When I Was a Kid, I Used to Play a Lot of Video Games. I Was Hooked on Nintendo and The

When I was a kid, I used to play a lot of video games. I was hooked on Nintendo and the Super NES, and was a pretty avid player all through college. I liked the graphics and the feeling of accomplishment when I beat a level. Super Mario Brothers, in particular, was one of my favorites. As you worked your ways through the levels, fighting all sorts of creatures and navigating the levels, you’d eventually come up against the big boss at the end of each level, a particularly powerful enemy that you had to fight. Often these enemies would move much quicker, they’d shoot more fireballs, they’d be unpredictable in their movements. Sometimes it would be frustrating to get through an entire level, especially the more difficult ones, only to be defeated in the end. But luckily, there was always another life, so you could try again!

When you think about it, today’s Gospel has a bit of this same quality to it. This owner sends his servants to his vineyard, but once there, they’re attacked, some are beaten, some are killed. Each day, we go about our daily lives—we’re out in the vineyard of the world, and we’re hopefully trying to do God’s will—seeking the good and fighting all these little battles within our hearts. But from time to time, we face a much bigger enemy, one whose attacks are much worse than any one we faced before. It may be a threat to our faith, it may be an addiction or an illness, it may be an overwhelming sense of fear or hopelessness, it may be a worldliness. These may be so strong, they defeat us. But in the Gospel, what does the owner do when that happens? He doesn’t give up. He sends another servant…and then another…and then another. What does God do in our life when we fall before our enemy? He renews our strength time and time and time again, so we can face that battle with more vigor and more courage. Even when the owner sends his very son into the battle and he is killed, still the owner doesn’t give up—he continues to send those who will make things right, who will win the final victory. When God sent His Son into the world, they defeated him, they thought—they killed him on the Cross. But God showed His power by raising Jesus from the dead and raising up those who will follow Christ and help to defeat the enemy. God’s efforts to send fighters into the battle and to strengthen those fighters never ends until the enemy is finally defeated. Even in our day, the battle continues, until the end of time.

Today’s Gospel parable is meant to represent the entirety of salvation history. From Old Testament times, when God sent His prophets to speak His word to the people; to Jesus Christ himself, sent into the world in flesh and blood; all the way to the end of time, when all will be judged based on their faithfulness and goodness – we hear what God knows to be true, that violence will be done against the innocent, against those who strive to remain faithful, violence done even to the very Son of God, but in the end God will be victorious. This is the hope and the confidence we have as professing Christians.

I don’t think the connection is lost on us today between the violence we see in the Gospel and the violence that our nation has seen in recent days (and in fact, has seen for years). There will always be those who, for whatever reason, seek to do violence in the world – perhaps out of a sense of selfishness and personal gain, many times for reasons completely incomprehensible to the rest of the world. This small minority of the population, be it a gunman in a hotel in Las Vegas or a coordinated effort of terrorist groups throughout the world, holds the world hostage to fear. And it can seem that we’ll never win. What are we to do? Do we take up arms ourselves, return violence for violence? Do we sit back passively and allow it just to happen? Neither seems quite appropriate. The answer, I believe, lies somewhere in the middle – we are to face the world courageously, not in fear, and work faithfully as God calls us. Our work in the world to overcome violence must not beget violence, though at the same time it’s not a pacifist mentality. Our work in the world to overcome violence has to stem from a firm confidence that God is directing our efforts and fighting alongside us, and He will be victorious through us.

Sometimes the greatest battle to be fought in this war is within ourselves. We can hear all the reports of war and terrorism and random acts of violence, and we can let anxiety and fear take over our hearts. It can paralyze us or set our minds in a direction of retribution and vengeance. But what are we told today? St. Paul says, even in the midst of what he knew to be very difficult times: “Have no anxiety at all…and the peace of God will guard your minds and hearts in Christ Jesus….The God of peace will be with you.”

How do we do that? How do we rid ourselves of the anxiety that comes from fear of what we see in our world?

• St. Paul says: “Keep on doing what you learned and received and heard and seen.” Remain faithful. Persevere in the faith and in the Christian life. In the Gospel, when servants came back to the owner beaten and bruised, it was a fearful thing to know what they were encountering. But they didn’t give up. Others were willing to keep going into the vineyard, despite the fear and the challenge. We must persevere in the battle against our anxiety and realize that courage doesn’t mean we don’t feel a bit of fear inside – it’s acting despite that fear.
• We learn, as well, of the necessity to trust in the Lord. Again, St. Paul says we “make [our] requests known to God” in prayer and petition—we entrust our deepest needs to Him, perhaps that’s the need to be rid of fear and anxiety. And what is the result? “The peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and mind.” We need to trust that our prayers are heard. And we need to trust that God is working, even if we don’t see the results right now. It’s important to note in light of our current times, that despite the violence, God’s message has been preached all throughout history. In every age, God has revealed Himself through the words of His faithful ones, through prophets and saints. In the midst of a fallen generation, God is still there, His message is being proclaimed, and His message will get through to the heart of His people. We need to trust that.
• Finally, we are instructed to work on our own hearts, and as St. Paul says, that means changing our mindset, so that instead of thinking of the bad things in the world, we are focused what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and gracious, whatever is worthy of praise—basically, think about God and love what God loves. And we’re told, the result will be “the God of peace will be with you.”

What great things we can do when our hearts are no longer rooted in fear, but rooted firmly in our Lord! This, I think, is the hope that is presented to us today. God will be victorious over the world, even the greatest of enemies. But let us have confidence in that. Because we’ve seen, as the very cornerstone of our faith, how God turned the greatest act of violence the world has ever known—the death of Jesus on the Cross—into victory through the Resurrection. He continues to work to do the same for us today, to turn violence into peace, and anxiety and fear into faith.