Where do you stand?

As this year comes to a close we have an opportunity to evaluate how we have responded to God in the past year. Have we denied our ego, welcomed our struggles, and followed Him and His Church in a life of prayer, fasting, and caring for the poor? Or have we focused on our own agenda, searched always for comforts, and let the poor fed for themselves? The Church has been given to us, as today’s Gospel indicates, for us to be temporary guardians and stewards.

Gospel Reading: Mark 12:1-12 (RSV) - The Lord said this parable, "A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a pit for the wine press, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him, and sent him away empty handed. Again he sent to them another servant, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and him they killed; and so with many others, some they beat and some they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son; finally he sent him to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' But those tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' And they took him and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture: 'The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner; this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes'?" And they tried to arrest him, but feared the multitude, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them; so they left him and went away.

One day, and we don’t really know when that may be, the Lord will return and expect an accounting from us. When that day comes, where will you stand?