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Vocation Meditation -
3rd Sunday of Lent, 2010
Jesus was teaching the crowds; some of those present told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
Jesus asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them - do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."
Then Jesus told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?'
"The gardener replied, "Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
Jesus continued to teach his hearers while remaining open to events happening on a national scale. Galileans involved in political trouble must have irked Pilate. Disaster naturally fell on them as well as on those also who were in Siloam. Jesus reminded them that if rebellions, plottings and political ambitions of the Galileans would never stop - they were simply heading for a national disaster. Rome would someday put a heavy hand to these. Unless they repent as a Jewish nation that kept on seeking an earthly kingdom and rejecting the kingdom of God of peace and reconciliation they could come to only one pitiable end!
In the parable of the fig tree, Jesus teaches that uselessness invites disaster. Nothing in God's vineyard, which only takes out from it, can survive. The fig tree was drawing strength and sustenance from the soil and in return was producing nothing. It was a failure of the fig tree to give something back to life!
This parable is Jesus' gospel of the 'second chance'. God offers second chances and even more chances for us to grow and be converted to Him. At the end, Jesus makes it clear that there is for everyone, a call to the final chance. If we refuse chance after chance, if God's appeal and challenges come again and again in vain, then we shut God's invitation out. To be converted to love is today's Jesus' message of hope.
Vocation Challenge:
"He came looking for fruit on it and found none."
What 'fruits' do I present to God every time He comes looking within me?
Dear God,
Jesus' parable is a message of Your gift of second chances. In it you challenge me to answer your call with the urgency to grow best in your 'vineyard' by giving back life for life, love for love. Nourish my vocation with constant desire for conversion and constant joy of giving! Amen.
For the full Gospel reading for this Sunday, visit the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops site.