Year A / Ordinary Time / Week 25 / Sunday
Readings: Isaiah 55.6-9 / Responsorial Psalm: 145 (R/v 18a) / Philippians 1.20c-24, 27a / Matthew 20.1-16
Isn’t it crazy that even though some of us here are longtime parishioners and others are first timers we accept each other at this Eucharist without envy or jealousy? Crazy too that no matter how long, or short we have served in this parish—or, even, not at all—we celebrate our equal right to a place at Lord’s altar? We don’t ask who’s more entitled to be here, nor do we ask anyone to leave. Instead, you and I acknowledge each other’s worthiness by worshipping together.
Isn’t it crazy that after God has nourished us equally with God’s Word and God’s daily bread today, we will return to our homes, schools and work places to find ourselves—for one reason or other—green with envy of those we interact with, now and again? I suspect that our past record of human relationships tells us that we are prone to such behavior whenever we are overlooked for another.
Yes, it is crazy that you and I who are capable of worshipping as equals in Church are equally capable of interacting with others in the world in unChristian ways. Who amongst us here has not resented others who are treated equally as we are? Or, begrudged their better accomplishments? Or, even acted self-righteously and defensively about our rights, often self-centred in nature?
None of us sets out to act in these ways but we have done so. We probably turned into angry, disgruntled and disappointed green-eyed monsters when we were unfairly and unjustly treated. I would like to propose that these experiences allow us to empathize with the longer-serving laborers who grumble in today’s gospel passage. We can understand the outrage these laborers felt. They had worked harder and longer than the latecomers, but they got the same wage, nothing more. Don’t we feel their pain that a grave injustice has been done against them?
Jesus challenges us to think otherwise: “the last will be first, and the first will be last.” This is not logic or commonsense as the world knows it. It rebuts business ethics and labor practices that warn us against equal pay for unequal work. What this is instead is commonsense about God’s commonwealth: everyone is entitled to share in God’s love. God loves us in unique and special ways because we are individual but God’s love is equally shared with all. Does this confuse you?
If Jesus’ parable about equal rights for unequal work disturbs you, then give thanks. Give thanks because by challenging us to turn our views about fairness and unfairness upside down, Jesus is daring us to change our image of God and of our relationship with God.
As people of faith, Jesus’ parable should agitate us to ask, “Is that image of God I have been taught—that God’s love is reward for how much I work for God—really all God is?” If God has freely—and more importantly, already—poured out his saving love for us and our redemption in Jesus, then, how can God be a calculative judge, fixated only on our sins, and ever ready to punish us if the sum total of our lives doesn’t add up?
Today, Jesus wants to shock us out of this common misunderstanding of God. Out of this distortion that God demands that we have to do things to please God and so earn God’s love. Out of this misperception of God others have burdened us with; they mean well but they have myopically reduced God’s love to an economic exchange. Through their teaching, preaching and living, they present God rewarding only those who follow rules and regulations. Pope Francis repeatedly challenges this way of being, living and acting as Christians: this way is not in keeping with God’s character or purpose. For Francis, the good news is that God’s heart is so much bigger than we can ever imagine: it is so large, so deep, so expansive that it cannot contain God’s mercy because the very nature of this mercy always pours itself out to save us all, again and again and again.
Jesus uses this parable for us to see God beyond our need to calculate every event in terms fairness and unfairness. He is inviting us to catch a glimpse of the utter limitless generosity of God. This is Jesus’ dare to us today: seize it and appreciate once again how God really measures our worth. In God’s eyes, our worthiness cannot be measured by how much we do, how much we earn in pay or how well we perform, or by any of our usual measures—status, popularity, social achievement, wealth, looks.
God’s measure is the goodness of the human heart. We see this goodness in the hired workers in today's gospel and in all of us gathered here; it is in everyone who always strives to hear and to respond to God’s invitation. Our coming here Sunday after Sunday witnesses to this goodness in each one of us. No matter whether we are first in the queue or the last in line, God's boundless belief in our goodness is why God loves us into salvation and fullness of life with Godself.
God does not understand what is fair and what is unfair as the world does. Rather, God works with a different reality, in a different direction, and by different standards. So, who deserves to be rewarded by God? The one who comes to God and works with God without any expectation of wages or benefits, or even the promise of something better to come. This is the one who just comes—comes for no other reason than this enlightened realization: that she is already privileged to share God’s life and work just by coming to God. Such a person is like the latecomer to the vineyard.
As we wind down for the year, our Easter enthusiasm to live the faith better might have waned by this time. We need encouragement on our Christian pilgrimage home. Jesus’ teaching that God’s love has no reservation and knows no bounds can be our needed fuel for this journey. Like every good teacher who has cared for us, Jesus wants you and I to know that our ongoing participation in God’s thoughts and ways is how we can grow into our salvation.
We can only do this however when we dare to completely lose ourselves in something we enjoy doing; this is enough reward in itself. Following Jesus must be like this; it is about the privilege of experiencing God’s love in his good company. Following Jesus cannot be that burdensome anxiety of scrupulously checking off “yes, done this; no, didn’t do that” on a list of do’s and don’t’s. This can never be the basis of a good friendship, with God or with anyone else.
Isn’t it crazy then that Jesus wants to remind us about this, no matter if we are here today a little more saintly this week or a lot more sinful than last week. I believe Jesus does this because he recognizes something profoundly beautiful and ever present in the midst of the craziness we each are—that person capable of living the Christian life and equally capable of not living it well. This is what Jesus recognises in us: that we are intrinsically good and worthy of growing into God’s likeness. This is what captivates him about us, whom he calls friends. He is driven, I sincerely believe, by a craziness for us. His craziness is his excitement that values each one of us for the good potential we have for change and growth.
My sisters and brothers, can you and I be equally crazy to believe this about Jesus and to let him teach us how to receive our equal and fair share of God’s goodness not alone but with someone else, not just today but always?
Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
photo: Internet (careergym. com)
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