What do we do with a bad plant in our garden, with a plant that is no longer living? We throw it out and begin again. Even if it is something that we have worked hard on, something that we have put a lot of effort into, we still throw it away when it is no longer viable. It is only the good flowers and the good plants that we keep in our gardens, those which produce wonderful blooms or great fruit. It was the same way with ancient Israel, and it is the same way with the Church today. Only that which is fruitful will remain, while that which is not fruitful is disposed of.
This is the message at the heart of our readings today. God has established his vineyard, and God maintains his vineyard so that it will bear fruit. Our first reading point us toward the first vineyard that God planted, that of ancient Israel. God led the Israelites out of Egypt and planted them in the promised land. He sheltered them, cared for them, provided for their every need. He established them in the land which he had promised to their forefathers. He made a covenant with them, promising that he would be faithful as long as they were faithful.
Yet Israel did fail, and in fact failed often. Time and time again the Israelites would abandon the Lord their God and worship false gods, abandoning the precepts that God had given to them. As a result, God often sent prophets, the servants of the Landowner as we hear in the Gospel, to lead the people back to their God, back to the promise that they had made. But often, even that was not enough.
What then did God do when the people did not return to him? God abandoned them, and left them to their own devices, as they wished it to be. What then was the result of this? The Israelites were often conquered, overtaken by foreigners, and enslaved or even exiled. They suffered miserably as a result of their own folly, of their abandonment of God. Only then did the Israelites return to God; only then did they return, beseeching God for his mercy and to restore them to the relationship they once had with Him.
But finally, there came a time when Israel had to make the ultimate choice. For as we heard in the Gospel parable, there came to them not a servant of the Landowner, but the son - the beloved son of the Landowner, who is in reality the beloved Son of the Heavenly Father. God came among His people, and His people rejected Him. What is the punishment deserving of the people who is finally abandoned their God? The Pharisees and the gospel provide that answer when they respond to Christ saying, "He will put those wretched men to a wretched death
and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times." And that is what Christ did: he began a new vineyard, the vineyard that is the Church. And this is the Vine onto which we the branches have been grafted through our baptism and through our reception of the sacraments.
Christ has firmly planted his vine so that none may overthrow it. But that does not mean that we cannot go bad. On the contrary, we too may become like the ancient Israelites and even though we participate in the church, and her visible rites and appear to be Christians, we may still imitate our forefathers in abandoning our God, and not worshiping Him and Him alone as our true God, imitating the ancients in producing wild grapes, sour grapes which are inedible and worthless. Admission into the church does not automatically equate into salvation. We are called by God to go out and produce fruit, the fruit of the faithful life, the fruit of a life oriented towards God, oriented towards Christ.
How then do we produce this fruit? We do it first by believing everything that the Church teaches us. Since the Church has been founded by Christ, by God himself, to be the trustworthy authority here on earth, the motherly voice that we can listen to for guidance and instruction, we must hear what she teaches us, no matter how difficult it may be for us to hear it. We must believe what she teaches as being true and right. Just as ancient Israel had the authority of Moses and the prophets, so too do we have the authority of the pope and the bishops.
But belief is useless unless it is put into action. What we believe as Catholics must be put into practice. If the Church teaches that something is sinful, then we must avoid it. If the Church teaches that something is good, then we must promote it and work to implement it in our lives. If we have failed to live up to the Church's teaching, then we admit our errors and seek pardon from God and from His Church. Each of us must live our lives as God knows is best for us, as the Creator who fashioned each one of us from before the dawn of time.
Above all, look to the example of the saints to show you how to be fruitful in your own life. The saints each had their own calling from God and their own challenges in their day, but each remained faithful to God and to His Church in their lifetime. Consider St. Francis of Assisi and his radical poverty and intense love of Christ, or St. Joseph, the humble carpenter who become the foster father of Christ. The greatest example and help we can have is from the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of God and the Queen of All Saints. Seek her intercession and follow her example of fidelity and fruitfulness in your own lives.
Let us take the advice of St. Paul to the Philippians: not to be anxious, but trusting in God who will provide to us true peace of heart, the peace beyond understanding which safeguards us against doubt and fear. Let us "Keep on doing what [we] have learned and received and heard and seen" in Christ, in His Church, and in His saints so that our lives may bear the fruit which we meant to produce. Let us not produce wild grapes but the fruit of holiness, the fruit that lasts unto eternal life.
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