2ND WEEK OF LENT

The Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit. 

Today’s Gospel reading may sound startling for the way it shows the seriousness of God’s judgment and the consequences of disobeying him. But if we look at it from another angle, we can see the striking tenacity of God’s love for us.

In this parable, the landowner sends servant after servant to retrieve fruit from the workers he has hired to cultivate his vineyard. He doesn’t even spare his own son in his endeavor! In a way, God is like that landowner, and we are like that fruit. God’s love for us is so profound that he is always pursuing us. He so deeply wants us to know his love that he never gives up on us!

This is why he called Abraham and led him to the Promised Land. It’s why he sent Moses to the Israelites in Egypt. It’s why he sent judges, kings, and prophets to his people to call them back to him. And finally, it’s why he sent his only Son. Still, many of Israel’s leaders rejected God’s “cornerstone” in Jesus (Matthew 21:42). But God made even that rejection “wonderful” (21:42) because it led to his cross and resurrection—nothing short of our redemption!

Even today, the risen Jesus reaches out to every person, and he will never stop! And as his disciples, we now have the joy of laboring in his vineyard. We can reach out to share his love with the same tenacity that God has always shown; we can help bring his children, the fruit of his vineyard, back to him.

God doesn’t want our efforts in evangelization to begin with fear, duty, or obligation. He wants them to flow from our experience of Jesus and his love for us. When we are filled with his love, we simply can’t contain it. We long for people to know that love, and we ourselves become tenacious—in a humble and winning way—in sharing it with them.

So where is God sending you today? What part of his “vineyard” is open for you to go and help bring in a rich harvest of people longing to know him?

“Father, thank you for your tenacious, unyielding love. Help me to share it with the people around me today.”

Genesis 37:3-4, 12-13, 17-28
Psalm 105:16-21
Matthew 21:33-43, 45-46