Are you envious because I am generous?

 Twenty Fifth Sunday in  OT  A   2023

 

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, and 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 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 us 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.

This is the time of the year when we focus on the annual diocesan Catholic Ministries Appeal --- CMA. The CMA reminds that we are all part of the bigger church…we are citizens of the Kingdom of God. We are called to a life of stewardship. We are to share what we have been given.

People are still poor, hungry in need of pastoral care, education, and employment. The faithful are in need of ministry and a vibrant parish life. Our youth and young adults are yearning to learn and grow in their relationship with Christ. The Church and our Diocese are in need of trained and educated seminarians, deacons, and pastoral leaders to our lead our Church into the future. We cannot close our eyes to these needs.

Our support of the CMA is part of our stewardship commitment to share our giftedness with people in need. I intend to increase my giving to the CMA this year. And I ask you to do the same if you are able.

 

We will never regret our generosity in supporting people in need.

 

Today’s Gospel 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 can be 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.

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.

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!

God asks us to forgive as He forgives us.

 

Twenty Fourth Sunday in OT  A  2023

 

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 Christian lifestyle.

 

Jesus’ mandate on forgiveness is followed by the parable of the unforgiving servant.  The tragedy of the parable is that the unforgiving servant never really experienced the forgiveness the king had granted him.  This servant never experienced in his heart what was given him and therefore he could never offer forgiveness to others.

 

The apostle Peter was shocked at the depth of forgiveness Jesus was asking of him.  We too can easily be shocked at the depth of forgiveness the Lord is asking us to extend to others.  I assure you that this Gospel sense of forgiveness will make sense only when we are grateful for the depth of the forgiveness that Jesus recklessly shares with each one of us.

 

The first Scripture from the Book of Sirach indicates that our willingness to forgive others renders us open to the healing forgiveness of God.  Our best insurance policy to receive God’s forgiveness is our willingness to forgive others.  You have heard the old saw of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  Mohandas Gandhi, a Hindu, was once quoted as saying, “An eye for an eye and all the world goes blind!”  How true it is that we need to take the initiative in extending forgiveness and healing to people who stand in need.  When Mohandas Gandhi was shot three times in the heart by an assassin, he raised his arms in a gesture of forgiveness.  His last words before dying were Rama, rama, rama:  “I forgive you, I love you, I bless you

 

What about ourselves?  In what ways have you experienced forgiveness in your lives?  This is such an important question in the spiritual journey of each one of us.  Without any doubt, our salvation is not worked out by ourselves finally reaching a state of perfection.  While we seek to grow in living a Gospel way of life, we will always be sinners.  Our salvation is worked out by our experience of the healing forgiveness of God.  May we know the depth of God’s forgiveness in our lives.

The thought I invite you to think about and pray over is:  “When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.”  We ourselves need to forgive to experience inner healing and to witness God’s healing love of all people.

 

During this past week, I was the recipient of 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. 

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 streets of our city, 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.

 

May we begin each day in the same way we begin each celebration of the Eucharist:  Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.  This is not to say that our lives have no value or goodness.  Rather, it is to say as God’s beloved sons and daughters, we stand under the waterfall of God’s mercy.  This then motivates to share what we have been given.

We are members of a covenanted community.  As God forgives us, we are to forgive others.  Today’s Gospel message is to remember God’s mercy on us.  We then become that memory for others.  By passing his mercy forward, we receive the same.  Revenge and hate have no place in our relationship with God and others.   Treating others with mercy gives us a peace grounded in divine grace.

 

As we seek to reduce racial tensions in the streets of our cities, today’s Gospel message of forgiveness must touch the hearts of us all.  We need to surrender our right to get even.   Meanness of spirit needs to be replaced with a generosity of spirit, the spirit of forgiveness that is permanent and unconditional.

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 tortured by hatred and the desire for revenge.

As we know from the Lord’s Prayer, our best insurance policy to receive God’s forgiveness is our willingness to forgive others.  When we celebrate the Eucharist, we bring to God’s Eucharistic table personal memories of our journey with God, our joys and our challenges.  We pray with good memories of grace as well as times of anxiety and fear when God seemed far from us in all these memories.  In the green pastures as well as the dark valleys of life, today’s Scripture message is simple and direct:   God asks us to forgive as He forgives us.

 

Have a Blessed day.

We are the Church.

 

TWENTY THIRD SUNDAY IN OT  A 2023

 

The mantra for our parish that is repeated with each celebration of the Eucharist is:  WE ARE THE CHURCH.  In the deepest sense, the building we are in is not the Church.  It is the building that houses the church.  The church is ourselves, the people of God, who gather to celebrate God’s presence in our midst.  This brings us together around the table of the Lord in the mystery of the Eucharist, and then the Lord sends us out to renew the face of the earth.

As a Church, the people of God, we belong to one another.  We are brothers and sisters to each other.  We are the community of the baptized.  There is no way of over-rating the importance of relationships and community.  The heart of our spirituality is to be found in the love, the forgiveness, the healing, the kindness that we share with one another.

We are not just isolated individuals who come to Mass so that I can deepen my relationship with God.  We are a community of brothers and sisters who are called to make a difference in each other’s lives.  We live Eucharistic lives when we affirm, the God-given dignity of our neighbor.  We are to love one another, no exceptions,

The God we worship is a Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in relationship to one another.  The mystery of love that is found in God is also to be found in the Church in our relationships with each other.  There are millions of rules and regulations in our Church and in our society but the great commandment is love - love of God and love of neighbor.

Having said all this about the beauty and the value of our ourselves as the community of the baptized, the truth of our lives also means confessing that we are all sinners.  We can diminish our community life.

Jesus is very much aware of the frailty among his disciples and future followers.   We need help in acknowledging our faults and needed areas of improvement. 

And the clear Gospel message today is that part of being a community of disciples is that we as a community must involve efforts to correct our faults.

At first glance, today’s Gospel may look like a process to exclude the offending party.  “If your brother sins against you, go and tell his fault between you and him alone.  If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.  If he does not listen, take one or two witnesses along with you, so that every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.  If he refuses to listen to them, tell the Church.”

In today’s reading, the entire community is given authority to hold its members to account and rectify wrongful acts.

What is crucial is understanding today’s Gospel is the process seeks not to exclude but to reconcile and restore the person to the community.  It is all about healing, forgiving, and reconciling.  Make no mistake about who we are as the community of the baptized, our mission is healing, forgiving, and reconciling.

The Gospel is an instruction by Jesus to the disciples about, not confrontation exactly, but about the sacredness of community.  The well-being of others – whether in your family, your workplace, your parish community or wherever – becomes the reason for prophetically attending to the faults of one of the community.

Now there is an abundance of therapy and workshops in conflict resolutions and the skills of mediation.  You may consider that Matthew’s Gospel may seem a little sketchy in resolving conflicts.  However, on a deeper level, conflict resolutions involve more than skill training in psycho-social skills.  The message of today’s Gospel is that reconciliation is a spiritual activity.  When our psycho-social skills are exercised from our spiritual center, they become all they can be. When the Spirit enters listening skills, the listening becomes deeper and more inclusive.  When the Spirit enters mediation skills, the skills become more respectful.    This presence of the Spirit within the skills signals that the skills are being used for the purpose of reconciliation.

We become better listeners to each other when we affirm the sacredness of our community life and the Gospel message calls us to be a healing, forgiving and reconciling community.

As seen in the Gospel, correcting the faults of another can be dangerous territory.  When I am the person being criticized, it can be devastating.  And yet, if we are to grow as a person, if we are to grow as a faith community, if your family is going to be enriched, criticism is important for our growth when the critique is motivated out of care and concern and love.  We all must acknowledge:  Be patient God isn’t finished with me yet.

In affirming the sacredness of community - in our family life, in our Church life, in the streets of our cities, and in all ways we come together with others -- we must learn to forgive, we must learn to care, we have to learn that strangers are no longer strangers, that we are brothers and sisters to each other.

What would like for us as Americans if Democrats and Republicans committed themselves to affirm the sacredness of our community life and sought to build up each other?  What would be like if on the streets of our cities, instead of racial violence, we affirmed the dignity and the sacredness of each other; what would it like in our Church life, if we all prayed together the prayer of Jesus, that they may be one in unity and love.

As we pay attention to our inner journey, we become aware that the spirit of God’s love and healing dwells deep in our hearts.  When we hear with the ears of our heart, we desire to share forgiveness and reconciliation and healing with all people.  When we hear with the ears of our heart, there is no place for pettiness, judgments, ill-will, prejudice, and hatred among us.

We can turn to the second reading today and be very clear:  it is all about love.  “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another.

Have a Blessed Day.