Today's Gospel

Are You Wasting Your Life?

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant. Today's reading comes from the Gospel of Matthew 21:33-43 and 45-46. Here another parable. It was a householder who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it and dug a wine press and built a tower and let it out to tenants and went into another country. When the season of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one and killed another and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did the same to them. Afterward, he sent his son to them saying, "They will respect my son." But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, "This is the heir. Come. Let us kill him and have his inheritance." And they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? They said to him, "You will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons." And Jesus said to them, "Have you never read the scriptures? The very stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This what the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruit." When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard this parable, they perceived that he was speaking about them. But when they tried to arrest him, they feared the multitudes because they held him to be a prophet.

What jumps out at you today? Remember each day we're looking for a word or a phrase or an idea that the Holy Spirit uses to capture our attention, to bring the gospel into focus for us here and now at this time in our lives. And so we have the parable in Jesus, great parable teller, and you have the tenants. And we're the tenants. The vineyard belongs to God, and we're the tenants. And the question is, what sort of fruit are we producing, and are we producing fruit for the owner of the vineyard? And each of us has to answer that for ourselves. Are we producing good fruit with our lives? Are we wasting our lives? Are we wasting an aspect of our lives? Are we wasting part of our lives? Are we wasting a gift that God wants us to share with the world? What sort of fruit is coming forth from your life? What sort of tenant are you?

We see what happens to the tenants. I was struck by the phrase. Jesus asked them, "What would the owner do to those tenants?" And they say to him, "He will put those wretches to a miserable death." Put those wretches to a miserable death. It's very graphic, and what sort of tenant are you? What sort of tenant am I? How can we be better tenants? How can we bear more fruit? Have a great day and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.

Busy is not your friend. It's time to take our lives back from the tyrant busy. That's from my new book, Slowing Down to the Speed of Joy. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, I encourage you to pick up a copy. It's about probably one of the biggest struggles in my life, and that is to escape the insanity of busyness. In order to allow experiences to touch the very depths of our soul, we do have to slow down to the speed of joy.