What is the story regarding the vineyard this Sunday?
In fact, both the first reading and the Gospel are focused on vineyards but with a twist. In Isaiah, God Himself will destroy the unproductive vineyard. For Matthew, there are no tenants involved. Thus, the problem is neither the vineyard nor the harvest. The attention is rather on those to whom the vineyard has been entrusted. These tenants represent the leaders whose stewardship has not been up to measure.
In other words, with leadership, there is always expectation, that is, God’s expectation. But, before we proceed, note that strictly speaking, God has no needs. The nature of God is impassible, meaning that He does not undergo emotional changes of state of being. While God has no needs, it does not mean that God is passive and therefore uncaring. Instead, when we describe God’s expectation, we know that it is metaphorical as it denotes our relationship with Him. God’s expectation of us is literally a sketch of our potentiality—we have been created in His image and likeness and so, we have a vocation to live up to in order that we become the best of whom we are called to be.
From this perspective, the repudiation of the cornerstone in the Gospel may be understood as a rejection of God’s standard, that is, to mirror Jesus in life. If anything, the Gospel reveals that we all suffer from an error known as the heresy of low expectations.
When we expect something, we must first of all provide for the possibility that the expectation can be fulfilled. For example, if the authorities want cleanliness on the streets, then they must provide rubbish bins so that people can throw their waste in them. Otherwise, they will just litter. This illustrates that written into the nature of man is that he lives up to what is expected of him. When we remove expectations, people’s motivation tends to dissipate. For instance, in one of the programmes which focuses on overcoming the addiction to pornography, what is required is the addict be accountable to another person. He talks to a companion who journeys with him. That way, expectations are set up so that the one who seeks to conquer his bad habit tries to live up to an ideal. A goal helps.[1]
In the movie Field of Dreams, there is a memorable line “Build it and they will come”. The premise is based on creating an opportunity for a dream to come true. In business, this might not be that helpful because no one should try to sell a product for which one has not researched if there is a market for it. However, in pastoral endeavours, what we often fail to recognise is that if we do not provide a service, people in general will not avail themselves of it.
This is the case for Confessions. It appears that few people are coming for it. Is it because people no longer believe in the Sacrament or is it because priests have not made themselves available for it? What we have done in this country is to reduce confessions to basically the two penitential services. It is a chicken and egg situation, but the truth is, people need to see a priest in the confessional before they queue up. What is required is consistency on the part of the priests.
An expression of this heresy of low expectations is the process of dumbing down which results in a self-fulfilling prophecy. I studied in Dublin for my theology and where I lived, it was a township of about 20,000 people, presumably Catholics, who had the opportunity to go to 3 parishes. In my parish, I was easily the youngest person there in a Sunday crowd of 40 people. Now, to make Mass more attractive, the liturgy was simplified to, 1st or 2nd Reading and the Gospel. They took out one reading to make Mass shorter. If it is that important, dumbing down the liturgy just sends a signal that Mass is not all that essential. If it is not that critical, why bother?
Most people usually live up to (or down to) the expectations placed on them. So many of you are parents. Guess what, you attempt to remove all “troubles” from your children’s life because in your protectiveness and love, you want them to have an easier life, smoothening things out and making it convenient for them so that they can get on with their lives, right? Well, in time to come, packing you off to an old folks’ home would be the expedient thing to do. You have taught them that convenience is paramount.
My younger brother has three children. One of them is special (I dislike this word because if it is special, why is not everyone desiring it. But it is the only acceptable PC term). I tell my nephew and niece that they have a responsibility to take care of their special brother because God gave him to them. Some might view this as guilt-tripping but I look at it as inculcating them how to think beyond themselves to thinking of others and helping them to live up to ideals beyond I, me and myself.
We short-change ourselves when we dumb down. If God were angry with us, it has no connexion with a need that God seems to have but rather it shows how much we have not lived up to our vocation. In fact, this exalted vocation of ours is frequently toned down by a rationalisation or justification which abuses God’s mercy as an excuse for our failure. In other words, the “impassibility of God”, that is, God who is immutable can be easily translated into a God who makes no demands on us. Removing God’s expectation will naturally result in the lowering of our morals.
It is true that God is impassible. He has no need of us, but we need Him now more than ever. Not because we are experiencing the surge of this third wave of Covid-19 but because the more we cancel out His expectation, the more immoral we will become and the more lost we will be. God’s expectation of us is truly a sign of His overflowing love for us—a salvific invitation by Him to the excellence, nobility and perfection for which He has created us. God expects much of us because He knows that with His grace which He has lavishly poured out on us, we can live up and countless saints have lived up to the standard of the Cornerstone—Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
[1] Even “Cheat-Days” are goal-oriented. A person on diet tries to stick to a rigorous regimen and at appropriate moments, the regimen is relaxed to “reward” a person who has hitherto been faithfully following the plan or programme.
