Crushing victories

 A recording of today's gospel and blog can be accessed here.

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Today’s gospel (Matthew 21:22-43, 45-46) rehearses a parable that Fulton Sheen reckoned the most touching of all Jesus’ parables: the story of a vineyard owner whose servants were killed by hostile tenants of the vineyard and who finally sent them his son, believing they would respect him. Instead, the tenants killed the son. This is not the first or last time that the Eternal Father appears in Jesus’ parables; most notably, he is symbolised by the father of the prodigal son. Jesus’ listeners believed the father would come and put the tenants to death and give his vineyard to other tenants. In conclusion, Jesus describes Himself as the stone the builders rejectedI, and the chief priests and Pharisees understand very well that the parable is about them and Him.

This is a parable and a scene that tells us many things about the folly of those who know but reject God, and the tenderness of God in sending us His only Son. Yet, we would be wrong if we believed simply that we will never make the same mistakes as the chief priests and the Pharisees. Their fall is a classic pattern, and it is as well to be aware of the stumbling blocks it involves.

The first issue is that the tenants are tenants. This is not bad in itself of course, but every relationship with other people or other things in this life engages our moral responsibility and is exposed to the risks of our moral irresponsibility. The theological virtues orientate us towards God. The moral virtues allow us to relate to the things of this world in a way pleasing to God. These tenants, however, having taken possession of the vineyard, come to see it as their own, their sinecure. They no longer see themselves as stewards of a gift that does not belong to them; rather, the vineyard is theirs and they want it for their own. Possession thereby becomes possessiveness and possessiveness leads to their next error: entitlement.

We are possessive generally towards things, although we might be possessive towards other people. But our possessiveness can then become the grounding for strife and conflict with others. For the risk of taking possession of something is that it brings one into conflict with others, tussling over the mastery and use of the thing in question. Here, the tenants resort to violence to assert the possessiveness that they were wrong to feel in the first place. Having displaced the vineyard owner’s rights, they deny those of his servants likewise. Possessiveness, in other words, leads to entitlement which in turn leads to violence, the undue use of force.

The climax of this pattern comes in Jesus’ response to the violent conflagration in which the parable seems to end: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Of course, this conclusion is an echo of Isaiah, but its hidden corollary tells us the end point of the journey that has led from possessiveness to entitlement and then to violence: that power, taken illicitly and used excessively, ends in defeat. It is not the powerful who win the day. They have not known the value of the gifts they had been given.  Instead, every attempt to grasp and control grows weak. It is a conclusion that recalls the parable of the rich man in hell who wanted to reach out to tell his family about the risks to their eternal happiness. The power and entitlement that he enjoyed in this life is lost in a failure that is utterly complete and final.

The editors of today’s extract for Mass decided to cut out the most difficult line of this gospel: The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls, verse 44. But, if we reflect aright, we need this line back in our meditation. Batter my heart, three person’d God, wrote the poet John Donne. Or, in the words of the Psalmist:

Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

 

We are all too ready to be possessive and entitled, and even if our manners are non-violent, our hearts may still be barbarian. Broken things are precious, as again Fulton Sheen used to remark. And for those who do not already recognise their brokenness – isn’t that all of us? - perhaps the best thing to happen to us is to find ourselves broken on this Cornerstone of the Lord, for then, who better to heal us?

Again, those Francis Thompson lines return to give us comfort, coming as they do from the mouth of the Hound of Heaven:

All which I took from thee I did but take

Not for thy harms,

But just that thou might'st seek it in my arms.

All which thy child's mistake

Fancies as lost I have stored for thee at home.

Rise, clasp my hand and come!