02/10/2011 - 27th. Sunday in Ordinary Season - Year A
1Readig Is 5,1-7 Psalm 79 2Reading Phil 4,6-9 Gospel Mt 21,33-43
The words of st. Paul to the Phillipians are a great gift. "Be anxious
for nothing": The phillipians had various motives of anxiety, fear and
preoccupations, they are always there, at different levels. There are continous
dangers against our lives and against our faith, against the comunion of the
brethren, against peace in the families, against freedom. How many tensions
and how many fears! How not to be anxious? Even Jesus said to his own, a moment
before he went for the last time to the garden of Getsemani: "don't let
your heart be troubled". And continued: "have faith in God and have
faith in me". God is always present and he is always the Father, and Jesus
himself is always with us, he is the Son of God! If we let anxiety overcome
us we hurt the Father and Jesus directly. What to do when we find ourselves
in situations that terrifie us and experience anxiety? It's the moment to renew
our faith, to renew the truth about the loving presence of God, who holds in
his hands our story. We put infront of him our situation of pain "with
prayers, supplications, and thanksgiving". God listens, Jesus takes our
prayers and present them to the Father. Our prayers are to be fulfilled with
thanks giving, a clear sign that we do not doubt his love, of being accepted,
of being heard. If God is Father, and this we believe, we know that he "already
loves us", as Jesus had to say: this means that we are never going to be
able to before him in his love for us because of our prayers. Our prayers serv
us more than him, serve us to give us the power to trust ourselves to him, to
show our confident love. Truly, we are not to be anxious. God's presence gives
us peace, a peace that comes to us even though we have big problems that trouble
us and that our brain cannot resolve. God is bigger than our problems! And our
heart and our mind can contnue to look to Jesus to enjoy his presence!
It seems that this exhortation of st. Paul has nothing to do with the parable
of Jesus and with the "canticle of love" of Isaiah. This prophet contemplates
the plan of God, who would have preferred that his people be an example for
all peoples, an example of justice and righteousness, and instead, unfortunately,
injustices and abuse prevailed. The people, on whom God gave all his love and
for who nurtured big hopes, disapointed him, became not only useless, even so
dangerous, because of the shame he had to endure infront of all the peoples
of the world.
The conclusion lies in the same parable said by Jesus to the leaders of the
people: the ones to whom the vineyard was entrusted, the people of Israel, disapointed
the owner, even so, offended him heavily: they deserve death. So, says Jesus,
now God is looking for another people to whom he can trust his plans. This new
people is the one who gets hold of "the stone rejected by the builders".
This head stone, rejected by those called builders, that is the leaders of the
Jewish people, is he, Jesus himself. They had looked for a way to eliminate
him.
We dont want to eliminate Jesus: on the contrary we want to do everything to
keep him in heart and mind. Laying the foundation of our lives on him, we become
that vineyard of which the Father can rejoice, the vineyard that can produce
the fruit he hopes. Living with Jesus, not allowing any anxiety or preoccupation
that can take away from us our heart, we become active in that Reign that bears
fruit for the glory of God: they will be the fruits of love for the poor and
of love for sinners, even thought ruined by richness.
Let us continue our prayer: preceeded by thanks giving, we ask forgiveness with
the joy that they are already forgiven. Praise to God who enjoys being our Father!
As we pray with the hope, we face our anxieties, and the peace shall reign in
us so as to enrich our enviorment.