13th Sunday of Matthew
Scripture: Matthew 21:33-42
(1)
Today, a landowner decided to take a trip to a foreign country, but instead of selling his farm, he opted to rent it out. So, he found some tenants and left on his journey.
While the landowner was away, the tenants worked the land: they tilled it, planted seeds, and likely watered it. They did everything a good farmer does to ensure a bountiful harvest.
However, as they worked, they gradually forgot their role as mere tenants; they began to believe that they were the rightful owners of the land, rather than the landowner who had leased it to them.
Sometimes, it’s beneficial to possess a sense of ownership, but sometimes it becomes too pronounced. In our story, the tenants developed a sense of entitlement.
(2)
When the harvest was finally ready, the true owner of the land dispatched some servants to collect it as rent. Upon their arrival, the tenants faced a choice: either surrender the hard-earned harvest or eliminate the servants.
Handing over the harvest would require humility, which is rarely an easy choice. After all, they had put in significant effort, and the notion of an absentee landlord reaping the benefits without participating in the work seemed unfair.
Many of us can relate to this sentiment.
Personally, I remember disliking group projects in school due to a similar sentiment. As a diligent student, I often felt like I carried the bulk of the workload. Yet, in the end, all group members received the same grade, regardless of their contribution.
It felt unjust. I often wished I could exclude those who didn’t contribute when the teacher evaluated our project.
The tenants in the parable took a similar route, removing both the servants and the son—albeit in a more permanent manner.
(3)
The tenants’ decision to retain the harvest and usurp ownership of the land led them down the path of murder. They likely believed they could escape consequences, perhaps thinking the landowner wouldn’t return from his trip. If they had anticipated his return, their actions might have been different.
Ultimately, the landowner did come back, and the outcome was far from favorable: they met a grim fate.
While our sense of ownership rarely leads to murder, it can lead to entitlement.
When we’re entitled, we see creation as something to be possessed and consumed—something that’s ours to do with as we wish, because it’s ours.
And this attitude sometimes extends to how we perceive other people as well—they become objects of pleasure or a means for our own happiness.
In short, we stop seeing people are persons in whom we are in communion. Our relationships become transactional instead of genuine connections. We become self-absorbed because we believe we’re entitled to do as we wish—never mind what others want.
(4)
The power of what Jesus teaches us is that it reminds us that we aren’t the landowners; we’re stewards, caretakers of what God has given to us—whether it’s money, possessions, our bodies, or even creation itself.
We aren’t entitled to anything, because nothing is ours, not even our own lives. It all belongs to God, and God will return to collect what’s His—but is there a way for us to remember this? To remember that we’re stewards, not owners? And, how can we learn to foster a proper relationship with the world?
Well, this is why Christ and the church teaches us to fast. Well, it’s actually one of the reasons, but it’s a central one.
As Christians, it’s been our spiritual practice to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, as well as before Pascha, the Feasts of Ss. Peter and Paul, the Dormition, and the Nativity of Christ. And, I can’t even drink my coffee before Liturgy on Sunday mornings.
When you think about it, we sure do a lot of fasting. But, Christ has taught us to fast because it reorients how we view the world and our relationship to it.
(5)
By instilling discipline in our eating habits, we learn to see the world as a gift from God—one that we are entrusted to nurture and safeguard.
Fasting reminds us that the world isn’t here for our self-indulgence.
And, this is profound transformation in our relationship with God and those around us. People aren’t here for our consumption. You see, others aren’t here just for us; we’re here for others.
We’re called to care, to look after others and the world, and to harvest the fruits the world bears for the glory of God.
(6)
As we tend to the preservation of creation, we embrace the calling that God gave to our ancestors, Adam and Eve, to care for creation.
As the parable teaches us, part of that good stewardship is offering the fruits of the harvest back to the rightful owner. And, this is exactly what we do at every Divine Liturgy.
Every Sunday, we as a church family, gather to offer bread and wine to God, our Father. But, it’s not just bread and wine—they represent so much more. They represent all that we have: our faith, our hope, our very lives.
We offer bread and wine as our way of giving thanks to God for all the gifts he has given to us. We make our offering for the salvation of the world.
And, it’s fasting that allows us to freely give back to God what is God’s. Why? Because fasting liberates us from our attachments, we are free to give.
Perhaps no one has been freer than Grandpa Dobri. Grandpa Dobri was a homeless man who lived in Bulgaria. He wore homemade clothes, and lived on $100 a month.
If you had met him, you might of thought he was crazy, or that he smelled. You may have been turned off by his long unkept beard or long uncut hair.
But, everyday, Grandpa Dobri would walk around the city of Sofia, to up 15 miles, begging for money. When he died in 2018 at the age of 103, everyone was surprised to find out that he didn’t keep what what he raised. Instead, he donated every penny to orphanages around the city.
In the end, he had raised over 40,000 euros for charitable causes.
How joyful was Dobri, being unattached to material things. How joyous were the children at the orphanages to have a patron like Dobri.
(7)
So, we too fast, to be free to give.
And, because we free give back to God, God accepts what we have to offer. He transforms our gifts, and blesses us by giving the bread and wine back to us as the Body and Blood of Christ. Through this we are transformed and united to God.
We are no longer entitled, but creatures of gratitude. We are able to become like Dobri.
Last week, we were challenged to think of spiritual practices as a weekly discipline: especially giving. This week, we’re encouraged to continue to think of practicing our faith on a weekly basis.
Just as we think of watering our house plants every week so that they can grow, we also think of practicing our faith on a weekly basis in order to grow spiritually. And, this includes fasting. So, I challenge you, if you don’t fast weekly, begin to do so. If you do fast weekly already: begin to contemplate how it frees you to give back to God and be transformed.
Amen.