Homilies & Thoughts

We might hear today’s Gospel and think that this is an absurd situation. The landowner has prepared a vineyard. He has planted it, protected it, and provided what is needed for it to bear fruit. He entrusts it to tenants. And instead of honoring the one who has given them this opportunity, they turn against him. They reject his servants, and ultimately they reject his son. How could anyone receive so much and respond in that way?

“Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

I think the Lord is telling his disciples not to remain focused on the supernatural powers he has given them or on the things they can do. Rather, they should keep their minds focused on heaven. We hear a similar message elsewhere in the New Testament, where we are instructed to keep our minds on the things above.

The innocence of children is something we all recognize, at least to some extent. Yet it’s hard to pin down exactly what it means. If you’ve been around children, there are times when they are truly wonderful, when there’s something inspiring about their innocence. There are also times when they are less inspiring to us, right? But there is something there, even if it’s hard to grasp.

I think part of it is that their lives are not complicated in their own minds. They see things simply. Something is what it is, and they act on it. They trust in a way that we struggle to trust. Our experiences in life, even with people we think are trustworthy, can make us wonder, “Well, maybe not.” That’s part of life. And so we have to intentionally cultivate that childlike mind in ourselves and in our approach to life.

Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Jerome. He is probably best known for translating the Scriptures into Latin, and for that famous saying: “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”

But if you spend much time reading the Fathers of the Church, including Jerome’s own writings, something else stands out: he had a really bad temper. He seems to have struggled with it throughout his life. It comes through in his writings, and other Fathers of the Church mention it as well.

The death penalty is certainly a controversial subject. And with any controversial subject, we have a tendency to talk past one another. We speak different languages. We have different priorities.

Those who support the death penalty speak about safety, the community, justice, and making things right for victims. Those who oppose it speak about mercy, rehabilitation, and the protection of life, often with the conviction that we have advanced beyond this kind of punishment.

We like to make the Gospel safe and comfortable. We like to keep its demands at a distance, so that it has plenty to say about other people and very little to say about us.

And that is easy to do today. We hear Jesus confronting the chief priests and elders, and we treat it as somebody else’s argument from two thousand years ago. He exposes their refusal to repent, even when tax collectors and prostitutes do. And we feel comfortable, because we have already decided that we are on the side of the underdogs. We are the good guys in this story.

If we were at mass yesterday, or looked at yesterday’s readings, we may notice something familiar in today’s Gospel. When Jesus asks, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” the disciples give the same answers we heard yesterday in the story about Herod. The same guesses about Jesus keep coming up.

These passages almost follow one another in Luke, but there is a story between them. And I think it helps to look at the chapter in order, because we have heard much of it throughout this week.

Herod is an interesting figure in the Gospels. With several members of the same family sharing that name, it can be hard to keep them straight. But the Herod in today’s Gospel is the same Herod Antipas who had John the Baptist beheaded. Mark tells us that he enjoyed listening to John, even though he was perplexed by what he heard. And then he had his head cut off. Now he wants to hear more about Jesus. He keeps trying to see him. Once again, he’s perplexed.

When do we give up? I think that is one of the questions the Lord addresses in today’s Gospel.

There is a phrase often used in the business world that applies to much of life: the sunk cost fallacy. We have spent so much time, money, or effort on something that we feel we must keep doing it, even when it is not accomplishing what we hoped. Sometimes the best choice is to start over and endure the pain of doing so.

People often struggle with the way the Lord talks about family, because he seems to distance himself even from the concept of it.

But over the years, I have noticed something unusual. The people who complain the most about these sayings often have the most difficult relationships with their own families. They object to the Lord saying these things, but then they are always fighting with their relatives. They are distant from some of them and no longer speak to others.

When we hear this parable, we often think of deathbed conversions. We think of the repentant thief crucified beside Jesus, or of someone who comes to faith very late in life. And perhaps something in us objects: they did not go through the difficult part of the Christian life. They did not spend years and decades struggling to be good and holy. They just slipped in at the last minute.

This seems like an unusual passage to choose for a Gospel reading. There’s really nothing happening here. It’s three verses, mostly a list of people who were there.

And yet, tucked into that list is a small detail that matters: “and many others.” It doesn’t tell us who they were. It simply tells us that many other people were with Jesus, supporting his ministry and playing an essential part in it.