TWENTY-FIFTH (25TH) SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME A (Isaiah 55:6-9; Psalm145:2-3, 8-9, 17-18; Philippians 1:20-24, 27; Matthew 20:1-16). God remains God and continues to work in mysterious ways beyond our human imaginations and judgement, especially as revealed in the depth of his extraordinary compassion, kindness and generosity. As the architect of the universe who made and holds it in being, he continues to care for it like the patient and generous landowner. Being so he planted and watered the house of Israel as his own, and even though over and again Israel failed to yield good fruits, often taken over by aliens, he never abandoned her in faithfulness to his promises to make her fruits fill the whole earth (cf. Is. 5:7; 27:2-5; Ps. 80:9-20; Amos. 9:15; Hos. 14:5-10). As the landowner whose vineyard is the kingdom and who wills that this kingdom extends to the ends of the earth for the salvation of all, God (before and after Christ) calls and continues to call in labourers into his vineyard, making room for everybody, the time notwithstanding. The fact of no discrimination between the first, later and last labourers is so consoling and indicative of his unbounded generosity, for without that the first may grow too weak and the last not welcomed. Instead he insisted that the first will even become the last and vice versa, but really what is important is the fact of even being called and counted by the Lord. It shows the dignity of labour as the Lord was willing to put to work those who desired to work but had none, to show that both our labour and the willingness to work are gifts of God, a pointer to a greater unmerited/unearned gift viz salvation. His generosity is revealed in the willingness to pay all what is needed for survival and not necessarily based on how long you have worked – a challenge to working generously and respectfully extended a generous assistance to those who have no work. The workers hired at dawn are the Israelites, our predecessors in the faith, to whom he first offered his covenant; those hired later in the day are the Gentiles, we, the non-Israelites, who, without and until the coming of Christ, were strangers to his covenant and promise (Eph. 2:11-13). Yet God in his great equal generosity offers the same wages to all; the same saving blessings promised to those he first called, the Israelites, will be given-paid to those called last, the rest of the nations. While the grumbling of the early comers is understandable following human standard of justice, God makes it clear that he was never unjust for he dealt with them as agreed (in fact he truly shows what justice means here), his way not being our way and his justice not being without mercy. God shows what radical justice is, care for all, keeping to agreement, cheating no one, respectfully rewarding hard work and abundantly providing for the needy. This is preferential option for the poor which looks unfair on the material level, but when wisely viewed spiritually makes one only humble, after all we all receive abundantly from God more than what we deserve justifiably or what is due to us. Yes some things might appear logically not reasonable and commonsensical, but we err when we think that God must always fit into our human logical categories and constructs, for he seems sometimes to follow a different logic. This complaint of unfairness by the early workers only reminds us of the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son while the generosity fits the compassion of the father (Luke 15:29-30). Though God owes us nothing, he freely gives and provides for us abundantly and equally, and even our good actions (which tempt us often to think that we deserve more rewards) and other favours enjoyed are purely out of God’s gratuitous benevolence. While hard work deserves reward, favour isn’t a simple summation of hard work, otherwise those who labour more would have be better blessed – a fact that is not true in life. Gods abundant mercy, generosity and gifts cannot be quantified, bargained for or simply scrambled for in that way with different rules for different people, for the real gift is being one with him as a worker would be with the landowner or the elder son with the Father of the prodigal son, except the one with the gift-giver does not even know the gift he/she has. The willingness of the landowner to go out himself seeking labourers, instead of they looking for him, and even going several times, is instructive of God’s initiating willingness to seek us out no matter how ‘late’ it may appear. He never tires of searching out for and reinstating us in grace. We may experience conversion at different times in our life: while it is a gift to be with the landowner earlier in one’s life, it is no less a gift to know God later in life, as what is most important at the end is to be with the landowner throughout life, till the end, the pay time. This is how many of us come to know God, after wallowing in sin yet he doesn’t count it against us if we call on him. Isaiah tells us to seek him when he is near and while he is to be found knowing that his cheerfulness and forgiving mercy await us, for he is near to those who call upon him (Responsorial Psalm), compassionate to all his creatures. Paul himself, like St. Augustine, a seeming latecomer to the vineyard knows that what is important is not how long you have been in the vineyard as the fact of being there, for he says that alive or dead, he is more interested in living to please God. Though he would love to be with him but the labour in the vineyard, for the salvation of others, compels him to remain. In the same way we are called to continue to labour in God’s vineyard, in different capacities, serving others, conducting ourselves worthily in our sincere effort to bring all to the praise of his name. This means we must not irresponsibly delay our working in the vineyard only to hope that the last will be first, for the eleventh hour converts or labourers are not necessarily loafers who want to take advantage of the Lord’s mercy. Indeed the people hired later in the parable seem to have been busy all day, longing and looking for work except that “no one has hired us” and not out of laziness. So the first need not think that their labour is in vain and wished they were last in order to become first. Not at all for intentionally idle latecomers may not always be fortunate – not to know the Lord or not to have been hired isn’t itself a desirous or sweet experience. Never forget that the Lord will reward each one according to his deed; Jesus was only stressing how salvation is a gift not earned and how there is room and hope of salvation for all, irrespective of when we converted. Most importantly never regret your time knowing God, wishing if you had enough time to ‘enjoy’ mundanely like the rest of humanity; you are you, you are important and loved by God as you are. Whether you were hired in the third, ninth or eleventh hour, what should concern you is the fact of your present state of relationship with the Master of the vineyard, listening obediently to his command “you too come into the vineyard” for “the harvest is rich but the labourers are few.” Like Paul, we pray that Christ will be magnified in our bodies, whether by life or by death in a way that our fruitful labour, invigorated and sustained by the Lord, will be beneficial to our brothers and sisters while we remain safe in the Lord (cf. Phil. 1:20c-24). As Yahweh’s chosen people, we are to seek and come close to him as he hears those who are near to him. Knowing that he is “rich in forgiving” we are to strive to abandon our evil ways and seek him, not taking his mercy for granted. We must know that our all-loving God is free to dispense his gifts as he seems fit and so eschew envy which St. Thomas Aquinas described as “sorrow at another’s good fortune” for why are we envious of God’s generosity to others which we already enjoy? Divine generosity isn’t divine injustice for justice does not preclude generosity, except we use purely earthly logic for God. It is interesting that today’s gospel follows Jesus’ reply to Peter over their reward for following him as disciples, a chapter that ended like a verse in the parable: “But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first” (Mt. 19:30; 20:16). The message is that he has made salvation free instead of making the attainment of heaven much more difficult or demanding impossibly extraordinary things yet the rewards is no less exceedingly and undeservedly great. In the ordinary discharge of our duties we experience and witness to this, especially in our dealings with one another. Moreover, all these we also witness at Mass: the gratuitousness of God, the forgiveness of and generously praying for one another, the pledge of eternal glory, the conversion of bread and wine, our given works of human labour and the assurance of our salvation in Christ, who welcomes even latecomers. Like our salvation, the Mass is a great gift, but what we make out of it is our own making for a gift truly becomes an appreciated gift if only appropriated or well accepted by the recipient. Ask yourself what the Mass is to you, what you make out of it and how satisfied or not you are as you depart today. God bless you and Happy Sunday.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 05:53:18 +0000
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