27 SUNDAY OF THE YEAR A 23

27th SUNDAY, 08 OCTOBER 2023, ISAIAH 5. 1-7; PHILIPPIANS 4. 6-9; MATTHEW 21. 33-43   Focus: Dutiful or Deceitful? Indicative: We are Stewards to whom God has entrusted His rich treasures of grace and blessings. This demands a sense of gratitude, humility, responsibility,  diligence, fidelity and fruitfulness   1. Vineyard is one favourite and frequent biblical expression. 25th Sunday spoke of the parable of the workers in the vineyard; the previous 26th Sunday spoke of two sons, who were asked to go to work in the vineyard; and now this Sunday once again both the first reading and the gospel mention about vineyard.   2. The image of vineyard forcefully brings out the deep personal care of God for His people. What a minute and meticulous care He takes to cultivate it! He provides everything for its healthy growth and its abundant productivity. So it is quite reasonable that He expects fruits. But He is totally disappointed because He does not receive the due fruit.   4. In the first reading, the vineyard yields wild grapes and in the gospel, the tenants act violent, turn greedy, and try to misappropriate the vineyard from the owner's hand. Clearly, the failure is in rendering the due fruit to the owner.   5. Behind this explicit and visible failure, there is a total lack of sense of stewardship. They completely forget that they are stewards. God has trusted them so much and entrusted them so much.    6. This should make them deeply grateful for what is given in God's abundant generosity.  They should be humble because God gives them despite their unworthiness. They should be responsible because of the trust placed in them. They should work hard in order to prove themselves. They should be faithful in producing a rich harvest and render the fruit to the owner.   7. But, they fail in all these counts. We can summarily classify 3 categories of people and 3 aspects of responses. One is mediocre and lethargic people who are lazy and slothful,  and who do not bother about producing fruit   8. Second, they produce fruit but wild fruit. They produce, but they are not concerned about the kind of fruit. They are engaged in useless and worthless activities and results.   9. Third, they produce well and abundant fruits; but these are greedy, malicious and manipulative. They are very competent and talented, and do a lot of things and produce many fruits. But unfortunately, they take the whole credit for themselves. They are so self-centred and own the whole glory by themselves.   10. The whole problem in all three categories and aspects is a total lack of stewardship. This leads to a lack of responsibility and diligence in the first two categories.   11. In the third category, that leads to a total misuse and abuse of the given charge. They mistake the duty to be power. They mistake the trust of the owner as an opportunity to exploit.  They mistake violence as a means for grabbing propriety. They mistake their greed as the threshold for the bumper offer of fulfilling their overambition for ownership.   12. In the present times too, these 3 categories abound. There are those who produce nothing and are unproductive. There are those who produce but useless fruits. And there are those who misappropriate God-given gifts and resources, for their own self-interests, those who abuse them, and those who steal away all the credit and glory from God.   13. What about us? Do we tend to be tepid and unproductive? Are we shallow and superfluous to produce useless fruits and valueless activities? Are we so avaricious and self-interested that we try to exploit, manipulate and grab away what belongs to God or others?   Imperative: If only we humble ourselves a little more to acknowledge that we are only stewards and not proprietors, how much more accountable we will be! how beautiful will be our Christian life!