Finale

If you’ve been tracking with the Gospels the past two weeks, you should be noticing a theme. It’s all about vineyards! Some would say that, today, this is “The Tale of Vineyard”… episode three.

In case you missed out on the first two episodes, in part 1, the Master of the Vineyard goes out and looks for workers at all hours and then plot twist! He generously paid everyone the same! Even the last guy who only worked a few hours!

Then in episode 2, the Master tells his two sons to go and work in the field, the supposed good guy who says yes ends up disobeying and not going. And what happens? The second son, the disobedient one, the rebellious tough guy that says no way Jose, changes his mind and becomes the one that does the work and pulls through in the end! And now today, we get the finale!

Who needs Netflix and TV shows when you have the Bible! I’m sure all of you are going to go home and crack open the Bible after this just to find out what happens next right?!

So what’s going on in today’s “finale”?

The readings bring it all together. In the first reading, the Master had a vineyard and planted the choicest vines, built a watchtower and wine press.  But when “He look looked for the crop of grapes,” and to his surprise “what it yielded was wild grapes.” Bitter and sour grapes.

Then the Lord says, “I will let you know what I mean to do with my vineyard [of wild sour grapes: I will] take away its hedge, give it grazing, break through its wall, let it be trampled!”

It sure feels like that’s what’s happening to us now. Looking out into the world, sometimes all we can see are the wild grapes, bitter sour grapes…

Almost 60 people killed, and around 500 people injured in last Sunday’s shooting.  About 36 dead and millions effected in Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria. Floods, Earthquakes and Wildfires have effected thousands.

Like the vineyard, this world seems to be in ruin, it seems to be overgrown with thorns and briers. But thank God that’s not the end of the story! This is not the end of our story. God is persistent and patient. Even though the vines did not produce good fruit, you notice that he does not simply destroy the vineyard. Instead he persistently tries to help time and time again. And eventually he decides to send his own Son to win us back.

Sometimes I don’t think we appreciate the Incarnation just enough; Jesus, God becoming man. We don’t appreciate the fact that God himself became one of us. In the parable today, the Master sends his son to the vineyard. But in John’s gospel, Jesus goes on to say something even more absurd: He says, “I am the vine and you are the branches… abide in me.” We, the people of Israel, are the crop that God planted but all that came up at first was wild grapes, and so what did the Master do, he became one of us.

He became the vine itself, so that we can attach ourselves to him, so that we can graft ourselves to him and to bear good fruit. As some of you know, grafting is a technique where you take a stem or a branch of another plant, and attach it to the stock or the vine of an existing one so that it can receive nutrients and bear fresh fruit. Without Christ, all we can ever produce is wild sour grapes, but if we are grafted onto the body of Christ we can bear good fruit.

My brothers and sisters, as St. Augustine once said, “God who created you without you, will not save you without you.” God who created the world, will not save the world without you. God could have easily done away with the vineyard in the first reading, he could have easily done away with the tenants in the parable, he could have saved us with a snap of the finger and a blink of an eye. Instead, he enters into our ruin, he enters into our brokenness in order to redeem it and transform it.

God wants to use us, you and me, to produce good fruit in the world. It doesn’t matter if you are at the prime of your life, it doesn’t matter if you’re in the middle of your life or if you are towards the last years of your life. God calls all of us to go out and work the field. Will you actually go out and do what he calls you to do, to love your neighbor, to suffer with one another? Or will you simply keep on doing whatever you want to do?

In the great response after Harvey, many of us saw and participated in going out and helping our neighbors in any ways that we could. And I have to say, that for the first time in a long time, the news channels actually portrayed good news of sacrifice, charity and compassion. In looking out into our world we had glimpses of what the world could be like if we lived out our life in Christ; we had glimpses of Heaven. But a few weeks have past, and slowly we are beginning to forget what that means. It is up to you and me, it’s up to us who receive the Body and Blood of Christ, and are grafted onto Jesus Christ who is the vine, who will be able to bear good sweet grapes in the world.

St. Paul says in the second reading, “Whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and worthy of praise... Think of these things… Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you.”

This is the finale episode… but it’s actually a cliffhanger. And it’s up to you to decide how the last season will turn out.