Author: yuengerwv

In the first reading we have the prophet telling a non-Jewish king that he is the LORD’s anointed. Wow … a non-believer is chosen by God to subdue the “chosen” people! Why would God allow that, much less plan and do such? He says, “For the sake of Jacob, my servant, of Israel, my chosen one, I called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not. lt is so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun people may know that there is none besides me. I am the LORD, there is no other.” Like those in last week’s Gospel who were too busy for God, many will suffer under another’s hand because they had no time for God. Too busy. The reminds us we are called to, “Give the Lord glory and honor.” And to do that each and every week of the year.
The Gospel tells us of how “the Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech.” How many so-called Christians do the same with regard to those who do not follow their ways in the secular world. Ready to trip up one another for the sake of getting ahead in the world. They forget the lesson that Jesus taught, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” No easy task at times but an essential one. We are called to transform the world, not to be transformed by the world.

Isaiah reminds us that God will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines. Yet how much do we value the feast at the end rather than feasting now? 1 shall live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life. When we respond to God’s call we willingly say, “I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” Yet how often do we want what we want instead. I know some who would rather live in a shack of dung of their own choosing than to live in a mansion prepared by God for them.
Some people today say if we respond to God then we will be richly rewarded in this life with financial benefits beyond measure. Even Paul recognized that such is fleeting. “I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need.” Responding appropriately to God is more important that all the riches of this world.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is speaking the parable to those who are “in the know” or should be, the chief priests and elders of the people. Yet he is saying that “Those who were invited were not worthy to come.” How often do pastors hear people say, ”I was too busy to come to church!” One to his farm, another to his business, another to a soccer or football game, or maybe on vacation, or “Sunday is my day to relax and do what I want”.” Jesus reminds us that “
Many are invited, but few are chosen.” Are we invited AND chosen?

In the first reading we have the prophet asking God’s question, “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done?”  God has blessed us abundantly, and how do we respond?  When God responds to our lack of care for what he has done we complain and say God is not fair!  With all God has done for humanity, what more could he do?  He even sent his son to rescue us, and we play word games and give God lip service without rending our hearts.
If we are paying attention to God, Paul tells us to, “Have no anxiety at all.”  If we do as God has asked us, “Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  Yet it comes with the stipulation of doing God’s will.
The Gospel picks up on this message when Jesus tells of the people who are supposed to be in the know yet do not do as God has asked.  They think they can do whatever they want and still receive God’s blessings just because they are children of Abraham.  How many Christians think that just because they call themselves Christian, they are guaranteed a place in heaven?  There is more to responding to God’s call than calling ourselves Christian.  We need to act and behave as Christians too.  Anything else is a lie.  As such Jesus says, “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”

I remember watching a child having a temper tantrum.  The child stomped around the room saying, “It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”  How often do adults do the same thing, as though we expected life to be “FAIR”.  This problem is not a new one as even the Israelites had the same problem as demonstrated in today’s first reading. We all want God’s mercy for the things we have done wrong but want God to punish others.  What is fair about that?  The reading this week follows up on the Gospel from last week where the laborers were complaining thinking they deserve more pay.  Remember in that parable Jesus has the landowner saying, “I will give you what is just.”  Justice isn’t always “fair” by the world’s standards, but whose standards would we really prefer, God’s or human’s? 
The Psalm has us asking God, “Remember your mercies, O Lord.”  Paul reminds us to, “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rathe, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also for those of others.  When we think of fairness, we are typically only thinking of what is best for us.  Yet as Christians we are called to think of what is best for EVERYONE!  Do we do our will or God’s the Gospel asks of us?  What is more important what we want or what God desires? 

Someone once observed that when we lose something it is always found in the last place we look!  Following up on last week, we are called to “Seek the LORD while he may be found”.  When can God not be found?  When we stop looking for him.  God is always full of mercy if we but seek his will for our lives with a sincere heart.
In the Gospel acclamation, we are reminded to “conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ.”  To do such we need to “Open our hearts.”  In this Gospel story, we have Jesus reminding us that to conduct ourselves means to do things with the generosity that God displays when dealing with us.    The “normal” for human ways is not the normal for God.  We call God unfair when he is kind to others.  Should we not rather say God is unfair when he is kind to us?  Let us let go of our self-centeredness that is common in our world today.  Last week we heard that God forgives us as we forgive others.  Remember the “Our Father Prayer”: “as we forgive those who trespass against us”. Perhaps this week’s Gospel is to remind us that God will be as generous and kind to us as we are to others!  Are we in trouble yet???

How often do we hold on to grudges?  How long do we hold on to grudges?  As we look around our world we hear of fights and battles that go back many generations, hundreds of years!  Sirach reminds us that we hold on to such at our own peril.  He tells us to “Remember your last days,” and to, “set enmity aside and cease from sin!”  Do we forget that to hold grudges can be a sinful act?
The Gospel message today reminds us that mercy is an essential ingredient if we are to be in a healthy relationship with God.  We need to remember prudence as we hear Jesus remind us of the need to forgive seventy-seven times. Forgiveness is essential but we also have the obligation to love ourselves too, which may mean avoiding whomever it is that is causing the problem for which forgiveness is needed.  We are called to love others, but we are also called to respect ourselves.  Nothing says we should disregard ourselves to the extent of allowing abuse.
Forgiveness is essential if we are to be forgiven.  Foolish “love” on our part is not an acceptable excuse for allowing and evil to continue if we can avoid it.

In our culture, we have specialized watchmen keeping an eye on our border to protect us from potential dangers.  Few of us even think of the constant vigilance that is required to be on guard 24/7/365.25.    Those charged with keeping watch have the difficult task to always be alert.  If they fail at their task the resulting consequences could be severe. But what about those who don’t want to know?  
In many of the Hollywood disaster movies there is typically the person sounding the alarm and the bosses want to ignore him or her because to listen would be unpopular or sound crazy.  The watchman still has the obligation to speak up.  We live in a world full of people who want to tell the pope, bishops, priests, deacons, religious to be quiet and be silent.  They think they are sufficiently knowledgeable and have no need for moral lectures or some crazy person to tell them how to behave.  Unfortunately, like in those Hollywood movies, many lives will be lost because of that attitude.  
Despite our attitude that my private life is my private live and others are to keep their noses out of things God sees it differently.  We are all connected.  In today’s Gospel, Jesus picks up on this theme when he tells us that like the watchman, we an obligation to ourselves and to others.  Do we even bother to listen?

Have you ever felt that you have been made a fool of?  That you are on the receiving end of a prank or joke, and everyone is laughing at you?  I presume then you can relate to Jeremiah in the first reading.  He is complaining to God that he has been made the laughingstock of Jerusalem and it seems like all his efforts on God’s behalf are wasted and have come to nothing.  At times in our walk with God we too may have times where we are the outcast.  Where our family and friends abandon us and treat us as a pariah.  We are left alone, broken, ignored, ridiculed, deprived of basic needs.
Yet at such times, like the prophet, we need to cling even more to God, to trust in his mercy, his judgment, and his plan.  Even though it seems like we are fighting everyone, we are called to follow through in our commitment to God.  Saint Teresa of Kolkata, (Calcutta), once wrote, “God does not require that we be successful only that we be faithful.”
Like Jeremiah and Mother Teresa, Paul reminds us that in being faithful we are called “to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.”  Ouch! That sounds potentially painful and not very pleasant.  Yet the Gospel reading emphasizes this same point when Jesus tells his disciples, “That he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly.” 
We say we want to follow Jesus but how often are we like Peter in saying, “”God forbid, Lord!”  When our family and friends tell us we are not normal or being reasonable do we rebuke them as Jesus did Peter and say, “You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  Remember to be a disciple of Jesus means to take up our cross and follow him.

Do we every get smug in our Christian faith and behaviors?  Some people presume to be near perfect in how they follow God and live their life in the Church and thus look down upon others.  No doubt Shebna thought so.  The prophet reminds us that the LORD is looking for a father for the people.  He is looking for a just and honest judge for the people.  How often do we judge people not actions?  Do we provide true honor for our family or consider such to be an archaic line of thinking? 
Paul reminds us that while we think we are pretty smart and full of knowledge as he asks us “For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor?  Or who has given the Lord anything that he may be repaid?”  Even the faith we have been given, or our capacity to do good things, come from God.  Without his grace, we can be and accomplish nothing.  Even our capacity to call Jesus “the Christ, the Son of the living God” as Peter did requires the gift of faith given by God.
 Jesus affirms this when he says, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.”  Without God’s grace we ourselves cannot be a rock, cannot be someone upon whom others can stand as they strive to reach out to God.  We need to be humble recognizing that to proclaim Jesus is Lord is not of our own doing, but a capacity given to us by God’s spirit dwelling within us.  Like Paul, we have no cause for boasting.  But we do have cause for rejoicing and thanking God for the grace to know him and love him and serve him as we serve others.

Isaiah challenges us to “Observe what is right, do what is just.”  Notice the command isn’t about political correctness, or productivity, or reward, or popularity, or profitability.  Doing what is right and just in a world that makes up its own rules as to what is right and wrong, or just and unjust, can be difficult. We have often heard, that because something is legal it must be ok.  Not true.  To be right and just means to join ourselves to the LORD, becoming HIS servants, doing things HIS way. 
How often do we play the numbers game?  I have heard priests brag about the number of people who were baptized at the last Easter Vigil.  Paul wasn’t concerned about reaching all the Jewish people but with doing what he was called to do in order to “save some of them.”  Do you think Paul ever became frustrated with the lack of followers from the Jewish community? 
In today’s Gospel, we hear of a Canaanite woman.  The disciples were ready and willing to throw her away because she wasn’t Jewish.  Even Jesus appears to be ready to do so until he encounters her faith, which is more than most disciples have.  This reminds us to throw no one away that God brings to us.  We must always be ready to share the good news of Jesus and to help others who are trying to follow God to the best they can.