Learn respect daily.

When you say the word “respect”, what do you think of it? Inattention to the elderly and the sick. Impudence, vulgar, indecent, trivial words. Shamelessness, rudeness in behavior with each other. Disobedience and unfaithfulness of those we love. We know that respect for God has also been lost. We forgot to pray. A lack of respect affects us only when we feel a lack of it from others in ourselves. And we forget the duty of respect to God on our part, we don’t have time, the taste has been lost, we don’t feel its need, it’s meaning… Let’s not say that it is such a time.

In the Gospel, we read: And that is why the farmer sends his son because he said: “They will respect my son” (Mt 21:43). The Lord Jesus said in a parable: The “Master” is God the Creator. “Vineyard” is God’s people, Israel. The “servants” that God sends are prophets. “Peeling time” is the end of life, court. “Son” is Jesus Christ himself. However, it is not so easy to understand the text of the parable. Evangelist St. Matúš writes: “When the vine dressers saw the son, they said, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and his inheritance will be ours!” They seized him, dragged him out of the vineyard, and killed him” (Mt 21:38-39).

These are serious words, “dragged out of the vineyard and killed”. By this, Jesus indicates the greatest humiliation that the tenants committed on the son. Jesus speaks of the greatest dishonor they will commit against him. The leaders of the nation were already waiting for Jesus’ life. And Jesus speaks so clearly with a parable to the leaders of the nation about himself that he is the Son of God, that they understand it. Jesus goes on to talk about the rejection of Israel and the election of a “new nation” that will bring forth a harvest. From other places in the Gospels, we know about the predictions of the death of Jesus, as well as the subsequent events. In this parable, Jesus says it most clearly. Lord Jesus speaks a parable shortly before his arrest. It is an opportunity offered again – to change the dismissive attitude of the nation’s leaders toward Jesus, to accept him as the prophesied Messiah.

What vintner would kill for a vineyard…? Such a thing did not happen in the time of Jesus, today we know that people are murdered even for a few euros. The parable also speaks of the incomprehensible infinite goodness of God, which includes us humans. God acts as if he were no landlord toward his tenants. God is patient, he waits, and he does everything to save people. Because God is just, there must be a just reward. There must be punishment for refusal. God wants us to live in reverence for him, our God and Lord. By sin, we reject God as our Lord and God. When we sin, we do not give the place that belongs to God. We also reject the “cornerstone” of sin. Whoever sins commits disrespect, disrespect for God. Sin destroys a person’s happiness, both on earth and after death.