Proper22A, Sullivan Park Care Center, October 5, 2014 by Sr
Annette Fricke, OP
There are
clearly times when I feel very alone, as I am sure is the case for most of you. I feel alone emotionally as well as in my
thinking. There are two recent incidents
that come to mind. As I watched and cared for the assisted living unit on which
I am assigned this past Thursday, I had the rare opportunity to see my own
priest come to visit one of our mutual residents. I quickly explained to him as I spied him
peering into this resident’s room that he was not there, but had gone
downstairs for exercise. I personally
thought that this particular resident would have returned to the unit by then,
not knowing that his delay was caused by another employee’s time with him. As we passed through the hallway, he asked me
a number of questions one of which was about where I worked, mentioning that he
thought I was working in the skilled nursing unit. I explained to him that actually, when on low
census, I floated to virtually every other section of the building. With a smile on his face, he then guessed correctly
that was probably not something I particularly enjoyed. I agreed that he was correct about that. This
day was a low census day and I explained that I was alone on the unit until
6:30 tonight. He then inquired as to when I worked, the answer being 2 pm-10
pm. Making the astute observation, he
concluded that because of my schedule, I was able to help regularly with
Wednesday morning Eucharist and hardly ever could make it to
choir practice on Thursday nights. “But
you manage to sing in the choir?” He queried. Pondering this information, he
thought a bit while I explained that I was a pretty good sight reader and that
after a couple of years of difficulty, I learned most of the music. The point is, there is always something to
talk about, whether it is with a priest or a friend, or someone who is both. I
feel lucky to claim him as a friend.
The other
incident that I think about at this time is the putting together of puzzles on
our unit. The Activities Department puts
out puzzles on each floor as something for the residents to do. Most of the puzzles take some time and skill
to do, so the residents who put them together have decided by that assessment
to put them together as a group, often three residents at any one moment. This operation has involved employing even
staff and visitors to the unit in an effort to facilitate the process. One day, I pulled out a puzzle that I had
never tried and proceeded to figure out the best way to begin. It seemed that nobody wanted to help me until
I complained enough that my fellow co-worker decided to attempt to put together
the border pieces. This is a known
technique from the days of my childhood and probably back much further. As I neared the edge with the other pieces,
it became obvious that the time-honored way to do a puzzle did not, in fact,
produce the most efficient way to put this particular puzzle together. I needed the help of my other co-worker to
rearrange the border pieces to fit with the inside pieces. There are clearly
certain projects that we are unable to complete without help from others. From my first illustration, friendship is a
human need which may or may not involve something as complex as working
together to complete a puzzle. Secondly,
the puzzle-making involved more than one person to accomplish the finished
product. Being friends is not a
pre-requisite, but working together towards the intended goal is.
In today’s
gospel text, God is the landowner who builds a vineyard, later Jerusalem which
is the center of worship for Israel. The tenants are the religious authorities
like the Pharisees, chief priests and elders for example. The slaves are the prophets and the son is
Jesus himself. During this time period,
the tenants would contract to give the owner an agreed-upon portion of the
crop, keeping for themselves what was left.
This parable is known as the Parable of the Wicked Tenants or
Treacherous Tenants. God’s expectation of the tenants is that God and the
tenants will enjoy the produce, but since this simply does not happen, God is
ultimately disappointed. What will God do?
Notice the similarity to the Isaiah passage I read today. This text asks the question, “What more was
there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?” God is pleading the people to be faithful
stewards, has even provided all the means to do it, yet the people continue to
fail to bear fruit. In Isaiah, the
expected grapes are wild grapes. In
Matthew, God has a solution to the failure of the tenants. God will take away the kingdom of God from
Israel and give it to a people that produce the fruits of the kingdom. Jesus will become a stumbling block for those
who fall on him as well as will crush those whom he falls on. Even if we skip over the words, “They said to
him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death,’” the concluding
sentence remains: God will lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give
him the produce at the harvest time. The idea is not that God is rejecting Israel;
they are still the chosen people of God by way of covenant. It is not that God is rejecting the leaders
of Judaism, but their behavior. God
expects them to behave in a certain way. God wants people who produce
fruit. How do we produce fruit? We do it by keeping the Great Commandment:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your entire mind, all
your soul, and all your strength and your neighbor as yourself.
St. Thomas
Aquinas explains it this way: We love God for himself and everyone else as they
are in God or capable of being in him.
We love God in loving our neighbor when we love others as they are
related to him. Love of God with our
whole hearts does not diminish but should enhance our love of others because we
will also want the greatest good for our friends and because the love of God
enables us to be friends with others all the more, as it is the source of those
feelings that are a part of friendship.[1]
For the time
of Jesus, it was a warning to the Jewish leadership, but during the time of
Matthew’s writing, it was a warning to the early Christians to be the bearers
of fruit. The gospel of Matthew is full
of these stories which served many Christian communities as a catechism or book
of instruction designed to elucidate and articulate for Christians the components
of what it means to lead a Christian life.
God claims us by way of creation and baptism to walk, not just talk as
the people of God. God expects and we
are obligated when we profess to be Christians to live in such a manner that
befits the name of Christian. We are
called upon daily in our walk with God to live as Christ has bidden us to do. We are to make friends and we are to work
together to build the kingdom of God even now here on earth. We still have the power to make choices
within our communities as well as with each election concerning the leadership
of this country. The best way to have a
friend is to be one. The best way to
work together is to make friends with everyone as best as we are able. If we are able to meet and speak with the
candidates for office, the better we can make choices and the better our world
will be. Be who God calls us to be.
[1]
Selman, Francis, “Aquinas 101: A Basic Introduction to the Thought of Saint
Thomas Aquinas,” 2005.
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