Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Is 55: 6-9, Ph 1:20c-24, 27a, Mt 20: 1-16a
Introduction-God’s people were in exile in Babylon, they were desperately depressed because they had lost everything. They were certain that they had also lost God’s love because of their sin. Today in the first reading we hear God’s prophet Isaiah assure them that it is never too late to return to Jesus. For God says: “my thoughts are not your thoughts nor are your ways my ways.” Let us ask God for forgiveness for our smallness of heart, while at the same time opening ourselves to the goodness of God.
Imagine working an entire day for the same pay as a person who worked only for one hour. Our sense of Justice would be outraged. Seen through the filter of the world-its concerns and rules of fairness-it is easy to side with the laborers in this parable who thought that, since they had worked more, they would be paid more. It’s fair. It’s right. Those first hirelings started about 6.00 A.M. They toiled nearly twelve hours in the heat and sun for one denarius, a silver Roman coin valued at a day’s work. The last laborers worked about an hour late in the day and received same wage.
It’s natural to think this way, but what we fail to consider is that Jesus was telling a parable about the kingdom of God. Fairness isn’t the issue. None of us deserves anything from God; none of us could ever cause him to be indebted to us. Everything we have, even life itself, is a free gift graciously bestowed on us. In serving him, we receive much more that we ever give him. Working in the vineyard, in God’s kingdom, is not a burden but a privilege! If we have converted to Catholicism probably 30 years ago, we are not unfortunate or ill-used; If we have converted late, we are favored too!
St. Teresa of Avila expressed it this way: “We should forget the number of years we have served him, for the sum total of all we can do is worthless by comparison with a single drop of the blood which the Lord shed for us. The more we serve him, the more deeply we fall into his debt” (life, 39).
The second reading is from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. Saint Paul tells us first about his own experience of giving himself for others. Then he reminds us: “Conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ.” Do we live in a way that our life give witness to God’s love for others? Do we have empathy on others? Do we forgive others even if they continue to seek to harm us?
Jesus’s audience knew exactly what he was getting at. The vineyard was the kingdom of God. Those who had been working all day long were the Pharisees and the Jews in general. The eleventh-hour people were sinners and the Gentiles.
McCarthy observed that Jesus was saying that God was offering the kingdom to sinners and Gentiles on equal terms with the Jews. The Jews declined it. They didn’t think it was fair; they thought they deserved preferential treatment. They assumed that God worked on the merit system. According to this system, you must earn your graces by hard work. And here was Jesus saying that God does not work on the merit system at all (299).
What then is Jesus’ story about? It is about generosity. ‘Are you envious because I am generous? This is the point in the story. The story is about generosity, but not ordinary generosity. It’s about a generosity unlike anything we have ever known. We are called to imitate it; to make our way of dealing with one another more like God’s way of dealing with us.
Once God has touched our hearts, and warmed them with his love, we will begin to love in our turn. And then we will truly know what God is like. God is love.
Peace and all good!
Fr. Valery Burusu
Parochial Administrator