Making the Words of God Fruitful

October 8, Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Daily Readings: Isaiah 5:1-7 Phil 4:6-9 Matthew 21:33-43

The quality of our communion with God is measured by our willingness to listen to his word and act upon it. Our faithfulness to God, then, does not stop at listening to him but extends to making his word alive in our lives. Failure to do so leads to a corresponding consequence as described by the Gospel: “The Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”

God has been so generous to humanity. God gives abundant blessings to us all indiscriminately both to the good and the wicked. Matthew beautifully summarizes this indiscriminate generosity of God saying: “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).

However, the generous goodness of God is challenged by the hardness of heart of his people. The readings of today present us the examples of humans’ rejection of the words of God. In the first reading, from the book of the Prophet Isaiah, humans’ rejection of the words of God is reflected in the analogy of the emergence of “wild grapes.” We reject the words of God because we want our personal interests to prevail. This attitude results in tragedies of “bloodshed and outcry” or violence and injustice. Violence happens because people want to overrule one another, to have dominating power over others. Injustice, then, becomes prevalent in society and causes outcry of the victims.

Humans’ rejection of God’s words is amplified by Jesus through the parable of the wicked tenants. The tenants are not grateful to the owner of the vineyard.  They are trying to take over the ownership of the vineyard by killing the servants and the son of the owner. This parable speaks about humans’ rejection of the messengers of God (the prophets) and God’s perfect manifestation in the world, that is Jesus Christ. The people reject these messengers (including the only Son of God) because they do not want to have other references aside from themselves. They want to become the possessors of the vineyard because by being possessors, they are free to do whatever they want.

The world of today is marked by the individualist mentality, characterized by the rejection of any reference outside oneself, including God. One’s self is the center of the value system, and therefore he/she can do whatever he/she wants in life. In short, they want to take away the Lord from the center of their lives and instead make themselves the center of everything. This kind of mentality creates chaotic situations.

Matthew as well as Prophet Isaiah make it clear that the rejection of the words of God has corresponding consequences or punishment. However, it has to be noted that the punishment, “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death,” is not God’s will but the consequence of humans’ decision to reject God instead of listening to and obeying him.

St. Paul, in the second reading, instructs on the proper attitude toward the words of God. “Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen...” Our faithfulness to God could be distracted by many world powers. Those threats might create anxieties in us, but Paul says that those threats could be overcome through prayer and a constant relationship with God. Our faithfulness to God which is listening to him and making his words alive in our everyday life, creates an opportunity for us to experience the fullness of God’s peaceful presence in us.