Sunday, October 05, 2008 Lagura: The God of infinite patience By Fr. Flor Lagura, SVD in the service of the word
A STORY, in spite of its simplicity, offers a multitude of meanings. Different people see in a story or parable differently as Paul Ricoeur claims in his book, “Theory of Interpretation: a Surplus of Meaning.”
Thus upon reading the parable of the wicked workers in the vineyard, a missionary priest understands his disappointment when he sees children he had baptized and brought up Catholics, now grown up, fail to marry in the Church. Some even abandon their faith and turn to other religions.
Then there was the sad experience of a religious brother who planned to improve the living conditions of workers he personally recruited from the mission stations. Later on, however, these very same workers went into a strike with unreasonable demands eventually crippling and shutting down the small but flourishing industry the religious brother had started.
Thirdly, some nuns running a hospital were shocked and saddened when their wards whom they had trained as children and whose education they sponsored later on turned against them. These wards who were employed by the nuns in their hospital uncharacteristically jeered and hooted at some nuns who had figured in a tragic accident as the latter were being brought into the hospital in an ambulance.
We see and remember that as in the parable of the two sons there seems to be an interplay of freedom and responsibility. In the case of the workers in the vineyard these workers enjoyed freedom but unfortunately failed to show the corresponding responsibility. So they abused those whom God sent to them and even killed the Son of God himself.
Speaking through the prophet Isaiah God complains bitterly saying, “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done?”
Yet God has never given up; He never will as He graciously gives out forgiveness and heaps upon us chance after chance for us to begin anew.
I venture to say that the current financial meltdown which bubbled up in Wall Street, later flowed down to Main St. and eventually made its way to the different financial districts of Hong Kong, Tokyo, Manila, London and Paris is due to a great extent to the abuse of freedom by greedy and reckless speculators who had closed their eyes to the corresponding responsibility. Neither the care for the ordinary man nor the fear of God ever bothered the conscience of profit-driven speculators whose motto was “Greed is good!” Sadly to everyone’s pain and dismay we see at the end that evil does not pay.
God, however, goes on with His plan of salvation patiently.
“Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone of the structure. It was the Lord who did this and we find it marvelous to behold’? For this reason, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will yield a rich harvest.” Matthew 21:42-43.
