Oct 2, 2011 - 27th Sun of OT - On Tending and Sharing the Goods of our Lives

Readings - http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100211.cfm

The Readings on the Sundays of Ordinary Time normally give us a theme or an image touching on our experience to reflect on and then to come to see an aspect of the Gospel through that theme or image.

Today the image given us is rather obvious – it is that of the Vineyard.  Now most of us here probably don’t have much experience with vineyards.  Perhaps the Italians among us do.  But many of us have experience with tending a garden.  And the key to understanding the first reading and the Gospel today is that the Vineyard (or Garden) that we are given we’re really in trust and really belongs to God.  And it’s expected that the Vineyard/Garden that we’re given produces fruit. 

But both the Gospel and the 1st Readings are cautionary.  They present possible problems or temptations that we may encounter while tending our Gardens.

In the first Reading, the temptation is to do nothing, to just assume that the Garden will grow well and produce fruit without our effort.  And we’re told that without our care, our effort the garden will grow wild and produce nothing.

In the Gospel Reading, the temptation is to assume that the Garden (a metaphor really to our lives) belongs exclusively to us and whatever we harvest belongs exclusively to us.  The Gospel Reading tells us that the Garden (or Lives) really belongs to God and therefore God has a right to a portion of that harvest.

Do we believe that our lives (and this world) really ultimately belongs to God?  And how are we sharing that which we harvest here?  That is really what we are being asked here.

Now this can be a challenge to us.  We live in a time where “self-actualization” is considered a predominant value.  “Be all you can be.”  We admire the sentiment expressed in Frank Sinatra’s song “I did it my way.” 

But do we understand that ultimately it doesn’t matter if we “became all that we could become,” especially if in doing so we trampled over others?  And do we understand the fundamental contradiction between the Gospel and “doing it (only) our way.”

We’re asked to tend the vineyard _together_ and always to remember that this vineyard (our lives, our world, all creation).  Ultimately belongs to God.  Do we appreciate that?  And how can we tend our vineyard, our garden, our lives, our community better together?