27th Sunday of Ordinary Time, year ’A’
“Listen to another parable: there was a man, a landowner, who planted a vineyard; he fenced it round, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. He then leased it to tenants and went abroad. When vintage time drew near he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his servants, thrashed one, killed another and stones a third.” Jesus gives a résumé of the history about the Covenant, the vine of choice which the country of Israel is. Many a time did God send prophets who were badly welcomed and ill-treated. Then in the days which are the final ones, with a craze-filled trust did He send His Only Beloved Son. Jesus proclaims the destiny which will be His own: he too will be thrown out of the vineyard, out of the town, and his adversaries will put him to death. The chief priests and Pharisees understood very well that Jesus was aiming at them: ’The stone that the builders rejected became the corner stone.’ Many builders in the world set aside the stone who Jesus Christ is. The values he brought are no longer wanted and the opening up he proposes are refused. And yet God makes all things so that the marvellous reality of Creation, which we are, becomes even more and more wonderful. With humility we can always state: ’How marvellous I am, how marvellous are your works.’ This is what God is concerned about, and for each one of our existences. This is how He takes care of each one of us: ’Not one hair on your head will fall out without the Father’s permission.’ ’See the sparrows in the sky, your Father takes care of them, you are worth much more than all the sparrows in the sky.“”Next day he sent some more servants, this time a larger number, and they dealt with them in the same way. Finally, he sent his Son to them, ’They will respect my Son’, he said; but when the tenants saw the Son they said to each other ’This is the heir’. Come on, let us kill him and take over his inheritance." On a scientific level, the reality one cannot deny the reality of Jesus of Nazareth, nor the traces of his work over the whole of the earth. But they put aside his message and watered down his influence, making his witnesses shut up by denying them of resources or of freedom. Or even more so, they disqualified the Church by campaigns of calumny. Yet despite all these attempts to destabilise faith, Jesus who was rejected by the builders, remains the Corner Stone and the futures of the world. ’It is the Lord’s work’, which takes us by surprise, you never know what’s going to happen next and there’s nothing you can say, for sure, it is ’a wonder in our eyes’. God is the ’owner of the land’. Jesus ’her son’ in whom he has put all his Love’ is the heritage of it all. At each moment we can discern and judge what does humanity any good or on the contrary what hurts it! God is expecting the beautiful fruits of fraternal love. When we are situated in such a Love, in God’s benevolence, we love each other. 3They answered ’’He will bring those wretches to a wretched end and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will deliver the produce to him when the season arrives’. Jesus said to them ’Have you never read in the scriptures: ’It was the stone rejected by the builders That became the keystone This was the Lord’s doing And it is wonderful to see’! ’And so, I tell you, that the Kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He always has us build a better world for Jesus is there before our distresses. We may feel set aside, rejected, but Jesus reveals to us his Presence. Through his Holy Spirit ever at work, he gives the Kingdom to his people who wants to bear fruit. Where the world sees only ruins or building sites left to waste, in the Light of the Word of God, we can notice some hope. Courage is given back to us so we can enter within ourselves, in the construction of the house of hope. Nowadays it is the poor who are the stone of the rejected by builders! Our life is a surprising gift which spreads its wings in the Holy Spirit for it is He who is the Master.