By Fr Clement Baffoe SVD

In my ministry, I have had a few families talk to me about their challenges, mostly with their children. Most often some parents come to me distraught and needing answers. Do I pretend to have the answers to their questions and challenges? No! However, being a priest I often try to let them understand their problems with their children from the biblical perspective. In this reflection, I would like to use two biblical illustrations that perhaps might help you as well think of your own family problems broadly? Do I intend to answer your questions? No! However, if at the end of this reflection you find some meaning or comfort, we will together raise our hands and say: thanks be to God.

I begin by acknowledging that there are many parents who fail in their roles of raising their children. The parents who were supposed to be role models and first teachers to their children sometimes fail in their responsibilities. Having said this, what explanation can we offer the parents reading this reflection and the parents next door who did everything possible and made the best efforts in their power to raise their child or children, but feel they have been unsuccessful? Let us now pause for a moment and reflect on this passage from the book of the Prophet Isaiah.

“My beloved had a vineyard
    on a very fertile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones,
    and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
    and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
    but it yielded wild grapes.”(Is. 5:1bff)

The verses following those just quoted make it clear that God was the owner of the vineyard and Israel was the vineyard. This parable for me sums up the struggles of some parents. It’s obvious from the parable that the landowner worked hard and gave all the necessary protection and conditions for growth; however, we are told the yielded grapes were wild, in other words sour. Do we blame the farmer for the wild grapes? No way! The farmer did his utmost best and it’s hard in this parable to account for why the grapes turned wild. We might call it one of the mysteries of life. Do we blame parents who suffer like the landowner? Do we blame the parents whose children are substance addicts? Do we blame the innocent parents whose children have left the Church? Like God and Israel, most of these parents have been the best of parents, it’s just that they didn’t earn what they had expected from their labour. Good parents can bring forth good children; however, being a good parent doesn’t necessarily ensure this outcome. Even though our efforts are needed, we should at the same time understand that it’s only by grace that children turn out as good people. Parents who suffer the waywardness of their children might be the best people to help us understand how God really feels in Isaiah 5 when God’s vineyard yielded sour grapes.

Having taken the first parable from the Old Testament, I would like to complement it with another from the New Testament.  “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away.” (Mt. 13: 24ff). This parable originally talked about the Kingdom of heaven and the patience of God. On the other hand, for the purposes of this reflection, the parable is suitable. From the parable, it’s indicative that the sower sowed good seed; but in their absence, the enemy infested the farm with weeds. I know parents who have done everything possible to protect their children from bad company. But what then happens when the children are at school? What happens when they join their peers for an outing or a party? And again, in this technological age, what happens to kids when they are on tik tok, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp etc. It’s a different world that has the full potential of sowing weeds in our wheat farm. The peer pressure and the various media platforms are so overwhelming that kids are even sometimes exposed to what their parents do not know. Do we blame good parents for their children’s failures, addictions to substances? Do we just blame children’s crimes on their parents? From my conversations with some parents, I always get the sense that they planted good seeds but then the enemy came later and sowed weeds among the wheat.

Whereas the parable of the wild grapes is a mystery since no one explains how the grapes turned sour, the parable of the weeds looked like a calculated attempt. Some parents reading this reflection might begin to think of their children’s problems differently. I write this reflection not to answer people’s many questions but at least to give some hope and that if you have good children, do not simply think that the person next door is a bad parent because of their children’s problems. It is just by grace. Since we have most often looked at these problems from a sociological perspective, I propose the above two parables as ways to maybe understand our children’s challenges biblically especially after we have done everything possible but have still failed. May St Monica intercede for all parents especially those whose children have gone wayward despite their good efforts and intentions.

IMAGE: Pixabay.