can spoil a good thing by the way we do it; that’s what happened with the second son despite the fact he obeyed in the end.

We Christians need to learn from both the sons in today's Gospel.  Like the second son, we want to perform rather than just promise.  But at the same time, we want to show God the readiness to obey which the first son expressed in words if not in action.

Either way, Jesus tells us it’s never too late to start doing the Father’s will, expressing with our lives the faith we have on our lips.

His message on this score can be summed up in three words.  You’ll find them on the warning signs posted in every station of the London Underground, and at the door of every subway train: Mind the gap.

Let’s “mind the gap” –be always alert for the empty space between what we say and what we do.

Twitter

Since I find it hard to say things in 140 words or less, I don't use Twitter very often! But I do have a Twitter account: @MsgrGNS.

For some reason, I tweeted twice today on different subjects.  One was a link to a blog post by Dr. Edward Peters, the American canonist whose arguments I invariably find convincing and clear. He makes some very fundamental observations about the annulment process here. They are timely in late of the recent announcement that Pope Francis has created a small commission to review that subject.

The other was a post from blogger Julia Smucker, who is responding to one from a Jesuit on the subject of praying in response to the increasing evil of the daily news. I think praying directly in the face of evil sounds like a challenge we should take up, painful though it may be.  

Exaltation of the Cross: Concrete Challenges

I spent last weekend with our candidates for the Permanent Diaconate, so didn't post my Sunday homily for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.  But during the weekend I heard a model homily on the reading at Evening Prayer I, which was First Corinthians, 1:23-24. So with thanks to Henk Luyten, here it is.

The homily applied the scripture text to real life in a very practical way--one of the hardest things in preaching. Henk challenged us to pick up our cross by very specific actions.
 
“We preach Christ crucified – a stumbling block to Jews, and an absurdity to Gentiles; but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

This short passage provides us with a rich introduction to tomorrow’s great Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. Saint Paul wrote this letter from Ephesus after a less than positive experience in Athens where he managed to convince only a small number of Greeks about Jesus’ message and resurrection. Now back in Ephesus, a number of individuals from Corinth approached him about growing divisions in the fledgling Christian community and requests for instructions to safeguard the disciples from the vice and sexuality rampant in that city. It all sounds distressingly contemporary, doesn’t it?

The Jews were looking for an earthly messiah, a new King who would re-establish Israel and drive out the Romans. The Greeks were looking for wisdom, knowledge, and worldly answers. In the Cross, most of them saw only the shameful failure of a man put to death on an instrument of torture. And they were being asked to follow this man? Nonsense. 

Paul, in what almost seems like exasperation, turns and points to the Cross of Christ. “This” he says, “is what we preach”.

Those who believed saw in Jesus’ death on the Cross not failure but rather his great unrestrained love for all humankind. They saw God’s great power change that instrument of suffering and death into an instrument of salvation, unity and forgiveness. Through the Cross Jesus broke down the old enmity between man and God and remade us as God’s sons and daughters breaking down the gates which barred us from the Kingdom of Heaven.

And for all those who believe, both those to whom Paul wrote in Corinth and us today, this great gift imposes a great responsibility. Jesus himself makes this is clear when he says “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27), “And he said to all, ‘if any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). But how can we do this?

We can join ourselves to Jesus tonight and let go of one resentment or hatred.

We can resolve to be constantly merciful and forgiving towards one person who has harmed us.

We can commit ourselves to never being a source of disunity at home, at work or in the Church. 

And we can see our challenges and temptations as opportunities to courageously lift the Cross on our shoulders and move confidently with Christ towards the salvation he gained for us. 

In these ways the power and wisdom of God that comes through the Cross will be actively at work in us. Amen.