In the First Reading and in the Gospel today, the parallels of two fathers and their beloved sons are striking. First, Isaac is presented as a doting father who lavishes his son Joseph with love and sends him to tend the family’s sheep; in the Gospel, the vineyard owner sends his own Son, whom He loves, to tend to the vineyard which has been mismanaged and is in danger of ruin. In each story, the father sends his cherished son to do his bidding, and in each story, enemies of the son betray him. Joseph’s brothers, jealous of their brother’s esteem and their father’s love for him, plot first to kill him and then to sell him. The vineyard workers do not care that the owner has sent his son to restore order; rather, they only care about his money, and they kill him.
How often are we motivated, in our daily lives, to act based on our envy, greed, jealousy, or hatred? We may stop short of kidnapping and murder (hopefully far short!), but any sin of any degree is offensive to our Heavenly Father, and we know that smaller sins left unchecked beget bigger and more serious sins. How often do we believe the lie that others are more special than us? That we are somehow inferior based on arbitrary standards such as our net worth, our weight, our prestige, and our esteem?
If we rest in the knowledge that Our Heavenly Father loves each and every one of us not for what we do or what we don’t do, what we own or what we lose, what we gain or what we look like – but for this simple fact we are His, we should never give into that temptation to jealousy or envy. We already have everything we could ever want or need – the love of the One who made us, unique and unrepeatable. If our love of the Lord is rightly ordered, the unencumbered love of our neighbor will soon follow.
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