The vineyard is a well-used motif in both the old and new testaments as an example of God’s people. Jesus uses the concept of vine and branches to indicate his relationship with us. We see it in today’s Gospel as an oblique reference to the leaders of the Jewish people who have turned hostile to Jesus following in the footsteps of those before them. In the old testament reading, however, we see a strong reference to those who have turned astray from God.

There are several things to note here, the farmer has done all he can to ensure he has a good crop, but what he yields are not good domesticated grapes but bitter wild grapes. There is nothing more the farmer can do. He has done all he can to make good on his work in vineyard and it is the vineyard that does not co-operate. So he responds by giving up on the vineyard and using that land for another purpose.

The warning to the people of Judah is obvious. Despite all that God has done for them, they have gone astray. We can look back in history and see that Isaiah is warning the people to repent for if they do not then the reigning empire, Babylon, will over run them and destroy the land, using it for another purpose. In the actually history, Babylon left the land for nothing taking all the movers and shakers back to their captives homes and leaving the remnant to fend for themselves.

What is God’s warning here? Like the farmer who cares for his land, he expects the land to support him and bring forth fruit, if it does not, then he will give the land to another crop or even other owners. If the land does not support him, the rent money that from a sale will..

What does this say to us?

I hear people always live in fear that their parish will close, or they live in trepidation about the upcoming collaboratives here in the Archdiocese of Boston. However, I do not see people asking the question if their parish is bearing fruit for the Kingdom. If it is not, then should it surprise people that changes are coming?

In our own world, the corporate world closes those profit centers that are not bringing forth a profit. They may carry them for a while, but then if there is no profit they are closed. We do not look for financial profit centers for  our unit of currency is not the dollar; it is the soul. A vibrant parish will always thrive. However, if the parish is not vibrant then it is not bringing forth fruit for the Kingdom.

Consistently Jesus says that each person must bear fruit and each parish therefore must do the same. Jesus’ story about the men with the ten, five and one talent does not describe the man as one who buried the talent as a poor investor, but a miserable wretch even though the man who handed out the money to invest did not lose a dime. There is no place in God’s kingdom for person or institutions that do not bear fruit. Yet, what is the fruit we bear. We have a calling to be signs to the culture that the Kingdom of Heaven is real and is at hand. During this time in our country, we have to  live our lives so that people realize there is an alternative to the current way of life that is filling people with fear of terrorism and disease. There is relying on Christ who calls us not to fear death, but to teach others about life. To live our lives in such a way that others can know there is another mindset, another way of thinking that sees the world differently.

You and I have a mission to do this and the work we have is so that others may come to discover this creator God who seeks to have each person we encounter to be saved. That is our mission. This does not mean that we give up our own dreams and ideas so that we can live as monks on the peninsula, but that we bring those dreams and ideas to the Lord that He may bless them and make them more fruitful for  the Kingdom of God.

One of our greatest problems in the Church today, at least in the Northeast area of the country is that there is much fruit to be borne and much has died on the vine. Catholics have abandoned their faith because they never learned it. Instead they learned a set of rules to be followed that would lead people to Heaven. That however is not Catholicism. What our faith is all about is being transformed in Christ and then transforming others so that people may experience the truth that will set them free. That is more than following a set of rules, you can be an atheist and do that and transform nobody. It is to be like the vineyard that submits humbly to the work of the farmer and becomes a fruitful vineyard filled with grapes that bring forth good wine. However, the grapes must submit to the loving care of the farmer for this to happen. They can be tended to in all that they need to be pruned and cared for that they may bear good fruit.

However if the grapes resist anything the farmer does, they will bear poor fruit and be good for nothing. Are we ready to submit to the will of the Father in our own lives and in the life of the parish. Are we ready to change what needs to be changed that we may bear more fruit, or do we continue on the same track and turn away from the one who can make us all we are created to be so that we can be much less than even that and live an ersatz of our destiny.

The choice is ours. Meanwhile, let us not focus  on keeping our parish open, but that it may be a source of good fruit,. Then our parish will follow the admonition of Dorothy Day who once said, “If Cardinal Spellman told me to close my houses, I would do it immediately. And then they would open themselves back up again.”

God bless you.

Fr. Bob Carr