by Fr. John Martin Shimkus, O.S.B. 

I don’t need you to worry for me ‘cause I’m alright,
I don’t want you to tell me it’s time to come home,
I don’t care what you say anymore this is my life,
go ahead with your own life, leave me alone.

- Billy Joel

     In my day, Billy Joel’s song “My Life” was somewhat of an anthem for young people expressing their personal independence from parents and anyone else who might want to control “our lives”.  And I think most people acknowledge that asserting the right to make one’s own decisions about life is an important part of growing up.  It takes some time, some maturing, before we are ready to accept that even if our parents, teachers, etc. stop “telling us what to do”, there is still One who does have something to say about how we live: the God who gave us our life in the first place.

     In today’s gospel parable, as well as the earlier version from the Prophet Isaiah, the divine “vineyard” can be seen as the vast arena where we live our lives in this world.  Notice that in neither story is the vineyard owned by the tenants (and much less by the grapes!), but rather by the landowner, God.  And so all who live and work in the vineyard, as well as all it produces, belong to God and are meant to please God, the planter and owner of this fertile and eventful plot of land.

     In like fashion, all that we are and all that we have ultimately belongs to God.  And God’s expectation is that we will produce the fruits of faith, hope and love that give him such pleasure and joy.  At first we are bound to struggle with this reality, like those struggles for self-determination early in life.  But in time, as we learn to experience the reality of God’s gentle and loving lordship and as we find our freedom in letting God’s Spirit produce his fruits in us, we come to realize that, contrary to what we thought, we are not merely tenants in this vineyard of life.  Through Jesus Christ, God has actually made us his children and his heirs, heirs not just of “my life” that lasts for just a season, but of His Life that will last forever!

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