(Homily 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Yr-A)
In
the liturgy of the Word today, the theme around which revolves the paramount
message is the two ways “the way of man” and “the way
of God”. The way of man is manifested in the desire for justice, sometimes
expressed with envy: “They were murmuring against the Master saying: The men
who came last have done only one hour, and you have treated them the same as
us, though we have done a heavy day’s work in all the heat” (Mt.
20:11-12). Afterwards, we see the way of God: “My friend, I am not being
unjust to you; did we not agree on one denarius? Take your earnings and go. I
choose to pay the last comer as much as I pay you” (Mt. 20:13-14).
In the first reading, the prophet makes it glaring: “My thoughts are not your
thoughts and your ways are not my ways, declares Yahweh” (Is. 55:8-9).
Above all, St. Paul in the second reading, indicates what should be the way of
a Christian: “I am caught in this dilemma: I want to be gone and to be with
Christ, and this is by far the stronger desire and yet for your sake to stay
alive in this body is a more urgent need” (Phil. 1:23-24). The
way of the Christian ought to be influenced by God’s will, as it manifests in
time. The overriding message of today emanates from the Gospel and that is
the fact that it’s never too late for God. God offers full wages to
all, whether we have served him all our lives or we have turned to him at the
eleventh hour. However, man may say it’s not fair! Is God fair?
In
the Scriptures, we see some passages that manifest explicitly the divine logic,
the way and thought of God. We can see it in the episode of the sacrifice of Cain and
Abel, the one who found favour in God’s sight was not the first born Cain,
but Abel the second son (Gen.4:1-16). We see it equally in the
context of the anointing of David, David the youngest of the sons
of Jesse was chosen to be the King of Israel (1 Sam 16). Also
for the Incarnation of Jesus, a small and insignificant village was
chosen, Nazareth where no good thing was expected (John 1:46).
God’s thought and way is really different from our ways. In the divine logic
and parlance God often chooses the weak to make them strong, or to
say it with our Mother Mary: “you pulled down the mighty from their seats and
raised the lowly” (Lk. 1:51-52). And in another passage Jesus says
something very emblematic: “the tax collectors and the prostitutes are
going into the Kingdom of God ahead of you” (Mt.21:31). God’s ways and
thoughts are indeed different from man’s. We cannot but remember that experience of St
Thomas Aquinas, on his deathbed, when he was caught up with the realities
of human finitude and the density of the divine mystery, he kindly begged that
all his writings on the nature of God be destroyed, because he was convinced of
their limitations and inadequacy. Even though this request of his was never
carried out, but this remains as a reminder to us that the reality and the
logic of God transcend the human mind and logic. Perhaps, God is indeed
infinitely greater than any concept of him the human mind can form or speculate.
St. Paul upon having a dint of the uniqueness, density and diversity of the
thoughts and ways of God exclaimed: “How rich and deep are the wisdom and the
knowledge of God! We cannot reach to the root of his decisions or his ways. Who
has ever known the mind of the Lord? Who has ever been his adviser?” (Rm.
11:33-34).
The first reading (Isaiah
55:6-9) starts with the invitation to seek the Lord while he may be
found and to call him while he is near. God invites us through the
prophet to enter into communion with him, assuring us of his unfathomable
mercy. He therefore invites the wicked to forsake his ways, and to the
unrighteous his thoughts. It is God himself who speaks to us, and says “my
thoughts are not your thoughts; my ways are not your ways”. The prophet cautioned the community of the
chosen people for operating on purely human scales and standards. He therefore insisted that God's ways and
thoughts were not to be determined by Israel's ways and thoughts. The words of
prophet Isaiah: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your
ways” (vv.8-9) underline the teaching of the parable of the
laborers in the vineyard. The psalmist on his part confesses that “God is great and worthy of all
praise… how good is the Lord… the Lord is just and holy”. This serves as a
preparation of our minds to what is to come in the
Gospel.
Today
Jesus begins the Gospel (Mt.
20:1-6a) with a
story that beats the human imagination, a story that apparently seems unjust.
In that passage, Jesus narrates a story of God’s justice or rather of his mercy
and generosity, a man went out in different times to call labourers for his
vineyard and he bargained with all at the same amount. Later he paid all of
them as they agreed, the same amount, but starting from those that started
late. This gave rise to jealousy, and when the first hired workers complained,
he reminded them of their earlier agreement “did you not agree with me for a
denarius?” “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” The
Psalmist once said that “God is in heaven and does whatever He wills” (Psalm
115:3), and that seems to manifest here in the gesture of the Owner of
the vineyard. With this parable, Matthew intends to portray the nature
of belonging to Christian community and the Kingdom of heaven. Thus, he
acknowledged the leaders and other exemplary Christians in the community. He
however, pointed out the eleventh-hour members of the Christian community who
did not possess the credibility like those others. He thus advised all
to emphasize on God's capacity to give, not humankind's tendency to restrict
and control. Mathew proposed a Jesus who transcended purely human
parameters and standards of reward. He presented Jesus in the image of
his Father: a giver of gifts. In this passage, we see the thoughts of man, the first
arrived workers began to murmur. They were jealous of God’s generosity. Jesus
narrated this parable because of the Pharisees who were scandalized of his
attitude towards those at the margins of their religion, or outsiders like
publicans and sinners. This parable was born out of this negative reaction of
the Pharisees, and thus Jesus intends to let the
Pharisees understand that the Kingdom of heaven is open to all even
those they have written off by their own standards, no special merit for the
order of arrival. In God’s standard the last workers automatically were
made partakers of the Kingdom like the old chosen people (cf. Eph.
3:6).
In
the passage of the Gospel, is as if God calls our attention and says: “Be
careful, for my relation with man is not that of a Boss and his worker or
employee”. For man tends to apply the categories of a contract, of
merit, of reward and of commutative justice to his relation with God.
Little wonder, in the prophecy of Isaiah, Yahweh says: “For the heavens are as
high above earth as my ways are above your ways, my thoughts above your
thoughts” (Is. 55:9). With this, it suffices to say that man
has not entered into the reality of God’s way, the way of freedom and goodness
of the Father. This way of God keeps the “just” man uncomfortable. But
that is why, man has to pass from the mentality and state of the “just” to that
of the “justified”. In Mathew’s Gospel, Jesus used this parable of
the laborers in the vineyard as an invitation to Christians not to crave for
rewards. Even though rewards are not denied, but they are by no means the
aim of toiling for Christ and for the Kingdom of heaven.
The
passage can be divided thus into two: ●first part presents a generous and
sensible man who shows compassion to the needy: that is the thought of God.
●second part presents the thought of man, expressed in the complaint of the
“first arrived workers”. They were envy of God’s goodness. The
landowner narrated by Jesus represents God, the God that cares for all men,
especially those in need. God calls all, all the times, in different
situations, what is needed is to respond to His love. In the case of the
workers of the last hour, the master had compassion on them. It reveals
that God looks at our needs and not on our merits or on our faults. In the history of the chosen people one of the
names of God is the “Just”, but God does not choose this way in His relation
with man. More so, the divine revelation speaks of “God’s justice”,
however, not in commutative terms, but in salvific terms. God is just
in that He justifies us, He saves us from our sins, and He redeems us through
His Son. His justice is imprinted with love and goodness. His justice is
not a contract justice or a justice based on merit or what is ones due. The
last phrase of the Gospel passage is discomforting for the “just”: “Thus the
last will be first, and the first, last” (Mt. 20:16). For the
justice and way of God are distant and distinct from man’s.
The
first workers complained and came up against one of life’s realities and
perturbing assertion: It’s not fair, life is not fair. So many times
and in different circumstances life leaves us feeling cheated. In fact, think
about the couple who pray for a child, spend thousands on fertility specialists
and drugs, still they have no baby of their own. Then even as they try to adopt
they enter into a long waiting list, maybe all to no avail. Meanwhile, a young
boy and a young girl make one mistake and one-time, the girl ends up pregnant.
Then the couples lament, it’s not fair. In all, the truth is that life
is not meant to be fair. Some people are battling with cancer or heart
disease for instance, while others no. Some are rich while others are poor. In
fact, an existential lesson we learn early in life is that life is not fair.
Then here comes the question of questions: Is God fair? I will
answer in the negative, No, God is not fair, God is generous. God is merciful,
loving and forgiving. God goes beyond being fair, He is a Giver of
gifts.
The
passage ends with the intervention of the owner of the vineyard: why should you
be envious because i am generous? The question of Jesus and the entire
episode reveals that while justice measures merit, goodness and generosity
measure the need. The Landowner was generous to the last hour workers
because the wages of one hour work will not be able to take care of their
families; upon this consideration he paid them the full salary of the
day. The parable is therefore not a description of an act of
arbitrariness, but the gesture of a man animated by goodness, generosity and
full of sensibility towards the poor. That’s how God is! This is what Jesus
was intending to communicate by means of this parable, that God is so good that
He even makes publicans and prostitutes participants of His Kingdom.
In
all, the prophecy of Isaiah in the first reading underlines the teaching of the
Parable of the laborers in the vineyard. And therein, God’s justice is
characterized by mercy and love. We humans are always in search of justice and fairness, but today
Jesus shows us the other side of the coin. Jesus shows us the divine justice
that transcends the human justice. Mercy and love are immanent in
divine justice, while merit and fairness are immanent in human justice. In
Hebrew “tsedeka” stands for both justice and mercy, and
it could be interpreted that in God Mercy and Justice are interwoven. We
should therefore, learn from God, how not to allow anybody to put a limit to
our goodness and generosity and to treat people not as they deserve, but with
love and kindness. Sometimes we may get angry and ask why things work well
even for the person we know that does wrong, rather the right attitude is to
thank God for his mercy and goodness, for who are you to question God’s
generosity? Sometimes, we act like the “first arrived workers”, who
murmur and lament when things are working out for others, rather we should
learn how to appreciate God’s goodness to others.
The
second reading (Phil.
1:20-24; 27a) presents St.
Paul as a man who later in his life comprehended a bit God’s ways and thoughts,
and decidedly followed in His path, even while in prison. Today we shift from St. Paul’s letter to the
Romans, which we have been reading for several Sundays now, to his letter to
the Philippians, which was written the time Paul was imprisoned. In our present
passage, Paul faces the thoughts of a possible martyrdom. Indeed, the
passage presents the apostle’s meditation on the prospects of life and death.
He found himself in a state of confusion. However, whether he dies or lives
Paul was convinced that Christ will be honoured in his body, either by his
labors for the Gospel or by actual martyrdom. St. Paul believed that his
martyrdom will perhaps contribute more effectively than his apostolic labors,
to the fulfillment of God’s designs in the salvation history. Going back to our
earlier reflection on reward, we can as well link Paul’s reflection on
martyrdom with the parable of the Gospel. For like the disciples in Mathew,
Paul left all and followed Jesus, bearing his apostolic witnesses in and
through suffering. As such, it could be tempting for the apostle to
crave for reward when he suffers martyrdom. Although, one may argue that
his longing “to be with Christ” is reward oriented, but Paul resisted that
temptation. In the end St. Paul tells us the only necessary thing: “Only let
your manner of life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ” (v.27a).
Above
all, in the first reading, we heard God say: “My ways are not your ways.” And
the event that took place in the Gospel evidenced that fact. The men who worked
all day long were paid a day’s wage, and the last hired worked an hour and
received the same full day’s wage. Each of them was paid not what he
earned but what he needed to feed his family. God is a Giver of gifts, He is
generous. We need to imitate God’s generosity and loving kindness.
Today in this Eucharistic celebration we have gathered around the altar of our
Lord Jesus Christ and with humility like those last arrived workers of the
parable, we are going to receive unmerited and undeserved blessings and favors,
and we shall go home full of joy because of God’s generosity and kindness
towards us. Jesus
our Brother and Savior help us to worship you with a sincere heart and a generous
spirit. And May the power of your Word dispel from our minds and hearts the
tendency of the “first arrived workers”. Help us O Lord to be less of self and
more of God. Amen!!!
(Fr. Vitus M.C. Unegbu, SC)
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