Unjust Vineyarders.

No good father, no good mother, spares an admonition when he sees his child rushing into misfortune. There is always the hope that perhaps he will recover and turn around. Jesus does likewise. He reminds the leaders of the nation of Israel of the actions of the unrighteous vinedressers so that they will realize the consequences of their hostility and turn around (Mk. 12:1-11).

The parable was very clear and understandable. For to every Jew, the vineyard was a sign of the nation of Israel with whom God had made His covenant. In the history of salvation, God sent His servants, the prophets, to restore the chosen nation by their faithfulness and fearless proclamation of God’s will from the errant path into which it had so often stepped. The common fate of these prophets was persecution, even death. Finally, God sent his beloved Son. In the parable, Jesus foretold his coming suffering and death. But it was through this that God’s plans of salvation would be realized. The despised, condemned, martyred, but ultimately resurrected Christ becomes the cornerstone of a new nation, the church of God. The chief priests and scribes resist the call to repentance, the call to conversion. Their hearts become even more hardened and ripe for judgment.

The parable of the unrighteous husbandmen is a warning for today. The Church is the new steward of God’s vineyard. God’s messengers are the holy confessors and martyrs. But the most important voice is that of the Son of God, who demands conversion from us as the fruit of the vineyard, as the payment for God’s gifts. The words of the Son of God are a binding call to both decision and action. Indifference is as much a rejection as any conscious opposition to God’s service.

We must admit that indifference or even conscious resistance to the service of God in our ranks causes a lack of understanding of the teachings of Jesus. Partial knowledge retained from childhood or religion classes does not have the power to propel us directly to conversion. For children rarely grasp the depth of any truth of the faith in the way that an adult can when he puts that truth into his world, which he already knows perfectly and has had experience with. It is, therefore, no disgrace to take up a catechism or other religious literature in middle age, or at an age which presupposes a slow consummation of life.

It is very important that we give ourselves the opportunity for a deeper knowledge of God. This is confirmed by the life experience of the one-time Marxist and materialist, Ignatius Leppo. In a state of spiritual crisis, he returned to his apartment one morning after a night of wine and idle debates about the fashionable figures of French culture. He could not fall asleep, so he set himself to read a novel that his landlady’s daughter had left in the drawing room. The novel so intrigued him that he did not close the book until he had read it. It was only after reading the novel that he noticed its title and author. It was Sienkiewicz’s novel Quo Vadis.

Ignatius Lepp confessed in his confession that this novel would not have made such a powerful impression on him if his ignorance of Christianity had not been so complete. In the weeks that followed he immersed himself in the study of the early centuries of Christianity, familiarizing himself with the biographies of great personalities and saints. He eagerly devoured everything that could bring him closer to the teachings of Jesus and the Church. All this impressed him so powerfully that he longed to become not first a Christian, but a religious. The scribes and chief priests hardened their hearts against God’s exhortation. Let us not follow their example, but let us follow those who sought to know and understand the truth and so opened themselves to God.