HAVE I NO RIGHT TO DO WHAT I LIKE WITH MY OWN?

HOMILY FOR THE 25^TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR A)

Rev. Fr. Peter Onyekachi Ezekoka

Isaiah 55:6-7         Philippians 1:20c-24.27a        Matthew 20:1-16

HOMILY FOR THE 25^TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR A)

Rev. Fr. Peter Onyekachi Ezekoka

Isaiah 55:6-7         Philippians 1:20c-24.27a        Matthew 20:1-16

HAVE I NO RIGHT TO DO WHAT I LIKE WITH MY OWN?

Everything that we receive from God is gifted to us freely from the abundance of His grace, and is not earned or deserved by anything we can possibly do. Grace is the free gift of God which radiates His generosity and enfolds the recipient. It is impossible for anyone to merit the grace that God offers gratuitously. In earthly terms, we have to get a job in order to get paid and put food on the table, but in heavenly terms - out of God’s sheer generosity - we are favoured by His free gift of grace, and fed in the Holy Eucharist. The difference between ‘labour’ and ‘favour’ is highlighted in today’s Gospel reading. Labourers are paid according to the hours put in and the work done, for the labourer deserves his wages (Lk 10:7). Labourers can lay rightful claim to financial reward for their labour, but no one can lay rightful claim to God’s gratuitous gift of grace. Why not? Because God’s thinking is not restricted, as human thinking is: your ways are not my ways, says the Lord (Is 55:8).

In the parable of ‘the labourers in the vineyard’, Jesus identified three groups of labourers: the first was employed at daybreak, the second during the day, and the third in the late afternoon. When it came to payment time at the end of the working day, the landowner paid all of them the same amount. The first group grumbled over the level of pay they received, even though it was what they had agreed to work for. The landowner’s response was to tell one of them: I am not being unjust to you…have I no right to do what I like with my own? Even if those labourers who had toiled throughout the day perceived themselves as being done down, their payment for the day’s job was a proper day’s wage for a proper day’s work. Their first problem was that they focused only at the reward.

‘The first will be last’ if the Christian’s concern is rooted in getting a reward out of God at the end of earthly life, rather than in spending one’s life in devoted service of God for love of Him because of Who He Is. Now, consider this! In the parable, there was an agreement between the landowner (God) and the first group (the apostles) for payment of a denarius. A denarius was worth a full day’s pay. There was no agreement between the landowner and the second group about the actual amount they would be paid, but simply a word of trust that they would be given a fair wage. There was no contractual agreement between the landowner and the third group, nor was there any word of trust about what they would receive. Those in the second and third groups, who were engaged later, needed work and pay just as much as the first group, of course. That’s why they willingly left the landowner to fix the amount they would receive. Our primary concern in serving God on earth in His vineyard should not be the size of the reward we will receive from Him in eternity. ‘The first will be last’ would apply if the size of the reward were to become the sole aim of someone’s Christian service. Here we see a paradox, because earthly rewards make a person financially richer on earth, but demanding heavenly rewards of God (instead of appreciating the enormous, undeserved privilege of serving God and of loving Him for His own sake) makes their soul poorer.

The first group were envious of the other men because, in human terms, they saw men who had done a lot less work than them getting the same pay, the same reward. This is where their second problem lies: Envy. Their complaint emanated from envy, because the generous landowner had paid all the labourers the same: why be envious because I am generous? Envy is the fourth deadly sin, and can shut us out of the Kingdom of heaven. It causes the first to be last (cf. Mt 20:16). A credible way of fighting envy is to recognize the abundance in God who gratuitously offers people what they each deserve. We are each unique! And our God-given favours and blessings are all connected to our uniqueness. Our perfect beauty then blossoms when we each starts living with our own uniqueness. You now see why there’s then no need to be envious of another person’s uniqueness, for whatever you perceive as success sprouts from people’s uniqueness.

With regard to the landowner's method of payment, Labour Unions today are not going to adopt this parable as their charter or mission statement. They will reject, for instance, any move to make a level 16 (executive) worker earn same amount as a level 11 (shop floor) worker. Children would moan that it was “not fair” if their peers got the same pocket money as them without putting in the same effort to help out with household chores. Students would protest if every one of them were automatically given A-grades for their work, regardless of their efforts. Apply these examples to discerning the difference between human thinking and divine thinking, and you’ll see how radically God’s ways differ from our ways.

Here’s a more serious task for you: think about those critical moments and chains of events in life that prompt human beings to question the justice of God, as did the labourers who were called first. Those critical moments and chains of events remind us that in no way is God’s generous gift of grace confined to the bounds of the human mind. God is ‘the landowner’ in the parable, and everyone is invited to accept His offer to work for Him in His ‘vineyard’, on earth. He actively seeks out and calls people to work in His mission of love. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost (Lk 19:10). Isn’t that a marvellous gift of grace! Now, to paraphrase Isaiah’s message in the First Reading, that ‘His thoughts are not our thoughts, His ways are not our ways’, we have a warning here against expecting God to act in the same way as people do. And realistically, this warning could be made clearer in difficult times when we are faced with feelings of hopelessness.

Isaiah was preaching to a people struggling with feelings of hopelessness and darkness, as we ourselves can be. In the face of hopelessness and darkness, the prophet reassures the people that God is still to be found and still near and encourages the people of God to turn back to the Lord (Is 55:6). The Responsorial Psalm consoles us that, The Lord is close to those who call Him (Ps 145:18). Here we are faced with yet another paradox! At one moment, we sense that God is so close to us and His abundant graciousness towards us is so overwhelming, that we seem to be looking straight into the blinding light of the sun. The next moment, He is so close to us that it seems as though He has His hands over our eyes and we can see nothing but darkness. In such moments, we do not badger God with our petitions and requests; our thoughts are absorbed into the presence of God because they fade into insignificance in the experience of receiving the free gift of His grace. Rather, we simply rest in peace and wonder, loving God because of His glory. We pray for the grace of perseverance in the truth that God is truly near to us, even in those circumstances beyond our control Amen. God bless you.