Becoming a new people that produces good fruit

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Is 5, 1-7; Phil 4,6-9; Mt 21, 33-43

Vines, plants and our precious little projects

I wonder how many of you own vineyards and vines. As for myself, I do not have any. I do not have green fingers either, let alone how much I can tend vines so that they bear good fruit. We might not all have vineyards and vines, true. But we all have our babies - by which I mean, our little projects, that we keep dearly and close to our heart as though they were our babies. We care for these projects and spend our resources on them because we want them to bear fruit, good fruit. Whether it is our relationships, our family, the house we are building, our career or our work, we dedicate a lot of time and energy to it. We want our project to be a success.

The recurrent story of the People of God

Now today's first reading and gospel, which both speak of a landowner and his vineyard remind me of yet another story that we find in a beautiful chapter from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. It tells the story of a king who stumbles upon a newborn child abandoned in the desert. The king is moved with pity, takes this newborn child in his care, anointing it with the finest oils and perfumes, giving it silk clothes and food. The king shares his kingdom with this child until she is of marriageable age. Yet, the young woman is ungrateful and unfaithful to the King, sells all that she would have received to people who would ultimately betray her and disrespect her and chooses to return to a life not very different from the life that she was living before being found by the king.

God's personal and concrete love for us

This young woman, like the vine in the vineyard, represents the People of God, it represents us. We too have been given so much by God: we have been loved into existence, we have been given his Son to be saved, God has spoken to us through the scriptures and we have been born into a Church. Each one of us can add his or her own ways in which God has loved us personally and in concrete ways in our life. Perhaps the birth of a child or grandchild that has bought joy to the family, a powerful retreat that you would have experienced, a liberating confession through which you realised once more God love for you.

When the landowner comes, will he find any fruit?

Now today's readings make us ask ourselves, What about me, what does God find when he looks into my heart and looks for fruit there? Are there sweet grapes or sour grapes, if there is any fruit at all? I am always struck by a beautiful prayer which reminds us how much is expected from whom much has been given, and how we are not any different from so many other modern-day saints: Oscar Romero, Mother Teresa, John Paul II - after all, haven't we all been given the same Word, graced by the same Spirit and nourished at the same table? We have been forgiven by God, but do others find forgiveness in our hearts, or do they find judgement and condemnation instead? We have been loved generously and freely by God, but do our actions reflect this reality or are we stingy with our resources: with our time, with our friendships and with our sense of welcoming strangers?

Jesus' listeners condemn themselves

It is interesting to note how this time it is as though Jesus is setting a trap for his listeners. They condemn those who got rid of the landowner's servants, and of the landowner's son. But then Jesus helps them realise that they are not better and that that is exactly what they are doing. And this got me thinking: how many times do I do the same thing as well buy closing the door to so many opportunities that the Lord gives me to grow and to bear fruit? How many times do I put up a "No Entry" sign in certain areas of my life, areas where Jesus just cannot enter? He is welcome all the areas of my life except those one or two areas I prefer to keep hidden from him.

The cornerstone - or rather, the keystone

But then here is where the saving power of Jesus comes in. That same rejection, which Jesus calls the "cornerstone" referring to himself builds a new people which will ultimately bear good fruit. What is this cornerstone? We can think of it at the keystone, which is that oddly-shaped stone right at the centre of any arch or bridge. It stands out from all the other stones, because it is usually of a different size, with slanting sides. In fact the builders fashion it out of the stones that they would have discarded precisely because it is unlike the other stones. Our same rejection of Jesus makes us aware of how much we need Jesus to produce good fruit. It is through his dying on the cross that we can now have life. This is what makes us a new people, whom Jesus says will now tend the vineyard and produce good and abundant fruit.

Resolution

Like the builders, we must return to the stone that we rejected, Jesus himself, and allow him to be the cornerstone, the keystone of our lives. We do not need own any vineyards or have green fingers to produce good fruit. We only need to open the doors wide for Christ and take down the no-entry signs from those corners in our lives. Then the vine planed in us will produce fruit, good fruit, sweet and abundant for us to enjoy and for the enjoyment of our brothers and sisters.