The following in Bishop Caggiano’s homily for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday In Ordinary Time:
My dear sisters and brothers in the Lord,
As Jesus does each time, He teaches us a parable. Today the Lord, in this Parable, is teaching us what the Kingdom of God will look like. The Kingdom of Heaven that He brought by His life, death, and resurrection. A Kingdom that we are all walking towards with His help and the power of the Holy Spirit.
But as He also does in His parables, He’s also asking us to look inside of ourselves so that we might be ready to receive the Gift. And more than that, that you and I are ready today to help build that Kingdom in this world with His grace.
And so today in the parable of the tenants and the vineyard, the Lord is building on what Isaiah had taught centuries before. It seems the more time passes, the more things stay the same. And in the time of Isaiah. he preached, gave this image of a vineyard. Remember, my friends, the vineyard is not a place. As we heard from the psalm, it is a people in the time of Isaiah. God’s chosen people.
And what did they do when they heard about this message of life, of a Kingdom? They rejected it. Because it demanded that they change their lives. It demanded that they they look deep within themselves, that they be obedient to the words of the prophets, that they set aside their sin, they seek a new life. And many said no.
So too for the Lord Jesus. Remember, He is the King of the Kingdom. And in the parable we hear that even when the Son comes to preach a Word, what? Not of judgment, but a Word of mercy, of kindness, of forgiveness, of patience. Many who heard Him then, and many who hear Him now, refuse to change their lives, Refuse to walk in His footsteps, Refuse to live as He asks us to live, imitating Him.
So allow me to ask you a question. How do you and I avoid the fate of those who say no? How is it that you and I can say yes to the Lord Jesus and to what He asks?
Well you see, my friends, if you look at this parable of the tenants, let me ask you another question. If you were the owner of the vineyard and you sent one person to try to reason with the people who were tending the vineyard, or a second person, or a third person, or a fourth person, and everyone you sent got beat up, got manhandled, got thrown into a pit, and you heard all this and you kept sending people, and they kept doing the same thing, let me ask you – would you send your son or your daughter to those people? Would you put someone who was so dear to you in harm’s way? Would you or I actually risk he or she, whom we love, perhaps the most, to send them to a people who showed themselves to be stubborn and ungrateful? Would you do that?
I’m not sure I would. But God did. And that’s the point.
For you see, my dear friends, the lesson of the parable is that God never gives up on us. God’s love for us is so deep, so beautiful, so profound, that he will offer you and me everything and anything, even his most beloved Son, whom we depict here on the cross. There is no limit to God’s love for us because He wants us to be part of His Kingdom. He wants us to receive what our hearts truly desire. He wants to give you and me the joy and peace only He can give. He wants you and I to be free from our sins. He wants us to run and laugh and dance as His own children. And He will spare nothing so that we might have the chance to have so great a gift.
And how sad it is that there are so many who say no.
How do you and I avoid saying no? Well allow me me to ask you one day to look in the mirror, the mirror of your own spirit, as I will mine. And mirrors do not lie, do they? And look deep within your own heart and ask yourself the question, what prevents me from doing to my neighbor what God is offering for me? What is it that I can do more to help my sister, brother, husband, wife, neighbor, classmate, or friend so that I may show to them the Lord Jesus alive in me? Who is it in your life that you are refusing to forgive? When will you and I forgive them? Who in your life, in my life, do we have a grudge? And we say to ourselves, well only if the person does this or this or this, maybe I’ll speak to them.
But God does not do that to us. Why do we do it to others? How far will you and I walk to be merciful and kind and forgiving, even when we get nothing back in return?
For you see, my dear brothers and sisters, in order to enter into the Kingdom, you and I must become like the King, in this case the vineyard owner. And if you and I live lives where we only want to be faithful until it’s comfortable, we only want to be faithful until it hurts maybe just a a little bit, that we’re willing to be comfortable only to the point where everyone else around me is doing the same thing. If you and I want to be part of this Kingdom, then my dear friends, what the Lord is asking of us is to dare to live as He did.
And that is not easy. It is not easy to give and receive nothing back. It’s very difficult to forgive when a person may not return the forgiveness to us. But that is what we are called to do, one step at a time. And we come here to the Altar of God because what we cannot do, He can do in us.
And boys and girls, for those of you who are here from religious education, remember you are going to learn about your faith. Not so much that it stays here, but it has to move to here. And it has to move to here as you walk and live and talk. And choose friends who will help you to imitate the Lord Jesus.
My dear friends, allow me to end by asking you one last question. What would it take in your life to do what the landowner did? What has to change in your life or mine so that we can give up everything for Jesus? And perhaps we could spend this week asking our ourselves that question. And to the extent that we can get an answer, we have work to do.
