Stewardship

Listen to another parable, Jesus said. There was once a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a hole for the wine press, and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to tenants and left home on a trip. When the time came to gather the grapes, he sent his slaves to the tenants to receive his share of the harvest.  The tenants grabbed his slaves, beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again the man sent other slaves, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way.  Last of all he sent his son to them. Surely they will respect my son, he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, This is the owner's son. Come on, let's kill him, and we will get his property!  So they grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? Jesus asked.  He will certainly kill those evil men, they answered, and rent the vineyard out to other tenants, who will give him his share of the harvest at the right time.  Jesus said to them, Haven't you ever read what the Scriptures say? The stone which the builders rejected as worthless turned out to be the most important of all. This was done by the Lord; what a wonderful sight it is!  And so I tell you, added Jesus, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce the proper fruits. (Matthew 21:33-43)

The gospel for this Sunday effectively tells us how much God trusts us.  If God entrusted his vineyard to the tenants, God is entrusting "his life" to us, how do we take good care of "his life"?

We are called to be stewards, which means, we are not the owner but we are just paid to take good care of the thing which we do not own.  The  tenants in the gospel, did not behave that way.  They behaved as if they were the owners.  They killed the servants and even the son of the owner in order for them to fully acquire the vineyard. Yet they failed.  

Everything that we own is from God.  Our life is from God.  It is not our own life that is why we cannot simply do what we wish with it.  We must take care of our life according to the will of its Owner.  That is why we must be contented with what we have.  We must not complain about the things Life gave us.  And everything must be thanked for.

If we have this attitude, we will not be distressed or fear much.  Instead we take good care of our life and of our relationships and treasures, so that God can be pleased and glorified.  If God owns what we have, we will be thankful and we will not wish to acquire more.  There will be no corruption, no fights, no wars.  We will not be too selfish to offer what we have in service of others.  We will see the world in a new way.  We see it as belonging to Christ and to God.  

When we serve in our ministry, we will not be too ambitious to gain power or authority.  Instead we will be happy that God gave a position and a role to us so that we can use this function to serve others.  And we will be strong a midst of the trials and challenges since we do all these things for God's glory.  When we speak or instruct others, we will not force them to much to be what we want them to be.  But we take into consideration what God would want them to be or what would please God for them to be.

There is one story of a priest who asked his sacristan to plant a seed on a vacant part of the garden.  The boy said "yes".  The priest waited after a week, and every time he wakes up, he always look at that part of the garden but he sees no sprout.  He put fertilizer on it and watered it everyday.  After another week, he sees no improvement.  Then he asked the sacristan, "What happened to the seed that you planted?  Maybe it died?"  The sacristan replied: "I am sorry Father. I forgot to plant the seed."

Like the boy, we are called to be stewards.  Do we forget this basic idea?