Come back to me

Come back to me Izunwaonu

 

What more do you expect of me? Is there some reason why you continue to reject me? My dear, what more can I do that I have not done? I love you so much, why can't you love me too? I love to make you happy, I love to make you smile. There is nothing more lacerating than to be abandoned by someone you love. I'm supposed to be remembering that I love you and now I find out you didn't love me.  I ask for a return of love and I wish you do what my heart is saying... "Love me as I love you"

Yes, we feel angered when it seems to us we are rejected by the someone we love and we feel put down and less than human. How many of us do not feel rejected when our loved one forgets our birthday even if we did not directly say it should be remembered?

As we journey through life, we encounter seemingly rejections especially from the people we love, and Jesus was no exception. In today's Gospel periscope (Matthew 21:33-43), God has done everything possible for us by sending his only son but in return, we have refused to love Him back. If the truth about us were brought to the surface, if we dig deep enough and check our credentials, we reason, we would find out that we reject God's love.

God laments through Isaiah in the first reading... "What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done?" (cf. Isaiah 5:1-7). God's promise is that we will all sing a new song and God is constantly, ceaselessly calling us back to Himself. It's the same song that God's always been singing: love and grace, love and grace. Each of us is a song of God sung into existence out of the love of our God who is Song.

A time will come when we will be answerable for the life we lived, the way we have carried out the task God has entrusted us with. Let us be the nation that produces the good fruits. Let us not offer the Lord the sour grapes of selfishness, unfaithfulness and neglect of our duties. He wants us to respond to his appeal to come back to him and bear good fruit.

Happy Sunday.

Yours in Christ

Izunwaonu