COVID-19 and the Discipleship
Matthew 21:33-43,
Philippians 4:6-9,
Isaiah 5:1-7.
Reflection
Dear sisters and brothers,
We have experienced that COVID-19, the pandemic created havoc in the world.
Everyone from urban to rural, talked about it and discussed about the vaccine for COVID-19 in the future.
The newspapers, magazines and journals published special issues on COVID-19 and its impact on the world in various fields through online and offline publications.
The News channels came up with breaking news and kept broadcasting the growing numbers of COVID-19 in their channels.
The world leaders blamed each other for the tragedy instead of working together to find a solution.
The leaders, due to their pride, were careless towards their own citizens and were unable to handle the pandemic.
Meanwhile, everyone was worried by the economic problems, difficulties and disasters in individual lives, in families, in societies, in countries, and in the world at large.
The lockdown was quickly lifted up in some countries due to economic activities.
Along with it, there was a crisis of mismanagement of the pandemic in certain countries.
Soon, schools and universities switched over to online classes for their students.
The webinar became a new normal and an academic practice for many.
People lost their jobs.
People struggled for their survival with the limited savings they had.
People got depressed by being and staying inside their small houses.
The migrants moved from their work place to their native places without any employment guarantee in future.
The first wave swept the entire world.
And we have not fully come out of it till today.
The scientists started to warn us about the second wave that is in store in the future as we opened up most of the activities in the world.
At this juncture, we have many questions in our minds.
The first question may be about what is happening in the present.
What are they?
They are:
Who made this deadly virus?
Did it come from animals?
Did it come from birds?
Did it come from the bio-lab?
Was it man made?
We do not know what exactly the right answer for these questions is.
But, then we have this deadly virus in our surroundings, and we are sure about it.
We understand that we could not stop it with our well-developed scientific knowledge and technology that we have today.
Then, we move to the future.
With anxiety in our hearts and minds, we ask the futuristic questions after we went through tragic inconveniences instantly in our lives for the past few months.
What are they?
They are:
Is there a future for everyone in the Post-COVID-19 world?
There is no clear cut answer for this question.
What about the future of children, who attend the online classes?
Will they have a relationship with the society the way we had in our lives?
Will they know the value of society and relationship as they live in the virtual world?
Will they be good citizens?
Or will they be closed door citizens, who will be selfish and individualistic?
Will the social distance be a new normal?
What will the family be in future?
Will the mask be the new face of the individual?
There are no sharp or short answers for all these questions.
We have to just wait and watch to know the future, hoping that good things will happen, as it was always in the world and in our lives.
Nevertheless, it brings back the old memories to each one of us to think what the Pre-COVID-19 world was.
The book of prophet Isaiah draws our attention at this moment (Isaiah 5:1-2) to give us what the pre-covid-19 world was.
It says,
“Let me now sing of my friend,
my friend's song concerning his vineyard.
My friend had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside;
he spaded it, cleared it of stones,
and planted the choicest vines;
within it he built a watchtower,
and hewed out a wine press.”
God created a beautiful world with the earth and the heaven. When He saw it, it was good.
“Then he looked for the crop of grapes,
but what it yielded was wild grapes” (Isaiah 5:2).
Yes,
Dear sisters and brothers,
The book of Genesis (Genesis 1:27-31) accounts that:
God created the perfect world with its own beauty, and with its fruit.
God arranged times and seasons.
God beautified the earth and the heaven with millions of creatures from the beginning.
He created human kind as tenants to take care of His beloved world.
The world is God’s expression of love.
Did we fulfill our responsibilities as tenants?
We have failed in our responsibilities.
We have misused the freedom that God has given to each one of us.
To live our lives in the world, is our privilege.
We have messed up our privilege.
The text from the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 21:33-43), we know that there are two kinds of tenants.
They are:
1. The evil tenants, and
2. The good tenants.
1. The Evil Tenants:
The evil tenants made the world what it is today, for their own selfishness, forgetting their privileges and responsibilities in the world as tenants.
The world, the vineyard of the Lord, did not produce the fruits.
Even though, God, the owner of the vineyard gave it a perfect shape (Matthew 21:33):
“There was a landowner
who planted a vineyard,
put a hedge around it,
dug a wine press in it,
and built a tower.
Then he leased it to tenants
and went on a journey.”
The evil tenants turned this perfect vineyard into wild grapes and gave the owner wild grapes as its produce.
In the other words, we can say that the world, the vineyard of the Lord, is ruined by a few corporate companies and by the power hungry politicians.
The well-pruned grapes were made into wild grapes.
The world became a dent of thieves.
The world became corrupt stricken.
The world was filled with fake tenants.
Therefore, there is bloodshed.
There is racism.
There is inequality.
There is marginalisation.
There is poverty.
There is no food for hungry.
There is unemployment.
There is no truth.
The world was created as good grapes but the wild grapes grew up and occupied the entire world.
The world never lived upto for what it was created for.
It has lost its glory without God’s presence.
Recently, I watched ‘Social Dilemma’ in Netflix.
A beautifully produced documentary, showed how the social media shapes the new world of the present time according to the few individuals’ self-hunger for money, power, authority, and popularity.
They do not care about the privacy of the individual.
There is no justice.
There are no human rights in virtual world.
The objectification of women is very painful.
Social Medias create an opinion for a political ideology to bring the state to power or to destabilise the state.
They make money selling the private data to power thirsty people.
The world is compromised with evil intentions and evil ideas.
Truth has no value.
Honesty has no value.
Love has no value.
Money is everything in the world.
Finally, we have landed in the post-truth world.
Technology and internet are the grace of God.
They are for the welfare of humanity.
The same technology and internet are used to instill violence in society.
It manufactures hatred towards minority community.
It divides people with their fabricated messages based on race, caste, and greed.
It allows fake news to spread it quickly.
A study reveals that fake news spreads 6 times more than the truth.
It creates inhuman ideas and hate speeches to spread easily.
Do we not think that God should punish them?
Yes, we think that God should punish them.
And we express our anger too in many ways.
But, God never punishes them.
He waits for their return as a loving Father.
God so loved the world (John 3:6).
Then,
What did God do when He so loved the world?
As the Gospel of Matthew writes (Matthew 21:37-39):
“Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking,
‘They will respect my son.’
But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another,
‘This is the heir.
Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’
They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.”
God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, the Word, to the wicket world to express categorically His unconditional, immeasurable, unlimited love in spite of our unworthiness.
We fail to recognise the Word, Christ Jesus in the world.
We come into this world as tenants.
But, contrary to the truth, we, the tenants behave like the owners of the world.
Our hunger for power, authority, money, and popularity makes us as the evil tenants.
We fail to acknowledge why we are in the pandemic.
It is because of our own evil intentions, like the evil tenants, to acquire the world, the vineyard, which is temporary.
This is the reason why we face the pandemic and world’s unrest.
Will God punish them as it is said in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 21:41-43):
“He (God) will put those wretched men to a wretched death
and lease his vineyard to other tenants
who will give him the produce at the proper times.”
Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures:
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
by the Lord has this been done,
and it is wonderful in our eyes?
Therefore, I say to you,
the kingdom of God will be taken away from you
and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”
Can God punish anyone, whom He loves so dearly, when we behave like the evil tenants?
No.
It is not possible.
God sent His own Son, to die on the Cross to give eternal life to everyone, who believes in Christ Jesus.
2. The Good Tenants:
The good tenants are the other tenants.
Let us move on to explore more on the other tenants.
They are not many in the world but they are planted near the stream of water by our God.
Yes, we, the disciples of Christ Jesus, are planted as good and fruit bearing vine in the vineyard.
The good tenants are aware of the privileges of their lives and the world.
They know that they are temporary.
They know that they are created for eternal life.
They are only good tenants.
They are good stewards.
That is the reason, the good tenants care about the world.
They question the authority.
They question the power.
They are not afraid.
They hope in God.
They have faith in God.
They love every creation of God on the earth.
We become good tenants when we defend the Kingdom of God in the world by encountering the Word, Christ Jesus in our daily lives.
We realise that we are temporary.
We are here for some time.
I do not bring anything to the world when I am born.
I do not take anything from the world when I die.
We need to acknowledge it.
Who are these people that Jesus speaks about producing the fruits of the Kingdom of God?
These are the other tenants, who would give God the produce at proper times.
What is the proper time?
The proper time for us, is COVID-19, the pandemic.
It is the proper time to give to our God His fruits, our time as Saint Paul writes (Philippians 4:6-7):
“Brothers and sisters:
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
After reading the text above, we may ask:
Is the pandemic crushing you?
Are you worried about it?
Are you angry at it?
Saint Paul says, “Have no anxiety at all.”
He says, “Do not worry about it.”
God is in control of things in our lives and in the world.
He is the Owner of the world.
We are just the tenants.
We enjoy the privileges that God has given us.
We become more responsible in our words and actions.
We use our freedom with responsibility.
We need to do our duty as the good tenants, who give the produce to God, everything in prayer, petition with thanksgiving in our lives in their due time.
It is time for all of us as disciples of Christ Jesus to join together in prayer and petition with thanksgiving.
We may ask ourselves, what I am going to receive when there is no community prayer, and when there is no community celebration.
It is not necessary that we need to gather together to invoke God’s intervention to answer our petition.
Our sincere and heartfelt prayer with thanksgiving can invoke God’s presence in our individual life.
In the absence of the community prayer and worship, we all found God in the Word of God, in our individual life and in our families, by reading and reflecting on it.
Why do we give thanks to God?
We give thanks to God for all graces and blessings that He has showered on us during this pandemic.
Yes,
God has kept us safe and sound, when millions died.
God has guarded us from the deadly virus, COVID-19, when millions were affected.
God has fed us with food, when millions were hungry without jobs.
God gave us time to be with our families, when people have lost their loved ones.
There are innumerable things that we can be grateful to God when we sit with the Lord in prayer and petition with thanksgiving.
Our prayer becomes more meaningful with thanksgiving.
Our prayer and petition with thanksgiving, gives us the peace of God that surpasses all understanding.
Our prayer and petition with thanksgiving, guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus when our requests are known to God.
How do we make our requests known to God?
We make our requests known to God in and through Christ Jesus and through our way of lives thinking in our hearts and minds (Philippians 4:8):
“Finally, brothers and sisters,
whatever is true, whatever is honourable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious,
if there is any excellence
and if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things.”
Our lives become more fruitful when we realise for what we are created in this world by our loving God.
We are created to be truthful.
We are created to be honest.
We are created to be just.
We are created to be pure and holy.
We are created to be loving.
We are created to be graceful.
We are called to think about these values of the Kingdom of God in our lives and produce much fruit when God, the owner of the vineyard comes in our lives.
For this, Saint Paul says (Philippians 4:9):
“Keep on doing what you have learned and received
and heard and seen in me.
Then the God of peace will be with you.”
Dear sisters and brothers,
Good tree produces good fruit.
Bad tree produces bad fruit.
By being good tenants, as faithful disciples, we produce good fruits to give to His Son, Christ Jesus, by hearing and learning His Word diligently during the pandemic to receive the Grace of God, to imitate the Word, as He gives us the peace of God to experience God personally everyday in His vineyard, in the world, so that we can be good disciples bearing the peace of God in our lives with no anxiety.
Our present situation and the future is no obstacle to our discipleship in our lives.
Everything is an opportunity to live the Word of God in our lives.
Like the good tenants, let us care for the world that is handed over to us by our Owner.
We do not need to ask the questions.
Who did make this deadly virus?
Did it come from animals?
Did it come from birds?
Did it come from the bio-lab?
Whatever it may be, we messed up the world with God given freedom but we take our responsibility hereafter to give our full dedication and commitment towards building a new humane world with the Gospel values.
This is our duty as disciples of Christ Jesus on this earth till He comes in glory.
May the Heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all. Amen…
