25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle A
September 24, 2017
Saint Mary
Parish, Pylesville 8:00 AM
Saint Matthew
Parish, Baltimore 11:00 AM
Two Lessons
One
thing that probably all of us dislike is a lack of fairness.
We want
everyone to be treated fairly. We want
fair pay, fair games, fair trials, and on it goes.
So, we may
agree with the guys in the gospel story who have worked all day long. They are upset when the landowner pays those
who have worked just one hour or a few hours a full day’s pay.
In truth,
the landowner is being fair because he pays the full-day workers exactly what
they agreed upon and that was the going rate-of-pay. He simply chooses to be generous with those
who have worked fewer hours.
Now, we
have to say that Jesus is not giving a lesson here on good management or
compensation practices – that’s not the point!
Instead, he is teaching us lessons first about God and then about
ourselves.
Lesson 1: About God
We can
summarize Jesus’ lesson about God in the word: “generous.”
To
those who have worked all day and are complaining about what he has paid the
others, the landowner says: “Are you
envious because I am generous?” Jesus
is presenting the landowner as an image of God.
The
idea is that God is absolutely generous in his love for us. In another passage of Scripture, Saint John
says this so beautifully: “Love consists
in this: not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us.”
So, God
first loves us, each of us, personally. God
takes the initiative in loving.
God’s
love is a purely and simply a gift. We
don’t merit it or earn it.
To us,
this is counter-cultural. Our experience
is that we have to merit or earn practically everything.
But
this isn’t true when it comes to the love of God. One of our Catholic writers puts it this way.
“We don’t change to earn God’s love; instead,
we change because of God’s love.” The idea is that it is God’s love within us that moves us
to grow and change.
And, as
if that isn’t enough, God is also so generous that he treats us all in the same
way – like those in today’s parable. So
maybe we come to God or come back to God later in life.
But
amazingly, God treats us as the landowner treats the late workers. In some way, God loves us all equally.
It may
be difficult to wrap our heads around this but we have to remember that God is “generous” – that’s the key word, “generous.”
God gives his love as a gift and we don’t earn it or merit it.
Lesson 2: About Us
The second lesson
really flows from the first.
It is also summed up
in one word and that word is “envious.” The landowner says to the all-day workers: “Are you envious because I am generous?”
I and probably
each of you, we human beings can be envious.
Envy is the sin of being upset at someone else’s good fortune.
Maybe a fellow
employee gets a promotion; maybe a family member gets named in an inheritance; maybe
someone gets publicly recognized for doing some charitable work – these are the
kinds of things that can make us feel envious – resentful, begrudging, even hateful.
Notice in the
gospel what leads to the envy. The
day-long workers compare themselves with the part-day workers and their
pay.
It’s the comparing
that leads to the envy. So Jesus wants
us to stop comparing ourselves to others in this way.
Instead, he wants
us to focus on God’s generous love for us.
He wants us to be aware of the gifts God has given us – like our school,
our job, our family, our friends, our home and on it goes.
Instead of
comparing ourselves to others who seem to have something we don’t have and
becoming envious, Jesus wants us to look at ourselves and God’s generous love
for us and be thankful.
And that’s the key
point. Being thankful is the opposite of
being envious.
Conclusion
So, two words: “generous” and “envious.”
God is amazingly
generous to each one of us. If we
remember this and are thankful, we will not become envious.
