In the Gospel story of the Vineyard, Christ takes the Church away from the servants who didn’t produce fruit for God. The Church was given to us to produce fruit. The Church is more than just the building. God will demand an accounting of us when He returns. How will God see our behavior toward His children? Our hearts must produce fruit for God. We are not guaranteed our salvation. It can be taken away. The Gospel warns us to not waste another day. This is our chance by God to make good on our faith.
When I think of this morning’s gospel, I have to confess, I remember the horrible days of COVID, when one day we woke up and, practically speaking, the church had been taken away from us. Churches all over the country and through other parts of the world, in one day we’re closed to the public, where we could not enter into God’s house to pray. In that one moment, the church was taken away from us. And I must confess that when I think of this morning’s gospel, I remember those days, those tragic days. When as priests, we were alone in the church with one or two or three people representing the community.
In all my years of the priesthood and ministry, those are the days I pray I never relive. But my brothers and sisters, it should have taught us a lesson. The church is here one day and one day may be taken away from us. In this morning’s gospel, Christ is telling the Jews exactly what is going to take place. He says to the Jews, basically, if you don’t get your act together, the church is going to be taken away from you and given to somebody else. We are that somebody else. We Gentiles, we have been the ones that Christ gave the church to when he took it away from the Jews. But this morning’s gospel, my brothers and sisters, is more than just about the church. It’s true, we will be held to account by God. He will demand an accounting of each and every one of us, and the fruit that we have or have not produced through his church.
He, as I mentioned last week, he owns the church. We are his stewards. We are the ones taking care of the ministry until he returns. We will be held to account on what we have or have not produced in terms of fruit. But my brothers and sisters, the gospel is much more than this because it also references our hearts. You see, the church is not just this building, the church is our very life. And so, when Christ comes, he is going to ask each of us what we have produced in our hearts for the glory of the kingdom of God. In this morning’s gospel, the servants beat one, killed another, stoned another, leaving others for half dead, and they finally, it says, “They killed the son.”
My brothers and sisters. In the way we treat God’s children, what will he say about us when we speak badly about someone, whether it is a stranger on the street, whether it is someone from our family who hurt our feelings, whether it is someone who in the middle of a parish assembly meeting may have said the wrong thing, God is going to ask us, have we attacked other people or have we loved them? Have we produced fruit of the Holy Spirit? This is our challenge in life. We are not guaranteed our salvation. One of the great differences between our understanding of God and salvation, one of the great difference between us and the Western Christian world, especially in the Protestant world, is many people believe that once we have accepted Christ, that’s it, we’re in.
If that were true, this morning’s gospel would not be here. You see, we have been given a chance to make good on our faith. We have been given a chance to do something even greater than our ancestors did. We have been given the chance, my brothers and sisters, to let the light of Christ shine in our hearts so brightly that we don’t need these lights. Those who have come before held onto the faith, but now it’s our turn. It’s our turn to be given the responsibility of God’s church to produce fruit, and the most important fruit is not how many people fill the pews. The greatest measure of the fruit, my brothers and sisters, is the condition of our hearts.
Do we love as God wants us to love or do we cast judgment? Do we take what God has given us, whether it is this church, the truth of orthodoxy or the blessings that he has given us in our personal lives, do we take it and hoard it and keep it to ourselves or do we honor God with it? He will be back and he’s going to demand an accounting of us. It’ll be too late then to make a change. So, I’m inviting us, my brothers and sisters, look deep in your heart and ask yourself, what could I do better? It’s impossible for any of us to be perfect… Beside me of course. No lightning, so I’m good today. But it’s impossible for any of us to be perfect. If we love God when we hear his gospel, every gospel must convict us.
It must call us to something where we could be better Christians tomorrow than we are right this very moment. So, that’s my invitation for all of us today. Let’s spend the rest of liturgy asking ourselves, what can I do better for God? Where can I bring fruit for God? And then when he returns, then he will say good and faithful servant instead of giving the church to somebody else. We will have truly honored him with our life, and he will glorify us and we will glorify him. Glory to God for all things.
