We hear a lot of references to vineyards in our readings today. With this reference to nature, to God’s creation, and to our response to God, I thought it would be a good opportunity to reflect upon these readings through the spirituality of St Francis of Assisi, since we celebrated his feast day this past week. St Francis is a very popular figure in today’s world not only for his love of nature, but also for the brotherhood and sisterhood he saw in all of creation, for the way he saw everything in our world coming forth from the love of God, our creator.
Isaiah’s prophesies today about God’s vineyard: the choice grapes that the Lord planted and tended with love and care have become wild grapes. This prophecy foretells Israel’s upcoming destruction due to the failure of its people to do what God expects of them. As Isaiah tells the people of Israel that they have not lived up to God’s hopes and expectations, I wonder how we would fare under such an appraisal. Look at all of the gifts the world has to offer us, at the individual talents and gifts each one of us has been given from God. We can all ask ourselves if we are good stewards of these riches and talents, if we as individuals and as a society use them according to God’s desires for us, or if we squander these talents and resources in ways that are against God’s will. We are indeed the body of Christ gathered together as the Church, but in many ways Francis thought of nature and all of creation as God’s body as well. Francis gloried in the beauty of God’s creation that is all around us.
When I think of God’s creation, I think of the beauty of the rainforest that I experienced for the three years that I lived as missionary in Ecuador. I would travel all over the rain forest jungles in a canoe, on foot, even sometimes on horseback. Almost every weekend for those three years, I would travel about 4 or 5 hours in a canoe to a village called San Francis - named after St Francis of Assisi. Even though I would take this journey in the canoe every weekend, I never tired of traveling through the vast rainforest jungle. I was in absolute awe of its presence, of the trees and plants and animals that made up such a fascinating ecosystem. Yet, when I saw how fast the lumber companies were cutting down the many thousands acres of trees there in the jungle without replanting or caring about what they were destroying, it called me to think about our call to be stewards of God’s creation.
Many of the poor in Ecuador had very little opportunities for education, or work, or to be able to follow their dreams, so it made me appreciate even more all of the opportunities and resources that we have here in the United States. We are still a very rich nation, but there are many in our country who are suffering a great deal and who are having great difficulty paying their bills and providing for their families. Our Church acknowledges that there is not a magical solution or easy answers that will cure poverty. In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis asserted that “growth in justice requires more than economic growth… it requires decisions, programs, mechanisms and processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality.”
Francis of Assisi saw all of creation bound together by the Spirit of our Lord; he saw all of creation as a part of the brotherhood and sisterhood we have in Christ; he saw the fire, the wind, and the sun as our brothers; he saw the moon, the water, and the earth as our sisters. In contrast to St Francis and his holistic view of our faith, we have a group of wicked tenants we hear about in the Gospel today. The Lord was the landowner of their vineyard. He sent his prophets and his sons to bring his message; the tenants killed those messengers. They rejected the covenant they had with the Lord. As we live and work in the vineyard of the Lord, do we see ourselves as connected to him, as having a responsibility as his disciples? Do we follow the will of God in our lives with humility and obedience, or are we as selfish, arrogant, and recalcitrant as those tenants in our Gospel today? May the Lord come first in our lives. May we follow the Gospel of Life on our journey. May we see ourselves as good stewards of God’s creation.
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