Twenty Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

As to the Gospel parable, who would not loudly complain if they worked all day and were paid the same wage as someone arriving an hour before closing?
So looking for a show hands how many people think that that this parable is unjust?  After all, surely if you have worked all day you deserve more than people who have worked an hour!    Life isn’t fair at times.

Another  interesting question to consider by a show of hands how many of us associate ourselves with the group who have labored all day, not with the last group that have been indulged.

The parable starts by inviting us to look on ourselves as workers hired to work in a vineyard.   The image is valid.  It is a touching way of understanding our vocation as parent, teacher, friend, priest or member of this parish community.  They are all forms of service, and toilsome ones at that, in a heavy day’s work in all the heat.  Similarly, the staggered hirings during the course of the day are a powerful symbol of how the same vocation turns out differently for different people.

Then as the gospel parable goes on, it takes a radically new turn which is the real message of the parable.  We are not the landowners’ hired servants but his friends, free people, not hired by anyone.  Look on God as a hirer of servants and we misunderstand him completely.  So too, the rewards we receive for our service are not earnings but gifts we receive with humble gratitude.

By making the journey from God as hiring us as his servant to a God who is our friend or to a God who loves us, we then discover the wonder of love, human and divine.   Lord, we thank you for the people in our lives who taught us that true love is always generous and helped us move beyond possessiveness and envy:

• Parishioners who do more than their fair share in building our faith community
• Family members who are always present to us in our time of need
• First responders who always seem ready to do what is needed.

They were Jesus for us, teaching us the kind of person you are and leading us to enter into your unconditional love, and to be generous ourselves in welcoming every member of our human family.

Lord, for too many people, our modern culture is ruled by envy, not generosity, and is tearing our human family apart.  Too many people think that life’s rewards should be calculated on the basis of work alone.

We must learn to measure by God’s yardstick  -- one of generosity and forgiveness.  Consider the ways God has been all-heart to us.  We are the ones who at times have worked just one hour in the vineyard.  We are a blessed people.  We are a forgiven people.  May we never forget that all is a gift of God.  With God’s yardstick, we confess the times that in our smallness of spirit we thought that generosity is a sin.

Lord, we thank you for the times when you give us a glimpse of your kingdom, invite us to enter into your generosity and set us free from the bondage of envy.  Forgive us for when we grumble at you for the way you share out your blessings, for comparing ourselves with others who we think had things easier.

We thank you for the people of our lives who have taught that the root of our problem is being calculating instead of welcoming life as your gift.   Lord we pray that your church will be the presence of Jesus in the world showing us a vision of your kingdom marked by generosity, not envy.  Help us to better understand that circumstances permit some people to work one hour and may we embrace that they deserve a full reward.  Help us to embrace God’s grace in people’s lives.

The God we believe in is not a bookkeeper who dishes out what we deserve.  Rather, God is a grace-filled benefactor who gives and gives and gives.  Rather than being all-fair, God is all-heart,

Today’s reading are an invitation for us to go looking for God’s forgotten ones -- To treat them not with a human standard of fairness, but with a holy abandon of love, compassion and un-earned generosity.

As we now transition into the mystery of the Eucharist,  we assemble around the Lord’s table and we bless God for His forgiveness, mercy, generosity and love.  He has sent us His Son to bring us pardon, to transform us from being isolated individuals into the community of His love, and He gives us the hope of everlasting life.  So, as God’s holy people, we recall that God is merciful and forgiving; God is life-giving and generous; and that God is love.

Have a blessed day!