Homily for 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A 2017
Isaiah 55:6-9; Philippians 1:20-24.27; Matthew 20:1-16
Introduction
As a student, I did not like group assignments! For some of us would do all the work, but the whole group would get the same grade, even the lazy kids. And so, I can empathise with the feelings of injustice and outrage, felt by the workers in today's gospel, who had worked the whole day in the hot sun, and yet they were being paid the same as those workers who arrived at the eleventh hour.
Scripture and Theology
But then we heard in the first reading, the Lord saying: “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.” And then the gospel parable actually showed how different God’s ways are from our human ways. For unlike me, God is like the Master, who is not only just, but also generous. The workers like me, are envious of the Lord’s generosity. And so, I have to realize that my thoughts about the injustice of a common grade and my outrage about the laziness of my classmates, are not the ways of God.
In the parable, the Master keeps his end of the agreement. He agreed to pay a day’s wage to each of the workers, let’s say $100; and $100 is what he pays them at the end of the day. That is justice: keeping one's word, treating each person as they deserve. We must therefore say that God is just.
But God often does not treat us merely in the ways we deserve; he goes beyond justice and is generous to us. That is why Jesus has the Master pay the late arrivals a day’s wage, for less than a day’s work. He does that probably because as heads of families they too needed the money to feed their families, who prayed: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Thus God is both just and generous.
If God's ways are to temper justice with mercy, fairness with generosity, human beings tend to think only in terms of strict justice that leads to feelings of envy. The early arrivals in the parable, for example, think that they are being treated unjustly, because they are receiving the same wage as the late arrivals. And yet they are wrong, since in truth the Master was just to them, giving them what he owed them. Because they have a limited understanding of what justice is, they think that life is a zero-sum game. If others get more than they deserve, it means they are receiving less. That is why the Master asks them: "What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?"
This parable of Jesus was aimed at the Pharisees. Like I felt outrage at the lazy kids in the group getting a good grade, the Pharisees also felt that it was unfair for Jesus to invite into God’s Kingdom sinners such as tax collectors and prostitutes, as well as the unclean and unworthy foreigners, non-Jews who did not even know God’s law, much less keep it. With this parable Jesus teaches the Pharisees that God’s love is much more generous that their human minds could ever imagine. God has promised eternal life to those who do his will. All those who respond to his invitation and do his will, whether throughout their lives or only at the last hour, shall receive eternal life.
The story is told of a mobster called Dutch Schultz whose criminal enterprise flourished during Prohibition. A son of Jewish immigrants, he carved out a life of crime for himself almost throughout his life. He was as brutal and murderous as mobsters come, perhaps as murderous as ISIS in Iraq and Syria today. Then his life of crime caught up with him. As he emerged from a restaurant one day, he was showered with a hail of bullets.
But before he died, he was taken to hospital where a priest came to him and explained the tenets of the Christian faith to him. Dutch repented of his sins and asked to be baptised. The priest baptised him and soon after that Dutch died.
Some Catholics were angry with the priest for what he did. For as Catholics we believe that baptism washes away all our sins and if somebody should die right after baptism, he will go straight to heaven. And so, people were angry that Dutch got off so easily, that he found a shortcut to heaven. This was not fair to all those good Catholics who went to Mass Sunday after Sunday, who keep the commandments all their life long. “Is this justice?” they asked?
Actually they might even have found some justification for their feelings of outrage in some passages of the gospels themselves, which suggest that there might be differences in the eternal reward. In the parable of the Sower, for example, the seed that fell in rich soil, produced different quantities of fruit: "a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold" (Mt. 13:8). And in the parable of the Talents (Lk. 19:11-27), the two servants who are rewarded for their diligence, receive different rewards, one five cities and another ten cities. Might this suggest then that God actually rewards us differently, depending on how much effort we put in?
St. Augustine has a way of reconciling these passages that point to a diversity of reward and today's passage that shows God's abundant generosity (see Augustine, Sermon 87, 1.5-6). He says that while today's parable is speaking about eternal life itself, those other parables are speaking about the way in which that eternal life will be experienced. You see eternal life is eternal life; there is no extra long eternal life. But since in eternal life, we shall be who we are here, there will be some distinctions based on how we lived life here on earth.
And so, God chooses to do what he wants with eternal life, that is his to give. Dutch, like the workers who came late needed food for their families, also needs eternal life, life with God. Those who have been Christians longer do not need twice the amount of eternal life simply because they were faithful longer. Nor do they receive less, because Dutch received some eternal life as well.
What about us today? Should we not try to change our ways into God's ways, even as we are still on this side of heaven?
Christian Life
Our ways seem to follow Darwin's principle of "Survival of the fittest" rather than Jesus' teaching about God's generosity. Our ways seem to follow the utilitarian philosophy that judges people according to how useful they are, rather than according to their innate human dignity. That is why the weak and lowly in our society have no place, no consideration, because we don't think they deserve it.
- Take unborn babies and the elderly, for example; because they are not fit enough to fight for themselves, because they don't seem to have any immediate usefulness, we throw them away.
- Take immigrants and refugees; because they are the other, they are late arrivals, we dismiss them and tell them that they don't belong here.
- Take the poor and homeless, the mentally impaired and prisoners; what chance do they have in a society that believes only in pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstrap principle, without any consideration for those who, for whatever reason, are not fit enough to do so?
These might be our ways; but they are not the Lord's ways. We must go beyond mere justice which focuses only on what people deserve and learn the Lord's generous ways, in which we give people what they need, without envy.
Conclusion
From the very beginning, Christians have been known for our concern for the weakest members of society, not because they were Christians, but because we are Christians, not because they deserve it, but because they need it. Christians have tried to temper justice with mercy, fairness with generosity like the Lord who has been merciful and generous to us. I hope that we meet the Lord, he will not say: "Have you been envious because I am generous?" but rather, "Well done good and faithful servant; for showing the generosity, I showed you."
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