‘The very rock which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone!
11 This has come from Adonai,
and in our eyes it is amazing’?”[a]
12 They set about to arrest him, for they recognized that he had told the parable with reference to themselves. But they were afraid of the crowd, so they left him and went away.[Footnotes:
Mark 12:11 Psalm 118:22–23]
Saint Justin, Martyr (9th Week in Ordinary Time)This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours. (Mark 12:7)
We know what it’s like to second-guess a decision someone else has made. You look at an event after the fact and think about how you would have handled it better. If it were you coaching that football game, you would have called for a pass instead of a handoff. If you had been the presidential nominee, you would have chosen a different running mate. If you were that child’s parent, you would discipline her differently.
Second-guessing is rarely helpful, and it’s especially the case when we read stories like today’s parable. We can think, “How could these tenants have been so stubborn and selfish? The landlord was just trying to collect his produce. I would never have treated these servants so cruelly.” To make matters worse, we understand that the landlord is God the Father, the servants are the prophets, and the “beloved son” is Jesus. Why couldn’t the scribes and Pharisees see these connections?
The problem with this approach is that it deflects the message of the parable away from us. Whether we are ancient scribes or twenty-first-century Christians, God wants us to be fruitful. He has commissioned us, just as the landowner commissioned the tenants, to care for his creation. We are stewards of his kingdom, and he wants to know how we’re doing in that regard.
What kind of “servants” will God send you today to check on his fruit? Maybe it will be a friend asking for help or a person needing someone to talk to. It may not be a person at all. It may be a verse from today’s readings—something you sense God wants you to act on. No matter how the Lord comes, you can be sure that he will not ask for something that you cannot give. So don’t reject him. Welcome him instead. Tell him, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.” Then, give him the fruit he is really looking for: your heart.
“Lord, help me to receive your word and the promptings of your Spirit today.” Amen!
Tobit 1:3 I, Tobit, was trustworthy and behaved righteously during my entire life. I would help support my relatives and others of my country who were captured and taken with me to Nineveh in the country of the Assyrians.
2:1 When I returned to my house in the time of King Esarhaddon, my wife Anna and my son Tobias were restored to me.
Tobit is blinded
During our Festival of Pentecost, which is the holy Festival of Weeks, a splendid meal was cooked for me, and I lay down to eat. 2 The table was set before me, and many fine foods were brought to me. Then I said to my son Tobias, “Go, my son, and find one of our poorer relatives captive here in Nineveh, someone who pays attention to God with all his heart. Bring him here to eat with me. I will wait here, son, until you return.”
3 Tobias left to find some poor person among our relatives. When he returned, he said, “Father?”
I answered, “I’m here, my son.”
He exclaimed, “Father, one of our people has been murdered and tossed into the marketplace; his strangled body is just lying there.”
4 I got up and left the meal before tasting it. I removed the body from the street and placed it in one of the smaller houses until sunset when I would bury it. 5 Then, when I returned, I washed myself and ate my food in sadness. 6 I remembered the word that Amos the prophet pronounced against Bethel: Your festivals will be transformed into sadness and all your songs[a] into sorrowful wailing.[b] And I wept.
7 After sunset I went out, dug a hole, and buried him. 8 My neighbors made fun of me, saying, “Is he no longer afraid that he will be killed for doing this kind of thing? He ran away, but now look: he is burying the dead again!”[Footnotes:
Tobit 2:6 Gk paths
Tobit 2:6 Amos 8:10]
Psalm 112:1 Halleluyah!
How happy is anyone who fears Adonai,
who greatly delights in his mitzvot.
2 His descendants will be powerful on earth,
a blessed generation of upright people.
3 Wealth and riches are in his house,
and his righteousness stands forever.
4 To the upright he shines like a light in the dark,
merciful, compassionate and righteous.
5 Things go well with the person who is merciful and lends,
who conducts his affairs with fairness;
6 for he will never be moved.
The righteous will be remembered forever.
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