20230924 Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings at USCCB.org

We must take the context of Jesus' parable to understand its meaning. The gospel starts out saying, “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard.” As we can see the representation of the vineyard being heaven, the land owner being God, and laborers or workers being us the people who are at different levels of our spiritual faith. We can also see that the typical work hours for a daily worker was 6am to 6pm. So the first group of workers that the landowner calls starts early in the morning at 6am (dawn) which the workers agreed to do for the usual daily wage. Then the landowner goes into the marketplace there after gathering more workers at different times of the day. Now this marketplace is where people stayed to find work as no one wanted them and there was no secure job for them. The landowner sees these people in the marketplace standing idle not doing anything and asks them to come work in his vineyard and he will pay them what is just. We need to take notice here that the landowner is doing this throughout the day going into the marketplace finding workers to join his vineyard with these workers not knowing how much they will get paid, but agreeing to trust what the landowner says is just and fair.

We can see that this parable is not about being unfair as we come to see it at first glance, but when we look closely reading between the lines we see God is generous and opens the door to his kingdom for all who will enter, both those who have labored a life-time for him and those who come at the last hour. As we can see, we are all children of God and no one is greater in his eyes by the amount of work that we do as we can all be saved by Christ. One example I can think of most recently in my life is the beginning of this Confirmation year and we are getting our teaching partners finalized for classes; Jim welcomes our newest confirmation staff member Eddie and says, “come and see”. The welcoming and words are something so simple, but very powerful as we can all be Christ-like to others with heartfelt generosity and compassion. We can all humble ourselves and see that it’s not about being fair or just within our faith, but lifting each other up. Jesus calls each one of us to serve God and his kingdom with joy and to serve our neighbor with a generous spirit. This is how we bring a little bit of heaven to earth. 

The landowner ends saying “Thus, the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.” We need to see that God does not owe us anything. Notice that the landowner did not have to hire these workers, but it is by his grace, compassion and mercy. He knew these people needed work and as a result he hired them. When we serve God we sometimes think because I’ve done this or that God owes me something, but nothing could be further from the truth. God’s blessings aren’t contingent upon how hard we work, but on his goodness. We do not receive blessings, because of how hard we work or we’re more obedient than the other person. God blesses us, because he is a good God. We cannot earn God's gifts and we cannot earn God's favor. We just need to be thankful that God extends a little bit of goodness and mercy towards us. Let us also not look down upon the 5pm workers, because one day we may be in the situation where we are the 5pm worker and not the 6am worker. It’s easy for us who are serving God and feel like we are doing the right thing to look down on other people who we feel like don’t deserve Gods blessings until we are in the opposite situation when we are down and out, yet we are glad that God is generous and offering us his blessing even though we may have not done right or have shown disobedience. Let us remember the ground is all level at the foot of the cross.

Lord Jesus, fill me with your Holy Spirit that I may serve you joyfully and serve my neighbor willingly with a generous heart, not looking for how much I can get, but rather looking for how much I can give.

God is good all the time!

Peace and love,
Vince