By Msgr. Jerry Hardy

Choosing To Take A Chance

There’s nothing we like better than a neat deal – signed, sealed, delivered, all under control. What gets to us is the uncooperative/unexpected/disruptive/non-productive circumstance/person. Today’s gospel should therefore hit home with us, because it talks about handling that person or circumstances by taking a chance, another chance, even if you have already taken one before.

The gardener chooses to risk his energy and labor on a tree that is just not producing. “Don’t give up on it,” he says, “Let me have another shot at it.”

So many times Jesus has had to say the same thing to our Father about us. And he keeps giving us another year to produce, to grow, to outgrow. His patience is aimed at our producing.

Like every gift, this one of “another chance” is to be given away. If he has said about us “Don’t give up on them,” then he expects us, in turn, not to give up either. It’s as if he were saying to us, “Don’t give up on yourself, the kids, the establishment, the marriage, the Church, the relationship … give me a chance to do something more with it, through you, with you, in you” …

Implications For Us

1. The willingness to take a chance on a person is also called simply “trust.” The way anyone of us becomes trustworthy is by having people trust us and find us, in the process, worthy of that trust. It’s an empowering risk. It is also a responsibility we have toward each other: to help each other grow by believing each other can, by choosing to support that “can” with a chance. Very important with children, especially when we’ve just had to correct them.

2. Taking chances on people involves taking chances on relationships and institutions. Take a look at some of these that you’ve given up on and see if another chance isn’t called for.