IRRESPONSIBLE STEWARD

Read­ing Time: 4 minutes

Matthew 21:33–43

³³“Hear anoth­er par­able: There was a cer­tain landown­er who planted a vine­yard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedress­ers and went into a far coun­try. ³⁴Now when vin­tage-time drew near, he sent his ser­vants to the vinedress­ers that they might receive its fruit. ³⁵And the vinedress­ers took his ser­vants, beat one, killed one, and stoned anoth­er. ³⁶Again he sent oth­er ser­vants, more than the first, and they did like­wise to them. ³⁷Then last of all, he sent his son to them, say­ing, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸But when the vinedress­ers saw the son, they said among them­selves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inher­it­ance.’ ³⁹So they took him and cast him out of the vine­yard and killed him. ⁴⁰“There­fore, when the own­er of the vine­yard comes, what will he do to those vinedress­ers?” ⁴¹They said to Him, “He will des­troy those wicked men miser­ably and lease his vine­yard to oth­er vinedress­ers who will render to him the fruits in their sea­sons.” ⁴²Jesus said to them, “Have you nev­er read in the Scrip­tures, ‘The stone which the build­ers rejec­ted has become the chief corner­stone. This was the Lord’s doing, and it is mar­vel­lous in our eyes’? ⁴³“There­fore I say to you, the king­dom of God will be taken from you and giv­en to a nation bear­ing the fruits of it.

What is Life?

In Mat­thew 21:28–32, Jesus told reli­gious lead­ers (priests and eld­ers) that those they regard as sin­ners (tax col­lect­ors and pros­ti­tutes) make it to the king­dom of God, while they them­selves are left out. With the par­able of the unfaith­ful ten­ant (Mat­thew 21:33–43), Jesus explains to the same reli­gious lead­ers that due to their unfaith­ful­ness and irre­spons­ib­il­ity, the king­dom of God will be taken away from them and entrus­ted to those who will take prop­er care of it. Since these reli­gious lead­ers can­not guar­an­tee justice and right­eous­ness, there is no need to leave the king­dom of God in their hands. They might con­vert it to their own king­dom where injustice reigns (cf. Isa 5:7).

Art­icle 3 of the Uni­ver­sal Declar­a­tion of Human Rights (UDHR) states that “Every­one has the right to life, liberty, and secur­ity of per­son.” To ensure the “sac­red­ness of human life”, in their speeches at the United Nations Gen­er­al Assembly (UNGA), Pope Paul VI (04÷10÷1965), Pope John Paul II (02÷10÷1979; 05/10/1995), Pope Bene­dict XVI (18÷04÷2008), and Pope Fran­cis (25÷09÷2015) urged mem­bers to pri­or­it­ize peace, human dig­nity, and envir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion over polit­ic­al and eco­nom­ic ambi­tions. Life is pre­cious. Life is del­ic­ate. Life has no reserve. From the reli­gious point of view, life belongs to God, and human beings are labour­ers to whom God has entrus­ted this life. Has Man been faith­ful and account­able for this life?

You Don’t Own Life

Often, some people behave as if life belongs to them. Often, too, we won­der why there is so much suf­fer­ing in the world, and in some sense, some tend to blame God for it. We behave as if we are com­pletely inno­cent, call­ing on God as if God is respons­ible for our piti­able con­di­tions. The par­able of Mat­thew 21:33–43 says the landown­er not only planted the vine­yard, but he also dec­or­ated it and handed it over to us. Instead of main­tain­ing the vine­yard and its beauty, we des­troy and con­tam­in­ate God’s cre­ation. Our suf­fer­ings are man-made. They are not from God, and God can­not be held responsible.

The ser­vants murdered by the vine dress­ers refer to the mul­ti­fold means that those in author­ity and the wealthy have devised to make life dif­fi­cult for people and even­tu­ally send them to their early graves. Ter­ror­ists should be con­demned and not encour­aged to keep wast­ing inno­cent lives. Politi­cians should not achieve their polit­ic­al careers by shed­ding inno­cent blood. It is ter­rible what pres­id­ents of some nations of the world are doing. Looks like the world is in the hands of kakisto­crats. Kakisto­cracy refers to the sys­tem where power is con­trolled by the worst, least qual­i­fied, and most incom­pet­ent people. 

The United Nations Gen­er­al Assembly (UNGA) was estab­lished in 1945 as a for­um where world lead­ers gath­er to delib­er­ate on inter­na­tion­al issues, includ­ing peace, secur­ity, and human rights. Unfor­tu­nately, after many years, it is becom­ing clear that the aim of set­ting up such a Gen­er­al Assembly has been totally defeated. The so-called super­powers have con­tin­ued to manip­u­late and sub­ject oth­er nations to poverty and misery through sense­less wars and end­less ten­sions. The Gen­er­al Assembly is sup­posed to settle inter­na­tion­al issues and wars and main­tain peace, secur­ity, and human rights. Unfor­tu­nately, mem­bers have been caus­ing inter­na­tion­al con­flicts, chaos, and abuse of fun­da­ment­al human rights. Instead of pro­mot­ing peace, mem­ber nations encour­age con­flicts, wars, and inter­na­tion­al non-cooperation.

Even reli­gious and Chris­ti­an lead­ers have not shown more determ­in­a­tion in tak­ing care of life. They have not been faith­ful and respons­ible in guar­an­tee­ing justice and peace­ful liv­ing among the people entrus­ted to their care. Many of them have been unfaith­ful and irresponsible. 

Unfaith­ful­ness breaks trust and loy­alty. With­in male-female rela­tion­ships, unfaith­ful­ness describes a romantic entan­gle­ment with a third party out­side of a mar­riage or exclus­ive part­ner­ship. In the reli­gious con­text, respons­ib­il­ity means faith­ful­ness to one’s oblig­a­tions, account­ab­il­ity, and good judge­ment. On the oth­er hand, irre­spons­ib­il­ity is the reversal of respons­ib­il­ity, includ­ing care­less­ness, reck­less­ness, and unre­li­ab­il­ity. The price of great­ness is responsibility.

Avoid Irresponsibility

People should under­stand that lives and the world they live in belong to the Cre­at­or, who has leased them to them. Are people tak­ing care of the life entrus­ted to them? Are they caring for cre­ation, or con­trib­ut­ing to its destruc­tion? We should show our com­mit­ment and faith­ful­ness in ensur­ing lives are not wasted. We should be respons­ible servants.

Reli­gious and civil lead­ers should safe­guard life. Chris­ti­an lead­ers should show more respons­ib­il­ity in ensur­ing justice and equity are main­tained. They should kill their desire for wealth and fame, which exposes them to injustice and betray­al of the Cross of Christ. They should show com­mit­ment and faith­ful­ness to the teach­ings of the Gos­pel. They should be ser­vants, not lords. Let us stop killing people who genu­inely request what right­fully belongs to them.