Is God Unfair? -- The Parable of the Generous Land owner

Homily: Sunday 25^th Week Ordinary Time _September 18, 2011  

1^st Reading: Isaiah 55: 6–9 – My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways says the Lord.

Gospel: Luke 8: 4-15 – Parable of the Generous Land owner or Sour Grapes in the Vineyard

I couldn’t help but think that if Jesus told the Parable of the Generous Landowner today, he would have been approached by lawyers for the AFL, CIO, or the Teamsters demanding to know the name and address of this landowner so they could file a lawsuit for unfair labor practices.  We as humans are all about fairness.  It goes against our human nature to accept that life is unfair.   We are put here by God.  We are told that God loves us.  We are told that He calls us to be gentle, compassionate, and kind to others.  We are reminded often that He wants us to pray, and go to Church, and to be faithful.  Yet we see examples everyday of good people who do all these things who suffer and not so good people who don’t.   We wonder why bad things happen to this person, and not to that person.   We may think we deserve more than we’ve gotten, while others didn’t deserve what they got.  We may wonder why life is so unfair, and perhaps at times even dare to think that maybe God is unfair.   These questions are understandable when you consider that they come from a human perspective.  We tend to equate fairness with justice.  They are not the same thing.  Yes life is unfair but we can’t think of God in terms of fairness.  God is abundantly generous and his ways are not our ways and his thoughts are so far above our thoughts that we cannot begin to see how His wisdom is at work when we deal with issues of fairness.

            In telling the story of the Generous Landowner, Jesus was not only painting a picture how God thinks and how He deals with His people but Jesus was also pushing the buttons of the self-righteous.  The chosen ones who resented that Jesus offered the same opportunity for forgiveness and salvation to gentiles and pagans.  In the story the laborers who were hired at the beginning of the day symbolized the Jews who had heard God’s word early on, and followed the commandments and the law their whole life.  The laborers whom the landowner gave work to later in the day symbolized those non-Jews, that is pagans and sinners who heard the Gospel later in life, but when they heard it they embraced it.    The Landowner as we know symbolizes God who out of His generosity pays the same amount to those who only worked a few hours as those who worked all day.   And as we hear, the laborers who worked all day cried foul and accused the Landowner of being unfair even though they had negotiated and agreed on the pay they would receive before they began.

So it obvious that the story symbolizes how generous God is, but what else are we to take from this, that God is not fair?  Not at all, what the Lord is telling us is that what God offers is not payment for doing good or working hard.  What He is offering is salvation and eternal life.  We can not earn these.  We could never do enough in our lifetime to be deserving of what God offers us.  These are the gifts freely given by the God who loves us.  These gifts are the same for all and available to all.   And we show our appreciation and acceptance of the gift by following the example of the one who earned the gifts for us.   And though God offers the same gift, that is eternal life to everyone, the way we come to receive it differs from person to person.  We are all journeying toward the same goal from a different direction, under different circumstances, and with different life experiences.

A second point of the story is the plight of the day laborers.  These were unskilled workers who during Jesus time went out every day to the market place looking for work so that they could feed their family.  They literally lived from day to day and from job to job.  If they did not work, their family did not eat.   So by paying each worker a full day’s wage regardless of whether they worked one hour or all day, the wealthy land owner is also seen as having compassion for those who needed to feed their families.   And perhaps the Lord is asking us to consider looking at similar situations today from a different perspective.

A third point of the parable is that there was an urgency to get workers into the vineyard.  It was likely that it was harvest time, and the harvest had to be picked before the rains came and destroyed the crop.  That urgency continues today.  The vineyard is our families, our neighborhoods, our community, our country, our world.   Some have been working in the vineyard their whole lives while others are coming to work late in life.  There are full time workers and there are day laborers. And, if they have heard and are faithful to the Gospel, showing love, mercy and compassion to others, if they seek the Lord, and they call on Him to guide them, then guess what.  Those who come to the Lord late in life are offered the same gift as those who have been faithful from birth.  Now we are not supposed to delay our own hearing and accepting the Lord’s invitation.  There is grace and security in coming to know the love of God and accepting the gift of His Son from the earliest moment we can.  But there are those who come to this understanding and acceptance late in life, and sometimes after many years of living for themselves and not for others.  But God still offers them the same opportunity, the same gift (salvation & eternal life) and He expects those who already know Him and have been faithful to not look down on others who come to Him seeking pardon & forgiveness late in life.  Instead we should be helping them to turn their lives around, and to see the gift that is offered, doing so with kindness and compassion.   The Kingdom vineyard is made up of all kinds of workers, all working to different schedules, but all toward the same goal.  It is not a question of God’s fairness.  It is a fact of God’s generosity, mercy, and compassion.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Homily: Monday, Solemnity of Assumption of BVM – August 15, 2011                                

1^st Reading: Revelation 11:19a-12:1-6a,10a – A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet

Gospel: Luke 1:39-56 – My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.

Doctor Marcellino D’Ambrosio, a Catholic professor and theologian recounted that he once asked a college theology class if anyone could explain the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary.  A student replied, “yeah, that’s the teaching whereby the Catholic Church “assumes” that Mary is in heaven.

And while the church certainly puts more prayer, thought, and reflection as well as guidance by the Holy Spirit into its teaching before declaring something a dogma, it does seem very natural for us to believe that God would honor Mary in a special way.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was proclaimed as dogma by Pope Pius XII in 1950 and has been held as a truth believed by Christians since the early days of the Church.  The Eastern Rite Church celebrates the “Dormition” (falling asleep) of Mary, whereas we in the Western or Roman Rite celebrate the Assumption of Mary.  The truth we believe is that having completed the course of her earthly life, Mary was taken up to heaven body and soul by God, because He willed that her body should not suffer decay or corruption. 

There is no recorded account in scripture, and there are no witnesses to this event mentioned.  It is a truth arrived at by logic, through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Mary, who was chosen by God, to be born without sin, so that she could bear His son,  Mary, who retained her virginity while giving birth and throughout her life, was set apart from all other creatures.   She who remained faithful to God to the very end was now given the highest place of honor in heaven alongside her Son.  In all these events, the Church sees the wisdom of God in that she who became the mother of us all, and the symbol of the Church, that He would honor her in this way.

The Assumption of Mary also gives us hope that we too have a chance one day to be in heaven body and soul.

In the Gospel today, we hear of Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth.  Mary is pregnant with Jesus, and Elizabeth is pregnant with John the Baptist.  Elizabeth greets Mary with the pronouncement, “who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”  And Mary responds with the beautiful hymn we know as the Magnificat.  “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”   Mary provides an example for us of true humility and trust in God.  She models the behavior and disposition we should all have.

Just as she brought Jesus to Elizabeth and to John, we too are to bring Christ to others, not as a chore to be carried out, but instead we are to do it with a spirit of great joy.  By our words and our actions, people should be able to see our souls proclaiming the greatness of the Lord and our spirits rejoicing that God is our savior.

   Mary leads the way and provides the model we are all to follow.  We too are called to lift up the lowly, because that is what God does for us.  There are so many people who have been beaten down by the struggles of life.  What can we do to lift them up?  We are to fill the hungry with good things because that is what God does for us. How might we feed the hungry today?  There are certainly enough soup kitchens that can use any monetary or volunteer help we can provide.   We are also reminded that there are tens of thousands starving in Somalia.  Their spirits as well as their bodies are hungry.  How can we help fill them with not only good food but with hope and consolation?    Mary’s humble acceptance of God’s will provides us with the example of how our souls can magnify the Lord and she continues provide the example from her place of honor in heaven.

Because of her Immaculate Conception, and the favor she was shown by God, there might be the temptation to think, that it was easy for her.  Of course her soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.  Of course her spirit rejoices in God, she was born without sin.  Yes she was born without sin, but she was not immune to human feelings and human failings.  She was still a target of temptation for the devil.  She still needed to trust in God during very difficult times of her life.  Think about it.  She and Joseph had to flee from a maniacal King Herod who wanted to kill her infant son.  Travel to Egypt in those days was no picnic.  It was a long distance, in which Mary would have to have held Jesus while riding on a donkey, while Joseph kept a watchful eye for wild animals or bandits who might attack them.

Mary had to endure the ridicule of her home town when they found out she was pregnant.  She had to endure the ridicule of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes toward her Son as he went about his public ministry.    And she had to watch helplessly as her Son was brutally tortured, and hung on a cross to die.  Mary was without, sin but not without feeling.  She suffered greatly.  And it would have been natural for her to question or to doubt God’s plan, but her faith never wavered.   And it is natural for us, during those times in our life, when our crosses feel like they are too heavy to carry to imagine having a joyful spirit or to feel close to God in our soul.   During those times, we should turn to Mary who can understand those feelings because of what she has endured. 

            It is natural for us to assume that Mary is in heaven and it is natural for us to assume that God would grant her the honor of taking her up body and soul.   The word assumption comes from another word “assumere” which means to take to oneself.  In the Assumption, Jesus takes Mary, body and soul to himself, to be with Him.  This is the hope that we all have, if only our spirits proclaim the greatness of the Lord, and our souls rejoice in God our savior.

You are what you eat

Homily – Monday 3rd Week of Easter May 9, 2011 – You are what you eat.

1st Reading Acts 6: 8-15 – Stephen filled with grace & power

Gospel Reading John 6:22-29 – Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life

In an article entitled, “You are what you Eat”, Yakov Levinson wrote,

“Our eating style reflects and affects who and what we are.  It identifies our approach to life.  If we examine various societies and cultures, we see that each has its traditional foods and food ceremonies.  One will say "I am Italian. I often eat spaghetti, lasagna, or pizza," or another,  "I am a real American.  I eat hamburgers, hot dogs, steak, coke, and french fries." The French eat crepes, Belgians eat waffles, Chinese eat rice, Ethiopians eat teff, the Swiss eat chocolate, Israelis eat felafel, and Eskimos eat whale blubber. In short, the "way we eat" reveals how we identify ourselves. It reflects and often determines our world-view, our values, and our entire approach to life.”

               
The passage we heard today from John’s Gospel is the introduction to what is known as the bread of life discourse.  It is the day after Jesus  performed the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000.   That night his apostles got into a boat to cross over the lake to the other side.   It was that same night that a storm had blown up and Jesus walked on the water and calmed the storm and the fears of his disciples.   The people did not see Jesus go with them and assumed he was still close by.    The next day when they couldn’t find him, they get in boats and cross over and they find him teaching in the synagogue.  When the finally catch up with Him, the ask Him, when did you get hear?  And as we hear, Jesus questions their true motives in looking for Him.  He tells them that they are more interested in have their bellies full than carefully listening to what He has been teaching them.  He is offering them food that will last forever and allow them to live forever if they but believe in Him.   The food that they truly need, the food that will define who they are is His very body and blood.   He is challenging them and us to look beyond our basic physical need for food and instead go deeper to the spiritual food that we must have if we want to live forever.  That spiritual food requires that we believe in Him and the one who sent Him. 

            
The saying, “you are what you eat” was never more true than when it is applied to the Eucharist.    For it is when we truly believe that what we are receiving, what we are eating, is truly the body and blood of Christ that we are Christ like, that we are Christian.  We become like the one we consume.  But it requires that we go deeper than the need to satisfy a basic human need for physical nourishment.  It requires that we recognize that our souls, the very life of God within us is sustained, replenished, and nourished by God Himself.    These are difficult things to understand, but Jesus requires that we only have to believe, we don’t have to understand it.

               
I had the privilege of preaching at the 1^st Communion for my grandson this weekend.  And when I say that the Gospel for the Mass was the bread of life discourse from John, I nearly freaked out.    How do you talk to 7 year olds about what Jesus meant when he said, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, you will not have life within you?  But in praying about it, I boiled it down to two words for them, “mystery” and “miracle”.   We can’t understand it.  That is the mystery.  And since only God can perform miracles, it becomes a simple matter of faith, that is do we believe that Jesus is God or not?   If we believe He is God, then we can accept what He says we must do to have eternal life.   He wants us to become what we eat.

               
This Eucharistic mindset is also critical to Evangelization.  For if all we do is feed those that are hungry, which anyone can do, and we do nothing else, they will be hungry again.   But if in feeding their bodies, we also feed their spirit with the realization that God so loved them that He gave His only Son for them, then we are giving them food which lasts forever.   But the degree to which we will be effective in feeding the spirit of those that come into our midst will be based on what we believe and how we are living out that belief.

           
In the today’s Gospel, the people ask Jesus, “what can we do to accomplish the works of God?  Jesus tells them, “ this is the work of God, that you believe in the one He sent.   Each time we approach the altar to receive the Eucharist, it is an opportunity to reaffirm what we believe.  And if we truly believe and carry that belief out into the world, then people can say of us, “you are what you eat.”

Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Wicks

Homily – Saturday 15th Week of Ordinary Time, July 16, 2011

1^st Reading: Exodus 12:37-42 – The Exodus from Egypt; Gospel Reading: Matthew 12:14-21 – The Servant Messiah

A bruised reed he will not break a smoldering wick he will not quench.”

This verse which we heard in the Gospel today is from a passage in Isaiah 42.  Matthew is writing to a Jewish community and often uses Old Testament Scriptures to validate Jesus as the Messiah whose coming was foretold by their ancestors.  In today’s reading, he uses this particular passage as a counter to the Pharisees who had earlier in the chapter accused Jesus of violating the law by not following rules of the Sabbath.   His disciples had been accused of working on the Sabbath when they were observed pulling the heads off of wheat stalks and eating them.  This was viewed as harvesting which was considered work and not allowed on the Sabbath.   Then Jesus Himself is accused of working on the Sabbath when He heals a physically handicapped man in the synagogue.  So we begin today’s gospel with the Pharisees beginning to contemplate how they would kill him.  And Jesus rather than make a big deal about the challenges of the Pharisees instead goes off to a new place to continue healing, preaching, and teaching.   It is at this point in the Gospel passage that we are reminded of the words of Isaiah.  A bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick he will not quench.

Why does Matthew choose this passage and why at this time?  Well the Jews were all about following the law.  The law was sacred to them and strict adherence to the law was the way by which they held up their end of the covenant between them and God.   But in today’s reading, Matthew is reminding them and us that we must keep in mind the spirit and the heart of the law and not just follow the letter of the law.   By referencing the servant Messiah passage from Isaiah, Matthew is teaching them that being a disciple of Jesus means having the mind and heart of a servant.  It is about being humble.  It is about mercy and justice.

The image of a bruised reed would have been something that Matthew’s audience could relate to.  These reeds grew up along the shore of Galilee.  When undisturbed they stood straight and tall, but fisherman and others working and walking along the shore trampled them and dragged heavy objects over them such that they became bent over and no longer stood straight up.   Jesus encountered many a bruised reed in his public ministry.  People who had once been young, healthy, stood tall, proud (not in a bad way), but now had been beaten down and bent over by the anxieties, pressures, and burdens of life, as well as the physical, emotional, and spiritual deterioration that life sometimes brings.   In these encounters, Jesus always responded with compassion, mercy, and respect.   Jesus empathized with those who suffered, and in His own passion, He would provide the ultimate image of the bruised reed.

   

Every one of us here knows of at least one bruised reed perhaps in our families, one of our neighbors, or a friend.   There are bruised reeds right here in our parish.  Think of one of our fellow parishioner’s who suffers, carries a burden, or endures physical, emotional, or spiritual pain perhaps daily.   I just did a graveside service for a family last Saturday.  The parents who are in their 80s lost a son with no warning.  They had grieved the loss of a son four years earlier, and another son is battling cancer.  Now they are grieving the loss of a 3^rd son who died unexpectedly.   The last few times I have spoken to them and asked how they are, the father says, “not so good”.    It broke my heart to see Him suffering so.  He has become a bruised reed, bent over from the pain and sadness he has had to endure.    Now the challenge becomes how to keep him from breaking.   As disciples called to be Jesus for others, we must enter in to their pain.  Not understand it, not necessarily try to fix it; rather we are simply called to be present to them, to listen to them, to assist them where possible.  This is what it means to be a servant.   

Another image presented to us today is that of a smoldering wick.   We have seen that when we blow out a candle or snuff out an oil lamp the wick continues to glow and smoke rises off of the wick until it cools and the final glow disappears.   This image provides another way of thinking of a person who perhaps was joyful at one time.  Things were going well.  The light of Christ had meaning for them because their spirits radiated that light.  But then something happened.  Something took away their joy.   Something snuffed out the flame inside of them.   I’m sure we know people who have experienced this as well.   Our call as disciples is to keep what is left of the glowing wick inside of them from going out altogether, to keep them from despair.  Our challenge is to help them find joy again, to re-ignite the flame they once had inside of them.   It is not easy.  It requires a lot of patience, compassion, and persistence.  This is what is required of a servant.   This is what is required of a disciple of Jesus.

  

Think about someone you may know who seems grumpy every time you see them or someone who is just not very pleasant to be around.  Perhaps they were not always this way, but some event, someone or something has extinguished the flame of joy they once might have had.   Maybe they need someone to listen to them, accept them, to validate their feelings. And as a result, maybe a spark begins again.  Maybe you know someone who is sad or grieving a loss.  We can’t replace their loss and we are not supposed to, but we are called to be present to them, to offer support, to offer a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear, a diverting activity which provides a respite from the exhausting process of carrying one’s cross daily.  When we do this, we are mirroring Jesus to them.  When we do this, we show our respect for their dignity as person.  We show them compassion, and love.   When we do this, we begin to kindle a new flame within them.

So let’s make it our intent each and every day to be a servant in the way Jesus was a servant and may they say about us, a bruised reed he did not break,  a smoldering wick she did not quench.