Modern societies have moved away from communal ownership of land and people. The saying, ‘it takes a village to rear a child,’ is slipping into history. Private property is being enthroned as a new indisputable. And it is true that ownership is a way of imprinting human personality on nature. If you own a farm or a house you can work it or arrange it as you want. Ownership brings motivation.
But we also know that we are only owners ‘for the time being’. True ownership is the ability to pass on just as ‘possession’ of the ball on the football field makes no sense unless it is to pass and pass again. There is ambiguity about ownership. True ownership is for giving away. We possess our life in losing it. Our cultures teach us that but we still want to ‘own’ things even if we don’t do anything with them. ‘Indigenisation’, for example, becomes a god in itself. What you actually do with it once you have it is not part of the script.
Jesus found this among his people. They were only interested in owning their traditions and using their knowledge of the details as a way of control and maintaining their power. He drew on a traditional image from Isaiah 5; ‘my friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.’
He expected it to yield grapes but all he got was sour grapes. Jesus develops this into a picture of the kingdom of God. It had been promised to his people but they were just sitting on it and not using it. So, he says, ‘it will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.’ (Matthew 21)
Family, society, church – all can become inward looking, intent only on their own security, status and power. When asked what kind of church he looked forward to, Pope Francis said we need ways that “will transform everything so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channelled for the evangelisation of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.” The church must lose herself in order to find herself.
And this is true for all of us. We possess ourselves in giving ourselves away. Every flower speaks this truth to us.
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