God's measuring yardstick for his disciples is one of generosity and forgiveness.

 

Twenty Fifth Sunday in  OT  A   2020

 

Today’s Gospel parable gives us a glimpse of God’s measuring yardstick of what it means to be a disciple – it is a yardstick of generosity and forgiveness.  Jesus asks us the grumbling workers: “Are you envious because I am generous?  Thus, the last will be first, and the first last.”

Now it is true that this parable of the “workers in the vineyard” can seem to be hard to understand.  The parable deals with landowners and workers, wages and profits, and fair and unfair labor practices.  But to understand the parable, we need to delve into what the kingdom of God is like.

After all, in our world, hard work generally pays off, at least that’s what we have been taught.    If you work hard, do well in school, put all your energy into your work then you will be rewarded.

From one perspective, is Jesus trying to upset us in telling this parable?  Is all my hard work a waste of time?  So, how are we to pray?

 Lord, for too many people, our modern culture is ruled by envy, not by generosity, and this is tearing our human family apart.  Too many people think that life’s rewards should be calculated on the basis of work alone.

We must learn to measure by God’s yardstick -- one of generosity and forgiveness.  Consider the ways God has been all-heart to us.  We are the ones who at times have worked just one hour in the vineyard.  Yet, we are a blessed people.  We are a forgiven people.  May we never forget that all is a gift of God.  With God’s yardstick, we confess the times that in our smallness of spirit we thought that generosity is a sin.

Lord, we thank you for the times when you give us a glimpse of your kingdom, invite us to enter into your generosity and set us free from the bondage of envy.  Forgive us for when we grumble at you for the way you share out your blessings, for comparing ourselves with others who we think had things easier.

We thank you for the people of our lives who have taught that the root of our problem is being calculating instead of welcoming life as your gift.   Lord, we pray that your church will be the presence of Jesus in the world showing us a vision of your kingdom marked by generosity, not envy.  Help us to better understand that circumstances permit some people to work only one hour and may we embrace that they deserve a full reward.  Help us to embrace God’s grace in people’s lives.

The God we believe in is not a bookkeeper who dishes out what we deserve.  Rather, God is a grace-filled benefactor who gives and gives and gives.  Rather than being all-fair, God is all-heart,

Today’s reading is an invitation for us to go looking for God’s forgotten ones -- to treat them not with a human standard of fairness, but with a holy abandon of love, compassion and un-earned generosity.

Lord, we thank you for the people in our lives who taught us that true love is always generous and helped us move beyond possessiveness and envy:

n  Parishioners who do more than their fair share in building up our faith community.

 

n  Family members who are always present to us in our time of need.

 

n  First responders who always seem ready to do what is needed.

They were Jesus for us, teaching us the kind of person you are and leading us to enter into your unconditional love, and to be generous ourselves in welcoming every member of our human family.

As we celebrate the generosity of God in this parable, God’s prodigal goodness can be an affront to our human sense of fairness.  God’s love of sinners is an insult to the pious.  It seems that this is a repeated Scriptural theme:  God’s love of sinner is an insult to the pious.

What better example and illustration of God’s love is there than on the day of our baptism.  In a couple of weeks, I am going to baptize my grand-niece Quinn Grace Kelly.  As a two-month-old baby, Quinn has done nothing to earn God’s grace – sure she’s cute and has brought much joy into the life of her family.  But to this point she’ done no great work for the Church; she isn’t exorbitantly generous; she hasn’t saved any souls; she hasn’t cured a rare disease; she can’t declare her undying obedience to Jesus, and she won’t even say the words laid out in the baptismal liturgy.  If we measure whether she’s earned God’s love and grace by the world’s standards, then unfortunately she wouldn’t make the cut – and you know what many of us probably wouldn’t make the cut either.

Yet, we as a Church declares that this child is beloved of God; we declare that Quinn participates in the life of Jesus Christ, that Jesus loves her – just as much as any of us.  Quinn is marked as Christ’s own forever, just as each one of us who has been baptized was at our baptism.  And there is nothing we can do to make God love us any more or any less.   We are not going to earn any more grace that the unending abundance of grace that God pours upon us each and every day, in Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

As we now transition into the mystery of the Eucharist, we assemble around the Lord’s table and we thank God for His forgiveness, mercy, generosity and love.  He has sent us His Son to bring us pardon, to transform us from being isolated individuals into the community of His love, and He gives us the hope of everlasting life.  So, as God’s holy people, we recall that God is merciful and forgiving; God is life-giving and generous; and that God is love.

Have a blessed day!