Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
Isa 55.6-9;
Ps 144;
Phil 1.20-24, 27;
Mt 20.1-16
The familiar parable we have just listened to is one which leaves some people feeling rather uncomfortable. Perhaps we feel a degree of sympathy with those workmen who had toiled all day and yet received the same wages as those who had come in no more than an hour before the end of the day. They had not only worked for a much shorter time, but they had also missed bearing the burden of the day, working in the stifling heat of the midday sun. And yet they received the same pay. Is it fair? Can we not be forgiven if the word "injustice" comes to mind?
When we try to grasp the analogies given us in parables, we must always remember that God is not like us. God, as Saint Anselm said, is "that greater than which nothing can be thought". God's nature is utterly different from ours. As he reminds us through the words of the prophet Isaiah which we heard again in the first reading today: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways not your ways." If we interpret the parables in a way that is too literalistic, we shall end up making God into something very like ourselves. That is the opposite of Our Lord's intention. Through His teaching, He wants to make us more like His heavenly Father. Like Our Lord's own human nature, the parables use a human idiom to reveal the mysterious workings of a divine Mind.
Today’s parable is about the unfathomable purposes of God in his distribution of grace. And what is grace? It is God’s own life, his own energy, his own love, in a word, himself. He gives himself. Now, God is infinite, and therefore his gifts cannot be measured, cannot be quantified. Nor should they be analysed in the carping way we so often haggle over the material things of this world. God's own life is his to give, and he gives it as he pleases, with what sometimes seems like reckless generosity. We have just heard in the psalm: "The Lord is just in all his ways and loving in all his deeds." It is not for us to question God’s motives. We might feel that we personally have done more for God than many others. Perhaps we have done a lot for our parish. We may have helped the poor, or visited the sick. We may feel that we have laboured and sweated for the Lord, rather like those who worked all day in the heat of the sun. If we were honest, we would have to admit that there have been times when we have made comparisons in our own minds between ourselves and other Christians, usually in our own favour. But this sort of thinking makes us like the mealy-mouthed Pharisees, who criticised Our Lord for mixing and eating with sinners. Being jealous over what God gives to others makes us like the Prodigal Son's dog-in-the-manger older brother, grumbling because the father throws a party when the no-good younger brother comes to his senses and returns to his father's house.
Today’s parable is telling us that we must never begrudge what God gives to others. On the contrary, we should rejoice at his infinite generosity to all and sundry. After all, we are all the beneficiaries of divine grace. We do better to count our blessings. Without God's grace, we would have no life at all. We would have no physical existence if he did not sustain the entire universe in being, and we would have no spiritual life if he did not constantly uphold us with his grace. Think of all the grace lavished upon us in the sacraments, especially those two sacraments which we can and should make use of over and over again: the sacrament of the Eucharist and the sacrament of Reconciliation - confession. God gives his grace to all who seek him, however late or slow they are in asking for it, just as the landowner gave the same wages to each worker who came to him at the end of the day. Instead of begrudging others the grace of God, we should keep constantly in our hearts those words we say just before Holy Communion: "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you."
Just as some children will carelessly squander the good things their parents give them, so we sometimes squander God's priceless gift of himself. How many times have we been absolved in confession, and yet fall back into sin? How often have we received the Blessed Sacrament, and yet still prefer the enticing cul-de-sacs of temptation to the straight and narrow path to heaven? Saint John of the Cross said that the Almighty expended less power in creating the universe than in saving a single human soul. Why? Because, said the saint, when God made creation, he met with no resistance! How easy we find it to resist the Lord. Let us turn to Our Lady, Mother of Divine Grace, for encouragement. She never resisted the will of the Father, nor the love of the Son, nor the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In her soul, grace met with no resistance. Nor could she ever begrudge us all the good things that her Divine Son has to offer. Mary is the Mother of Grace. Let us ask her to give us a generous and responsive heart, a heart like her own, to know and serve God in this world, to be happy with him forever in the next.
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