Selection of the sermons of Father Ezekiel Oko
The vineyard of God and my responsibility
Dear sisters and brothers, we have just heard readings centered around the metaphor of the vineyard. The theme fits well with the festival of Thanksgiving. Since we have already celebrated the festival in our community, we will not deal with the festival today, but we want to think about what the parable of the vineyard means to us.
The house of Israel is described in the first reading as “the vineyard of the Lord of hosts” (Isa 5:7), from which God expects good fruit. Belonging to God is seen here as an inescapable source of Israel's identity. Israel belongs to God and, if he remains true to his identity, he will be enabled to bear good fruit.
The history of Israel shows not only that man's relationship to God is the relationship of a creature to the Creator, but also that God makes man a cooperator and steward in the order of creation. This means that what applies to Israel as a people in the Bible also applies to everyone who believes in God.
We are the vineyard of God. You are the vineyard of God. Each of us is a vineyard of God. This means that God, the Creator, designed our inner being. But with that we have the responsibility to manage, develop and preserve his good gifts.
With our talents and abilities, with the strength given to us, with the ground we stand on, with the rays of the sun that reach us, with the grace we have received from God, we are a vineyard that can bring good and should. The question is, what should motivate us to be a vineyard that produces good fruit? I think it's mostly out of gratitude to God.
Anyone who calmly contemplates the care with which God surrounds us in his love for us will say to God: I will thank you, my God, through the fruits that I bear. For wonderful and great is your part in enabling me to bring forth good fruit. Even when I am sick, weak, old, or disabled, I can bear fruit - fruit of benevolence, of love, of forgiveness, of comfort, or of encouragement.
Let us come to God with these spiritual fruits that we are allowed to bear. Everyone comes with their fruits and can say to God: To you, my God, I bring as a tribute and offering: thanks, praise and honor, my effort, my trust in you and my renewed yes to you and your will.
The Parable of the Tenants
Matt 21:33-44
33 “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.
34 When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants[3] to the tenants to get his fruit.
35 And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.
36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them.
37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’
39 And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;[4] this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.
44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
Overview