HOMILY FOR TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (A)

Fr Billy Swan

Dear friends. For the third consecutive Sunday, Jesus tells a parable about a vineyard.  Two weeks ago, we had the parable of the workers in the vineyard; last week we had the parable about the two sons who were asked to go into the vineyard, one who did go, having said he wouldn’t and one who didn’t go, having said he would. Today, the focus is on the ownership of the vineyard. For all the rights that we have, do we humans have an absolute right to claim anything as our own? Here I would like to reflect on these parables on the vineyard in the light of the three pillars of the Synodal pathway.

The first is that of communion. We talk about receiving ‘Holy Communion’ at Mass which is not so much a thing that we receive but something that happens. It is an intimate union of love between the Lord Jesus and ourselves – a loving union that gives us strength and communicates his own life. It is the gift of nothing less than God Himself. We receive Holy Communion because we are in holy communion with the Lord and with one another. In John’s Gospel, Jesus again uses the image of the vine and the branches to teach the same message that he does today. And what is that message? By being united to Him in faith and love, our lives, parishes and the whole Church become fertile places that become fruitful with joy and new life. This is God’s dream for his people. God is the one who has prepared the work and wants the vineyard to produce fruit. Yet there is a real danger of the opposite happening - that we prefer to live without God, to turn away from Him and drift into sadness, bitterness and waste.

Then there is participation. Everyone likes to be involved. Everyone is energized by being chosen, wanted and needed. That is the truth of our baptism – each of us are loved, chosen, anointed for mission and then sent on that mission into some vineyard somewhere. Through Jesus, God calls us to go into the vineyard and not to stand around passive and idle. This is the same invitation issued by parish and diocesan leaders - to engage, volunteer and get involved. It is a clarion call to use our gifts and take responsibility for the mission of our Church.

Finally, there is mission. Each of us has a calling, a vocation and a purpose in life. The vineyard is a symbol of something greater than ourselves that we are called to serve; something than reminds me that my life is not just about me. But again, the Gospel comes with a warning. Its not our Church but God’s Church. We are tenants, not owners. Everything, even our very lives, don’t ultimately belong to us. They have been given by God on loan and sooner or later we will have to surrender them back to Him.

This point is so important because there is a strong culture today of individual freedom becoming an absolute right. We hear it all the time: ‘It’s my body, my choice’ (regarding abortion): ‘My life, my death, my choice’ (regarding assisted suicide). There is another example where this forgetting of us being stewards and not owners, is leading to disastrous consequences. I refer of course to climate change and the ongoing damage being done to the earth by the wealthiest countries of the world while the people of the poorest countries are suffering most because of it. It leads to a situation in global economics and national solidarity whereby the powerful take on to themselves powers that they have no right to have. We see this clearly in the Gospel where the wicked tenants, act as if they were the owners, think they can do what they like and begin to act unjustly and violently. This is precisely what happens when we forget about God and bracket him out of our thinking. We begin to decide what is right and wrong and who lives and who dies. Then follows the very short step to ways of thinking, attitudes and laws that are unjust and violent.

Friends, the Church re-proposes another way, another vision that is more hopeful and just. The principles of ‘Communion, Participation and Mission’ are animated by what St Paul refers to in the Second Reading today: ‘Everything that is good and pure, everything we love and honour and everything that can be thought virtuous or worthy of praise’.

I can think of no better way to conclude this homily by sharing the words of Pope Leo that he spoke France last week. Here I have substituted France for Ireland because his words speak as powerfully to us here as they did in France:

‘To renew hope and give fresh impetus to the Church’s mission in Ireland, which I earnestly desire, there is only one ‘roadmap’, which is always the same: to make Jesus Christ known and loved, authentically, passionately, again and again’.

The task to make Jesus Christ known and loved is achieved by communion, participation and mission. A new future is upon us.