DEICIDE

27^th Sunday Ordinary Time A

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         The economy of salvation is not just the revelation of God in the history of humanity but it is also the manifestation of God’s great love by entering into a covenant relationship with man.  From among the nations, God chose Israel as his Chosen People over Egypt, Rome and Mesopotamia who were super-powers during that time. 

In the book of Isaiah in our first reading today, God is depicted as the vinedresser and Israel as the vineyard in this covenant-relationship. Because of his great love, God gave the best of everything to Israel.  On the other hand Israel had always been unfaithful, stubborn and ungrateful.  Yet God remained faithful, loving and merciful.

Jesus in the parable of the tenants reminded the Jews about their stewardship in the vineyard and predicted their obstinacy and the evil intention of their hearts.   The Jews did not want to give the produce of the harvest because they wanted to take by force the vineyard to themselves.  They could only do it by killing the son of the owner.  At the end, the parable of Jesus became his own living story.

Like the Israelites, we have our own shares of rebellion against God.  The rejection of Jesus did not end with the Jews.  It goes on and on, not just with the atheists who refuse to believe in God but most especially to believers who continue to idolize little gods in many different forms.  Self-sufficiency and egoism are the new altars by which man elevates himself without the need of God.  The deification of man is the temptation of the secular world when religion is passé and God is only an illusion of the mind. 

“Where has God gone? I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers… God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us?  What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it”? — Nietzsche

Deicide which is the killing of God has always been attributed to the Jews; history will always remember that their leaders killed Jesus Christ! Yet even after they murdered Jesus, the world has seen the rise of Nietzsche and those who want to kill God again and again.  It is because they want to be in control of their lives hence putting aside God being a hindrance to their quest of a new mode of being as Overman or Superman. 

The truth is our arms are too short to reach God if ever we want to kill him and even if we believe that we did kill him, he will live again to give us life.  Nothing can stop God from loving us even if we don’t stop killing him.