Gospel: Mark 12:1-12
Jesus began to speak to the chief priests, the
scribes, and the elders in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge
around it, dug a wine press, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenant
farmers and left on a journey. At the proper time he sent a servant to the
tenants to obtain from them some of the produce of the vineyard. But they
seized him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent them
another servant. And that one they beat over the head and treated shamefully.
He sent yet another whom they killed. So, too, many others; some they beat,
others they killed. He had one other to send, a beloved son. He sent him to
them last of all, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said
to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance
will be ours.’ So they seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the
vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come, put the
tenants to death, and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this
Scripture passage: The stone that the builders rejected has become the
cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our
eyes? They were seeking to arrest him, but they feared the crowd, for they
realized that he had addressed the parable to them. So they left him and went
away.
+ + + + + + +
Reflection:
It’s not through your own effort alone that
you’ve achieved success its God who allowed you to have success and be where
you are right now. What have you given back to the Lord in return?
Jesus in our gospel shares a story about a man
(owner) who prepared his vineyard for it to be leased. The tenants had no
problem of achieving growth and financial success in that vineyard for the
owner had prepared it for them.
The vineyard represents Israel, the tenant farmers
are the religious leaders of Israel. The Lord God is the owner of the vineyard
the servants are His messengers which represents the prophets. The beloved son
is no other than Jesus.
Harvest time came the owner was naturally asking for
his share but the tenants were so greedy that they gave nothing to His
messengers they all killed them including the very son of the owner of the vineyard.
Transplanting that parable to our present time we
find that the man who owned the vineyard is God and we are the tenants. And as
such we are expected to give back to God a certain part of what we have right
now.
Life is short; let us therefore give back to God
while we are still alive. Let us payback the generosity of God or let us move
it forward by helping the poor. For example by adopting a poor relative and taking
care of his/her education. And there are a hundred more ways on how we can give
back to God.
What have we given God in return? Have we given Him
some of our talent, time and treasure? When we give back to the Lord we allow
Him to bless us more. – Marino J. Dasmarinas
No comments:
Post a Comment