October 4, 2020

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Patience—God’s and Ours”

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

A question quickly comes to mind after we hear this parable: “What was the landowner thinking when He sent His son into the vineyard? Who in their right mind would do that after seeing that two sets of servants sent to collect the rent were beaten, stoned, and killed? Today we would have these criminals arrested and prosecuted. We would never send a son into such danger! What could Jesus mean?

He is giving us an image of salvation history. In the Old Testament, Israel was described as a vineyard that the Lord cultivated with great patience and goodness. We hear this today from the prophet Isaiah.

Just as the landowner sent servants into the vineyard, so did God throughout history send his servants the prophets to his people, to call them to fidelity and holiness of life. And just as the tenants maltreated, resisted, rejected, and even put to death the servants sent by the landowner, so were the prophets sent by God.  

But God then did the unimaginable—just as the landowner in the parable. He sent Jesus his Beloved Son into the world, who would suffer the same fate.
 
This parable teaches us that God is patient with us. In the parable, the landowner sent servant after servant. He did not come down with sudden vengeance when they were maltreated and even killed. He offered the tenants another chance to respond to his appeal.

This is the way God is with us. He is patient with us despite our weaknesses and sins. Pope Francis once pointed out how Jesus was patient even with Judas. Jesus knew that Judas was not interested in helping the poor but helping himself. But Jesus did not call him a thief. To the end, he was patient and sought to draw Judas to himself.

Fr. Henri Nouwen wrote: God says to us, “I will love you with an everlasting love. I will be faithful to you, even when you run away from me, reject me, or betray me.”

God is patient with us in his desire to develop us, to mold us, to refine and stretch us to become the disciples we are called to be. Our challenge is to allow God to do this; not to resist his working in us; to move away from sin and toward virtue and not presume on his great patience.

The parable also invites us to consider how we should be patient with others. If God is patient with our sins and weaknesses, should we not be patient with others? This is a challenge, to be sure, since we know that people will rub us the wrong way, get on our nerves, provoke us, and simply “drive us up the wall.” Of course the reverse is true—we can have the same effect on others!

We can be more patient with others when in humility we realize our own sins and failings. When I can acknowledge my own sins, it becomes harder for me to flare up at the mistakes and foibles of another. Aware of my own weaknesses, I am less inclined to point an accusing finger at someone else. I come to realize that God is at work in them just as he is at work in me.

Let us thank God for the patience he has towards us and let us pray that we might in turn be patient with others. Be careful though, NOT to pray as did a less-than patient wife who kept this petition in her prayer book:

            "Dear Lord,
            Give me wisdom to understand my husband.
            Give me love to forgive him.
            Give me patience for his moods.
            Because, Lord, if I pray for strength,
            I’ll just beat him to a pulp.”