At times, do we think that generosity is a sin?

As to the Gospel parable, who would not loudly complain if they worked all day and were paid the same wage as someone arriving an hour before closing?

So looking for a show hands how many people think that that this parable is unjust?  After all, surely if you have worked all day you deserve more than people who have worked an hour!    Life isn’t fair at times.

Another  interesting question to consider by a show of hands how many of us associate ourselves with the group who have labored all day, not with the last group that have been indulged.

The parable starts by inviting us to look on ourselves as workers hired to work in a vineyard.   The image is valid.  It is a touching way of understanding our vocation as parent, teacher, friend, priest or member of this parish community.  They are all forms of service, and toilsome ones at that, in a heavy day’s work in all the heat.  Similarly, the staggered hirings during the course of the day are a powerful symbol of how the same vocation turns out differently for different people.

Then as the gospel parable goes on, it takes a radically new turn which is the real message of the parable.  We are not the landowners’ hired servants but his friends, free people, not hired by anyone.  Look on God as a hirer of servants, and we misunderstand him completely.  So too, the rewards we receive for our service are not earnings but gifts we receive with humble gratitude.

By making the journey from God as hiring us as his servant to a God who is our friend or to a God who loves us, we then discover the wonder of love, human and divine. 

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 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.

Lord, for too many people, our modern culture is ruled by envy, not generosity, and 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.  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 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 are 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.

As we now transition into the mystery of the Eucharist,  we assemble around the Lord’s table and we bless 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!

We all need to forgive, and we all stand in need of forgiveness.

A single mom received a dreaded phone call in the middle of the night.  It was the police.  Her teenage daughter Susie was stopped by the police for driving under the influence of alcohol.  You need to come down to the police station immediately.  As mom was hurriedly driving to the police station, she was going over in her mind the conversation she has had with Susie about the family’s absolute rule that she was not to drink and drive.  Mom already had had second and third thoughts about this party her daughter was going to.

When her daughter was released to her, the ride home was marked by a stony silence.  Mom was seething but could not say a word.  Susie was embarrassed but did not speak.  She went to bed without saying a word. 

The next morning Mom was up at the breakfast table and had set a place for her daughter.  Susie stayed in her bed room as long as possible but finally had no choice but to come out.  As she arrived at the breakfast table, she saw a wrapped gift at her place.  She asked:   “Who is that for?”  Mom responded:  “It’s for you.”  As she opened it, she found a large rock.  Cynically she asked:  “What’s this about?” With tears in her eyes, Mom said:  “It took a thousand years for God to make this rock.  That’s how long it will be before I stop loving you.”  Then mom and daughter embraced each other finding a new beginning with much love and forgiveness in their hearts.  Mom was also revealing to her daughter the unending love and forgiveness of God.

May we be a people who love generously and forgive easily.  The truth of our lives for all of us is we all need to forgive, and we all need forgiveness.  That is the message of today’s Scriptures.  This is such an important message.  The future of our nation, the future of our Church, the future of the world is in the hands of those who forgive.  There is no way of understating the need for forgiveness in life.

Yes, we all have been hurt.  We have been treated unfairly at times.  My sister Jean was telling me that she asked her six year old grandson how his first day at school was.  Reid emphatically said:  “IT was the worst day of my life.”  “Why,” she asked.  He said:  “A girl kicked me.”  My sister said Reid has a difficult time forgiving and forgetting.  My sister said regrettably that poor girl is going to get kicked back at some time. 

The message for forgiveness is difficult for Reid.  I wish this wasn’t true.  The message for forgiveness is a challenge for many of us as well.  To forgive, we need to surrender our right to get even.   For many of us who are a bit older than Reid, we still have trouble surrendering our right to get even.

The message that my grandnephew Reid needs to learn is the message all of us need to learn.  Meanness of spirit needs to be replaced with a generosity of spirit, the spirit of forgiveness that is permanent and unconditional.

In the Gospel, Peter wanted to know if he had to forgive seven times.  Jesus responds:  “I say to you, not seven times, seventy-seven times”   Then Jesus tells the parable in which he insists that we have a forgiving spirit.  Forgiveness is a central characteristic of a Christina lifestyle.

This past week I was on eight day directed retreat modeled on the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits.  During the retreat, I had the wonderful opportunity of celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  What a blessing for my life.  The experience of forgiveness leads us to a radical understanding of the doctrine of grace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  We are saved not by finally getting it right, but by the love of Christ that redeems while we are getting it wrong.  Once more the grace of the Sacrament of Reconciliation leads us to that deep awareness that we are saved not by finally getting it right, but by the love of Christ that redeems us while we are getting it wrong.

Followers of Jesus can never be minimalist in matters of justice, charity and even forgiveness.  God shares with us an abundance of love and forgiveness.  We are to do likewise – sharing love and forgiveness in abundance with one another.  As a side note, the connection between the CMA and today’s Gospel is that the disciple of Jesus can never be a minimalist in the way we share forgiveness and also in the way we share from our treasure with those in need,  the CMA is our privileged way of being generous in responding to the needs of the diocese.

In our prayer today, we thank God for all those who have taught our world forgiveness:

n  Spouses who welcomed those who have been unfaithful.

n  Members of the black community who work for racial harmony in their neighborhoods.

n  Victims of prejudice because of their sexuality, color of their skin, or the way they worship God who have responded to hurt and hatred with love and forgiveness.

We give thanks, unlike the king in Jesus’ parable, that they did not let themselves be turned aside from the path of forgiveness but forgave seventy seven times.

Lord God have pity on the many countries, including our own country that are being torn apart by traditional hatreds.  Send them men and women who will show their compatriots that unless they forgive from their hearts they will forever be tortured by hatred and the desire for revenge.

As we know from the Lord’s Prayer, our best insurance police to receive God’s forgiveness is our willingness to forgive others.

Have a blessed day.

Salvation is free but discipleship costs us everything.

On this Labor Day weekend, summer ends, school begins, and Notre Dame wins another football game.  Not wanting to have summer end so soon, we want to resist the cycle of nature in which the days are getting shorter and the weather begins to gradually change.  We gather to give thanks to God for the blessings and the fruit of labor.

From last Sunday’s Gospel, Peter had just confessed Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God.  In response, Jesus said to Peter:  “You are rock, and on this rock I will build my Church.  And I give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.”  Peter’s leadership in the early Church was clearly established.  Peter voiced the Church’s foundational faith.

Now In the next very important step of discipleship, Jesus confides to his disciples what it means to be the Messiah.  Jesus’ explanation of discipleship did not compute with Peter.  He was clearly looking for a “no-pain” version of Christianity.  Peter strongly objected to Jesus’ prediction of his passion.  Jesus contradicts Peter’s no-pain version of Christianity not only with “Get behind me, Satan!” but also with the oft-quoted statement “Those who wish to come after me must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.”  For Peter in his discipleship, it is not enough to talk the talk in declaring Jesus to be the Son of God.  He must also walk the walk in following Jesus to his passion and death.

The cross was central to who Jesus is as our Messiah and Lord.  This is what Peter must learn.  And likewise, this is what we too must learn in our path of discipleship.  The cross does not have to be a fearful component of life.

But we need to ask ourselves honestly how are we like Peter and prefer a ‘no-pain’ version of Christianity?  What happens when you or a member of your family is given the test results that scare you?  What happens when life doesn’t seem to be fair?  Why me?  I didn’t deserve this.  Why did God allow this to happen to me?

All of us, have we not, asked the question “why” when the results have not been what we wanted.   Why do bad things happen to good people?

None of us get a free pass from the cross in life.

Today’s First Reading catches the prophet Jeremiah in a moment of weakness.  His intimate lament contains some of the strongest language of doubt found in the Bible.  “You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped…All the day I am the object of laughter; everyone mocks me.”  Preaching God’s Word has brought him only derision and reproach.

Jeremiah felt that God was not standing by him.  There was a side to Jeremiah that was not willing to deal with the cost of discipleship.  This is similar to Peter’s objection to Jesus’ prediction of his passion.

Yet God does not deceive – and Jeremiah at his core knows this.   But the cross is the cost of discipleship for us who are the followers of the crucified and the risen Christ.  In ways we often don’t understand, the cross is the path to our deeper trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior.  Following Jesus demands a new way of thinking that goes against conventional wisdom that says we need to avoid suffering and death at all costs.  Doing God’s will is to find how we too share in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.   This means taking up the cross and knowing it will be the path of resurrection for ourselves.  This journey can lead us to a deeper life in Christ.

What Jeremiah learns, Jesus states explicitly in today’s Gospel.  To follow Him is to take up a cross, deny yourself – even to denying your priorities, preferences, and comforts.

 In our time of suffering, may we discover the inner strength that comes from God who is within us to trust that God’s love for us is unending.  Yes, in your life and in mine, stuff happens that we don’t like -- illness, death of one we love, relationships that have gone wrong, life is unfair at times.  The cross challenges us to change our view of reality.

How does the cross affect our spiritual journey?  This is the question of Jeremiah, the apostle Paul, and Peter in the Gospel.  This is the question of a mom and a dad in dealing with their child’s serious illness.   This is the question we face when a family member dies much too young.  This happens when our chosen career path doesn’t work out. 

We experience suffering personally, and we experience the suffering that happens to us nationally and globally as well.  The homes and the possessions of too many people in Texas and Louisiana have been ravished by the fury of hurricane Harvey.   We have been watching on television the unspeakable destruction caused by the flood waters from the hurricane.  But we are inspired by the courage and service and the compassion of our first responders and all who are committed to helping each other in this moment of national solidarity.

As we seek to make sense of our personal and national and international crosses, Jesus wants us to judge as God and not as humans do.  God desires a Church that is forgiving.   God desires a Church rich in mercy and compassion.  The prayerful Gospel question is:  what is the cost of discipleship for me to be a follower of Christ?  As did Peter we have to learn that the cross was central to our discipleship of the Lord Jesus.  Our spiritual path is to be a disciple of the crucified Lord.  In walking the walk of discipleship, we must be willing to embrace the cost of discipleship.  We must ponder the truth that salvation is free but discipleship costs us everything.

In your spiritual journey, how do you talk to the Lord in facing illness, death, relationships that have fallen apart, in dealing with depression and loneliness?  Do you experience frustration, anger, and abandonment from a God who is supposed to be taking care of you?

Can you experience a God who accompanies you in moments of darkness as well as moments of light? Can you experience a God whose love for you is unending even amidst the trials of life?  This was the question Jeremiah, Paul, and Peter experienced in today’s Scripture readings.  Paul prays that we will be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God.

In the Gospel, Jesus summons us to follow him  --  follow him in refusing to make wealth and power the ultimate meaning in life;  follow him in dying to our own egos so that we may more fully trust in God’s unending love for us.

God is good – all the time.

Have a blessed day.