Mt 21:33-43, 45-46
“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.
Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Get Out of Our Own Way
As I read this Gospel, I am struck by two things: first, the importance of responding to those who God sends and second, the importance of producing rich fruit. In fact, the two go hand in hand. As we pray the Examen each day, we are called to ask how well we are doing these two things. Are we responding to God? Are we seeing God in the people we are encountering each day? Are we recognizing the opportunities we have each day to serve God? And when we do respond to God, does our response produce rich fruit? Do we allow ourselves to be instruments of God’s love and peace and joy?
In today’s world, so much emphasis is placed on doing things our way, in living out our dreams. We put so much emphasis on doing what we want and we never ask ourselves what God wants. As a result, we become like the servants who beat and killed the messengers sent to the vineyard. Why? Because we all too often see those who God sends into our lives as a threat to our plans, our dreams, our goals. They may get in the way of what we want. However, if we can “get out of our own way” we can see that what God desires is greater than anything we can dream or imagine. What God desires for us will bring greater joy and will produce much fruit.
Amen.
—Ed DeVenney is a campus minister at Saint Ignatius High School in Cleveland.
Prayer
Unless a grain of wheat
fall to the ground and die,
it remains a single grain.
But if it die
it will yield a rich harvest.
—Refrain of “Unless a Grain of Wheat” by Bob Hurd, ©1984