Homily: Sunday 25th Week Ordinary Time _September 18, 2011
1st Reading
Gospel: Luke 8: 4-15 – Parable of the Generous Land
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.
