Reflection on the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

While reading the Gospel several weeks ago, I began to think of the vineyard in the Gospel story as our planet, Earth. The examples of people with true claims to the land being mistreated and killed when they came to the land are so numerous today. Occupied territories that nations or groups claim through violence, people evicted from their land so that others can access the gifts of the earth and refugees fleeing their homeland out of fear are all around us and in the news each day.  

I appreciate the idea in the Gospel that the unjust ones will someday be evicted, and more caring, responsible tenants will be living on the land and tending the earth with love. And this Gospel reminder that God chooses people for a mission in ways that may differ from how we humans might choose people seems like an especially hopeful reminder in these times when I look at some of the people who have been chosen to help lead our country and our church. May it be so that one day the people who have been rejected and ostracized come to the place they deserve in our world and our country.

The first reading is another reminder of what might be a human choice when things don’t go as planned. When the wild grapes grew instead of good grapes, the owner wants to tear everything down and let it go to ruin. It is like what transnational corporations do as they travel the world in search of profits. Once something is non-productive, they leave it in ruin. We only have to look at the EPA Superfund sites that are still awaiting remediation.  This is not at all what I imagine God has done countless times when people failed, made a mess of things and acted in very ungodly ways. Instead, God lifts people up and sets them on a new path to a better life.

All of this seems so connected to Laudato Si and our commitment to care for Earth. Our entire planet is like a vineyard that needs soil, sun and rain to be tended and cared for. Then it will provide life and nutrition for the world. It is so much more than a resource to be used and used up. It is a living, breathing complex of which we are one part, dependent on the other parts.

The second reading from the Letter to the Philippians reminds us to “keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.” We know that we are still learning and receiving new information, new inspiration and new connections from God, from other beings, human and non-human, and from Earth itself as we seek to forge a new future for ourselves and others on this planet.  

I am still trying to figure out what lessons I need to learn from the American Alligator that exists in great numbers here in Florida. It turns out, according to scientists, that the alligator has been here on Earth for 8 million years and is largely untouched by evolutionary change. That is a scientific statement that I can’t quite make fit with everything else I know about evolution. Was the animal so smart it knew what it needed long before it was needed? I will admit that they have an advantage being able to travel at a good speed on land, bask in the sun and live in the water. They seem comfortable everywhere. Sometimes I believe they have something to teach me, even though I am not fond of them.

But will the alligator continue to survive as it is even with all of the things that are happening on the planet? It may be an apex predator in the animal world but what humans are doing to the environment may be too much to overcome. I hear people complaining about alligators, bears and deer coming into their neighborhoods, and I wonder if they realize we are destroying the other habitats where they have been living. I do not want to see them destroyed. I do not want them at my door either.

I am more and more aware – through listening and learning – and more uncomfortable with some of my choices because they are not part of the solution. I do not want to be a contributor to the problems of climate change, nor do I want to be an over-consumer of water, land and other resources. 

I want to be a part of the solution. I think we all want to be a part of the solution. So I go back to that quote from Robert McAfee Brown that reminds us, “Who we listen to determines what we hear.  Where we stand determines what we see.   What we do determines who we are.”

We are called to listen to God, to others who share our values and to Earth, and to stand gently on Earth with those who are God’s own, perhaps the rejected ones, and make our choices of what we will do.