Homily for the Week of October 5, 2008

HOMILY: RESPECT LIFE SUNDAY, 2008
Is 5:1-7/ Phil 4:6-9/ Mt 21:33-43
Jesus had a way of getting peoples attention at once. He spoke about things in which people were vitally interested. Today he would probably talk about the this country's discussions about the war in Iraq; he would talk about unemployment and taxes and the increase of violence in all parts of our society. He would undoubtedly talk about the men and women who want to get elected on November 4th. He would talk about the billionaire abortion industry in our country. He would talk about the ageing mother whose children have forgotten her; the prisoner awaiting death for his crimes and the single mother abandoned by the father of her child. He would talk about the littlest, the weakest and the most vulnerable among us. All of these and all of us are part of his vineyard.
Sometimes our country seems like a vineyard which has gone to seed. Where once fertile hillsides and rich vines grew, we find nothing but wild grapes. Our country was founded on the belief that God had
granted every American an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yet the easy accessibility of abortion on demand, our lack of concern for the elderly and those most vulnerable, the billion dollar pornographic industry, seem to be signs of a nation gone astray. Such was the condition of Jerusalem in the time of the prophet Isaiah, when God asks them what he has done to deserve this sad state of affairs. He threatens to let the thorns and the briars take over
this wild vineyard, where he looks for justice and sees only bloodshed.
Today’s Gospel completes the analogy. Jesus tells the story of the landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey. Of course, the tenants neglect the vineyard, but worse, when the landlord sends his servants and then his son to inspect the vineyard, the tenants kill his emissaries. What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes? Jesus asks his disciples. It does not take a Bible scholar to figure out that they will be punished for their mismanagement of the talents which God has given them.
This is the reason why there is an urgency to the pro-life movement today. For there are doctors who have been given the gift of compassion and healing who have used their talents to abort babies, o to euthanize the elderly or those on life support. There are counsellors who have been given the compassion to help those in distress, who urge people to choose to abort their child. There are parents to whom God has given the power to create life with him, who advise their pregnant daughter to get an abortion. There are caregivers for the elderly who refuse to respect their human dignity, and there are men and women in all sectors of society who refuse to use their talents for the promotion of the dignity of life.
In his letter to the Philippians today, Saint Paul gives us good counsel on how to promote the Gospel of Life. He advises that whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. May we commit ourselves to the protection of all human life from conception to natural death that this nation may, once again, be a land known for its honor and its love of the truth, guided by the God in whom we trust.
In our country 22% of all pregnancies end in abortion. Since 1973 45 million babies have been aborted. While we must continue to center our respect for life on the life of the unborn child, we must also care for all of life. That means supporting and responding to the basic human needs of nutrition, health, housing and education. It can also mean caring for the life and defending an innocent person under attack. I am convinced that our first moral need is to cultivate a conviction that we must face all the major threats to life, not only one or two.
If we are to make life a choice, then we must be critical of the culture of death all around us, a culture which which is overwhelmingly in favor of putting persons to death because of certain crimes, and which is moving towards physician assisted suicide. We may all have different view and feelings about these three major issues of life, but I am concerned that we come to realize that respect for life will cost us something. To move beyond solutions to problems by taking life will require a more personal care for life -- at its beginning and its end.
The abortion debate has been framed as a private choice. So is assisted suicide. Assisted suicide, for instance, has changed the doctor-patient relationship. Medical care now involves the possibility of medically assisted killing. Yet in a civilized society the law exists to protect life. When it also begins to make legal the taking of life, then we can ask what lies ahead for our lives in such a society. We can begin to ask how do we relate to one another humanly and spiritually, especially towards those that have the least power to defend themselves; the very young and the very sick.
We must continue to witness by deed to linking caring for life and defending life. We have usually done well in caring for life as is evident by the many works of charity done by Catholics. I commend those who have supported single mothers, those who work in health care facilities and programs that care for the dying and give them hope in the face of a long, painful dying process, those who volunteer in soup kitchens, those who bring food for our Food Shelf. But as people of faith, regardless of the circumstances, we must see death as a friend, not an enemy; and the experience of death is going from one life to another life.
The human wonder of life for each of us is that life is gift flowing from the very being of God and entrusted to each of us. It is easy for us in the rush of daily life or in its problems to lose the sense of wonder that comes with every gift given to us. It is even easier at the level of a consumer society to count some lives as less valuable than others, especially when caring for them costs-- financially, emotionally, time, effort.
The truth is, however, that each life is of infinite value. Protecting and promoting life, caring for it and defending it, has no simple or easy solutions. It is only in the good news of love preached by Jesus that we can find the vision and strength needed to promote and nurture the great gift of life God shares with us. The parable told by Jesus today is a teaching about the providence of God. Looking more closely at the parable of the vineyard, we see that the landowner has a purpose for the land, and having put everything in place for the desired result, he entrusts the project to others, giving them an interest in its success. But the tenants snub the attempts of the landowner to reclaim the project. They even go so far as to murder the landowner's own son. Even then, the landowner is not controlling but seeking to influence by good will, persuasion, enticement. When this fails, he intervenes decisively, handing over the vineyard to other, more amenable tenants.
Jesus' parable explains how God acts providently in our world -- entrusting, patiently attempting to persuade, decisively intervening, and re-entrusting. The parable suggests that the solution to any Christian dilemma is already present in the problem, but the solution has either been disregarded or overlooked.
We Christians have an optimism about life that is rooted in genuine hope. We believe that all will be well, not because it seems to be well, or because we need to believe it will be well, but because we know and trust the God that will make it well. In adversity, in temptation, in illness, and even in death, we know that the cornerstone of renewal and life is before us in the presence of Jesus Christ, the most dramatic and visible manifestation of the providence of God.
Parents: show examples of life to your children: wedding album, videos, describe the wedding day, so children will know of the beginnings of love that brought them to life. Show them their baby pictures, tell them about their first walk, their first words, their hugs and kisses. Their first days of school.
Life, what a beautiful choice. Hope and Trust in it.