The Holy Priest-Martyr Hierotheus, Bishop of Athens; Ammon the Anchorite (350); Vladimir, Prince of Novgorod and his mother, Anne (1051); our Venerable Father Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)
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Ephesians 4:17-25; Mark 12:1-12
“They will respect my son.” Here the gospel shows itself at its most tragic. We have the willful disbelief of the owner of the vineyard, who, despite all the evidence, proceeds to send his son with the thought that these violent men will respect him. Why shouldn’t they? For a son, shares the same face as the father, to see a father is to see him. The son is loyal, certainly these men will see his loyalty.
Yet, we as readers are somehow closer to the view of the abject violence of the prior three servants. We get the description; we see it happening. The father only sees the results, so he is less immediate. All the more reason why he sends his son. In this way, he can give the flesh of his flesh and up-close-and-personal experience about it.
Well, we rehearse this story every day at Matins. Christ is the Son sent into the vineyard of this world, the Lord who “has revealed himself to us.” We also remind ourselves of the fate of this revelation. It is the “stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Every morning at matins, we return to the fact of the coming of the Son of God and remind ourselves that he is to be the cornerstone of our lives. To build our lives around the cornerstone necessarily means belonging not to this world. It means recognizing that Christ came to reveal us the Father’s face and to prefer that to anything else, even our own security. Let us not lash out in fear, thrashing about this world trying cling on everything that passes away, or smashing those who try to remind us of this fact. The Lord’s face is the face of true peace. It will put it at rest—if we gaze at him mindful of who he is and what he does for us.