A Cycle – 27^th Sunday in Ordinary Time 23

Mt. 21:33-43

Many of us have at one time or another planted vegetable gardens.  It may have been small but your expectations for it were not small.  You could visualize vine ripened tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, green peppers, or vine ripened beans.  Growing up my father always planted a large garden, and it was my task to tend it.  At the time that seemed easy as I did not have the task of preparing the soil, planting the seeds or seedlings but it did require my daily attention.  

As I married and started my own family, I continued this tradition of planting a garden and having my children take care of it with me.  What I learned is the preparation prior to planting is a critical component of a healthy garden. There is a need to ensure the Ph of the soil is proper for the plants. Access to sunlight is critical and timing of the planting is a key for success. To have a rich harvest one must pay attention to every aspect of planting, tending, and protecting the garden.

The prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading tells us how carefully the owner of the vineyard accomplished every task needed to have a rich harvest. What went wrong with the plants was not due to his lack of diligence, there was something else that caused the “choicest plants’ to turn into a wild grape vines.  Without mentioning the root cause, we all know what God is telling us through this prophet.  For each of us is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps.139:14) as we were formed in our mothers’ wombs.  We are those choice vines Isiah is speaking about.  We are being warned that preparation by the one who planted was not the cause of its failure, there was something else that caused its failure – ignoring the very things which guaranteed success.     

God is talking to us through the prophet about all that went into restoring us as sons and daughters.  He is reminding us how we like Adam and Eve can easily lose that destiny by our self-serving desires to take our destiny into our own hands. God created us to be in an intimate union with Him, but we fail to seek that intimacy just as our first parents failed. Adam and Eve were tempted to ignore all God had done for them and did the only thing they were forbidden to do.  Their sin cost them and us immortality and intimacy with God.

To rectify the loss of paradise, God set forth a plan that would remove the “enmity” between us and him by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Once that barrier of sin was removed, God promised to provide us with the means to be holy men and women by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That Spirit would change our hearts (Ez. 36:26-28) so we would not only know who we are and seek intimacy with God. That gift of the Holy Spirit would also be our shield and empower us to overcome the temptation that caused Adam and Eve to become “wild grapes.” 

This parable in today’s gospel and the words of the Prophet Isaiah are reminding us of all God did for us to grow in holiness without struggling with our own weaknesses.  We would overcome sin because of the work of the Spirit within us. What we need to do is to resist the temptation to do exactly what Adam and Eve did and that is to ignore what God has done by believing we can live as God intends without relying on the gift of Jesus Christ and the daily work of the Holy Spirit transforming us. 

We have bought the lie that we can become who God created us to be by our own effort to follow the laws and dictates of our faith.  We have become the Pharisees of today without us realizing how much we cling to outward signs of doing God’s will while inwardly we are doing all we can to not disappoint God.  All God did to overcome our human tendency to “do it ourselves” is ignored by us. No one has taught us how to rely on the things God has done for us to overcome our self determination to be pleasing to Him.  The scriptures are clear about who we are and how pleasing we are in God’s sight.  God sees what He has created, not our sin. God sees what we are destined to become not what we are now.  That is how God sees us and has been from the moment of our conception.  How did we become “wild grapes?)

The prophet Isaiah tells us “…your sins have hidden his face from you so that He does not hear” (Is. 59:2).  And we wonder why we feel nothing when we pray. We wonder why bad things are happening in our lives and wonder if God really cares.  The problem is not because God has not done everything to provide for our holiness.  He cared enough to send us Jesus Christ for the penalty of our sins and to remove the barrier of sin between us and Him.   What we need is to understand all the care that has gone into the preparation of us becoming the people God created us to be.  Fruitful disciples and heirs to a rich inheritance with God forever.  We have been called to be a light to the world, an example of what it means to be Christian. 

What faith in the promises of God can accomplish within our hearts is far beyond faith in ourselves can achieve.  We have depended far too long have on our ability to be “faithful” to the will of God.  It is easy to believe we are on the right path because we are in fact good people committing small sins. We fail to grasp the way God looks at all sin.  All sin is an abomination to God, big sins, little sins. According to the Pharisees they were not sinning because they followed all the laws and commands of God.  But they were the ones who bore the “wrath” of Jesus for they placed their righteousness in their ability to follow God’s laws. They ignored the simple fact that the law can only define sin but could not change our hearts not to sin.  Only the Holy Spirit at work within us can accomplish that within us.    

Have we become the Pharisees of today?  Jesus said follow me and gave us the law to keep us in check until we discovered the only way to the Father is through Jesus Christ. The only way to overcome our self-serving desires is by the action of the Holy Spirit within us, changing our hearts as promised by God.  Jesus said he would send us the promise of the Father (the Holy Spirit) who would teach us the truth about sin, condemnation, and justice.  All is prepared for us to learn sin has been overcome by Jesus Christ and there is no condemnation for those in Christ and justice is all sin has been forgiven by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.