Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

OKTOBERFEST

October 5, 2008

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Philippians 3:14 – 21

Matthew 21:33 – 43

 

I think that it is true to say that nearly every major medieval pilgrimage site in Europe is associated with a pre-Christian shrine.  Christian missionaries established places of worship (and above all places of pilgrimage) on sites that were felt to be particularly ‘spiritual’.  Springs of water, natural hills, mysterious caves or groves of impressive trees were commandeered, given an association with a Christian saint, and turned into parish churches, shrines or cathedrals.  This was particularly true in Germany. With the exception of small tracts of land south of the Danube in the Schwäbische mountains, most of Germany never came under the jurisdiction of the Roman Empire.  Missionaries arrived in force in the late seventh century, and began the laborious task of converting the many pagan tribes who often lived in the midst of Germany’s impenetrable forests north of the Danube and east of the Rhine.  

 

St. Rupert was one of the most famous of those missionaries.  His star convert was Otto the Pagan, a native of Bavaria.  In 680, St. Rupert baptized Otto in a pre-Christian temple in Altötting, paving the way for the conversion of the whole of south-eastern Germany.  Altötting (a site associated with pagan goddess of fertility and her rites), became a shrine dedicated to Mary the Mother of Jesus.  Today the little octagonal church is the home of one of the most famous Black Madonna statues in Europe.  Scholars once believed that the faces of these statues had been blackened over time by the smoke of burning candles, but further research has revealed that they are either made out of black wood or that their faces are covered with black paint.  The Black Virgin of Altötting is the patron of Bavaria’s Oktoberfest.  Several popes have expressed a particular devotion for the shrine at Altötting; including the current German occupant of the See of Peter, Pope Benedict XVI.  When he became pope, he bequeathed his cardinal’s ring to the shrine. 

 

There is something rather fitting about the fact that the Black Virgin of Altötting is the patron saint of the Oktoberfest.  The festival is associated with autumnal fruitfulness and the riches of the land.  In some ways, the transition from the fertility goddess to the shrine of Mary was not such an enormous leap.  Mary is also a symbol of fruitfulness and the riches that God gives to us.  God trusted her with the task of giving birth to the Messiah.  She did not usurp the gift she was given and claim it as her right.  She therefore became a symbol of obedience and of the care of creation, since she bore within her the one who made the universe.    

 

The Parable of the Wicked Tenants also speaks of trust. The owner of a vineyard entrusts its fruitfulness and productivity to some tenant farmers.  The owner gives those tenants the responsibility of taking care of something that is not their own.  Will they humbly care for the vineyard, and trust the generous owner to give them a fair share of the harvest?  Or are they going to betray that trust and usurp something that is not their own?  The parable opens with the actions of the owner of the vineyard.  He digs the ground, plants the vines, builds a wall around his plot, appoints those whom he believes to be responsible tenants to look after it, and then leaves on a journey.  Those very same tenants now attempt to steal what has only been entrusted to them; not given to them.  A conflict of ownership ensues.  The tenant farmers are employees.  They have signed a lease agreement.  And yet they behave as if they are owners and work for themselves.   

 

It is not up to us to re-write our contract with God.  All we have, we have been given on trust.   Not even coercion or cruelty can snatch from God what belongs to God.  Nothing we can do will make it our own.  We despoil creation in the name of progress and economic growth while our fellow human beings are dying of malnutrition. We spend trillions of dollars on armaments in the name of ‘security’ while our sisters and brothers are dying for want of basic health care.  Are these the actions of responsible tenants of God’s creation?  We have heard much these past weeks about financial institutions that broke promises to look after their clients’ money responsibly and acted out of naked greed. Just like the Wicked Tenants of our parable, they thought that they owned what was only entrusted to them.  

 

But before removing the speck in our neighbor’s eye, we should remove the log in our own. Are we worthy of the trust that God has placed in us?  Or do we tell ourselves:  “It’s my life to live.  I make my own decisions.  I can choose the obligations that I want.”  It is only by remembering our obligations towards God that we will succeed in loving God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves. The parable concludes in the season for collecting fruit. You would have thought that the exasperated owner would arrive with an army and kill the tenants outright.  But he does not.  He gives them every opportunity to mend their ways.  The greatness of God overcomes all rejection.  Jesus tells us that even the wickedest of tenants has the potential to become a faithful builder.

NJM