Bishop Robert Barron publishes daily reflections on the Bible. Click right here if you'd like to check out the latest, or if you'd like to subscribe (it's free). Below, find Bishop Barron's reflection on Matthew 21:33–43, 45–46 (emphasis added):
Friends, just before his passion and death, Jesus tells this striking story of the landowner who planted a vineyard. The fertile vineyard stands for Israel, his chosen people. But it could be broadened out to include the world. What do we learn from this beautiful image? That God has made for his people a place where they can find rest, enjoyment, and good work.
We—Israel, the Church, the world—are not the owners of this vineyard; we are tenants. One of the most fundamental spiritual mistakes we can make is to think that we own the world. We are tenants, entrusted with the responsibility of caring for it, but everything that we have and are is on loan. Our lives are not about us.
You don't have to be formally "religious" to understand what I call the "Two Worlds Hypothesis," which is the name I have given to my understanding that we all live in two quite different "Worlds," simultaneously. Click that link for an early expression of my thinking, from 2014.
Most, immediately, we live in a "Human World" that we, ourselves, design and build. Take a look out your window to the city streets - or, turn on your television. We shape and design the world that we most immediately see, and inhabit. That's "our" world.
In fact, though, the world in which we most "immediately" live (a world I often call the "Political World") is not the world upon which we "ultimately" depend. The "World of Nature," which can also be called the "World That God Made," at least by those who are not averse to utilizing some "religious" terminology, will either support our human civilization - or it won't. It's up to us to be smart enough to realize that we do, in fact, depend on Planet Earth, and the natural systems of Planet Earth, and that we are ultimately dependent on those natural systems, which will either support us, or not.
As Bishop Barron is hoping to make us see, we are "tenants" in the vineyard, not owners.
Let's pay attention to the basic requirements of the lease. Our "lease on life" depends on being smart enough to do that! If you don't know what I am talking about, do an internet search for "Global Warming."
One could argue that any God worthy of the name would be the owner of both worlds. It seems a little counter intuitive that God would take his creation, man (with all his ignorance), and put him on his other creation (the earth) and tell him to take care of it, knowing he wasn't up to the task. I suspect there is a different explanation for this disconnect.
ReplyDeleteThe "Garden of Eden" story in the Book of Genesis is the traditional explanation. I am a "there's only one God" guy, so "any God worthy of the name" comes across to me as a group of gods created by human beings, rather than the other way around.
DeleteNot sure you understood my comment. I am certainly a one God kinda guy too, meaning God is non-dualistic. Given that as a basis, the logical conclusion is that God knows all, does all and most of all loves all. He made all and I don't think he labels some of it, or some of us as "good" or "evil." I don't think God makes judgements about His creation, despite what the bible might say about that. That document was written several centuries after the death of Jesus. My point was more that change to our world comes through love and understanding and that God may have His own plan. He doesn't, I don't believe, look down upon His creation and wonder what the hell is going on here. I fully believe He has it all in hand. The idea that humans are "stewards" of the earth seems a bit contradictory to the notion that "not a leaf stirs without His will." I find a little bit of preachiness in some preachers who point out everyone else's faults and thus advertise their own virtue. I have great hope for the future of earth and of man, since I believe God loves both and gives us every opportunity through all human experience, both so called "bad" and so called "good" to learn the nondualistic reality that all are one and all are one with Him. It is a process and it takes a long time, but we are all guarenteed to get there eventually.
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