25th Sunday of Year A

May the good Lord grant you the grace to be generous to your needy neighbours. Happy Sunday! + John I. Okoye

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Isaiah 55,6-9;Philippians 1,20c-24,27; Matt 20,1-16: 25th  Sunday of Year A)

              In  today’s  gospel reading, we see the teaching of Jesus that is somehow disquieting, shocking and which one may consider to be unjust. But in reality, he wishes to open our hearts to understand that we are not to remain on the level of distributive justice in our dealing with our neighbours but, rather we are to open ourselves to the divine generosity which will change our perspective. The parable is about a landowner who employed different workers at different times in his vineyard and paid them at the end of the day’s work.

Anticipating the lesson of the parable, God in the first reading says: My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways. We have human ways of reasoning that are different from those of God. We are, therefore, invited to accept and make ours the thoughts of God in order to share in his goodness and joy.  We are called and summoned to forsake our evil thoughts and wicked actions that are their product. We abandon this level by heeding the call and summons of prophet Isaiah to forsake wicked ways and evil thoughts and return to the Lord. The word return (shub) means to turn away from evil and turn toward good.  The verb (shub: to turn) implies that all those who have sinned were once in relationship with God but have turned away. The exhortation to turn back is not a suggestion. The verb forms indicate they are imperatives. And when we turn to the Lord, he will receive us back, for the Lord has compassion; he pardons with large heart, he is full of generous and desires to communicate this generosity to us.

            The parable of the gospel is about a landowner who hires labours to work for him in his vineyard. He hires some very early in the morning, agreeing with them the payment of one denarius for the day’s work. He went also at 9 am and employed another group of workers. He did the same at noon, and at 3pm. At 5 pm, he still met people who were not engaged in any other work. He also sent them to his vineyard, thereby making them to work only one hour.  At the end of the day’s work, he made his manager pay the workers beginning from those hired at 5pm who received one denarius as their day pay. Naturally those who were hired first hoped to get more but also received only one denarius being the amount they agreed upon with the land owner. They murmured and complained and said: the men who came last, have done only one hour, and you have treated them the same as us, though we have done a heavy day’s work in all the heat. But the landowner answered one of them. My friend, I am not being unjust to you; did we not agree on one denarius? Why be envious because I am generous. We need to distinguish between these two things: justice on one part and generosity towards the needy on the other part. The workers hired at the last hour were jobless and could not earn anything but the landowner out of generosity gave them what they needed. In some parts of the world, the government takes charge of all the jobless in their society and gives them monthly allowance for their family upkeep. When will our government begin to think this way? We surely have people of means who are directors of industries; one may ask if they do anything for the jobless of our society. When will this teaching of Jesus penetrate and become operative among us,so that we do not stop at distributive justice but go beyond it to provide generously to our needy neighbours?

            The reckoning at the end of the workday calls to mind the judgement that will come at the end of time. Actually our eschatological traditions(eschatology: the part of theology concerned with death, judgement, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind) says that there will be two judgements, a personal judgement immediately after our death when we are confronted with the specifics of our individual lives and the final judgement at the end of time when all things will be laid bare. We may not have first hand information about either the individual or the final judgement. But, the readings from Isaiah and the gospel reading insist that God’s justice does not conform to human standard of justice. This does not imply that it is capricious. Rather, it is incomprehensible, and it is so because its foundation is mercy. This suggests that God takes into consideration the circumstances and the weakness of human beings and does not demand strict and exact retribution. The first reading exhorts sinners to repent and amend their ways, and in the gospel those invited into the kingdom are expected to act appropriately within that kingdom. We all find consolation in this view of divine judgement because we all want to be recipients of divine mercy. However, our hearts are not always generous enough to rejoice in the mercy extended to others. It is always as if we feel we have been cheated in some way, as if God is required to apportion mercy according to merit and we are the ones who determine standards for this apportionment. Those of us who persist in our demands for such strict retribution face, not only frustration with God, but bitterness of heart toward those we think have received more than they deserve. As disciples of Jesus, we are called to announce the good news of the gospel. It seems inconsistent of us to proclaim the mercy of God and then be filled with resentment whenever others experience it. The same divine mercy can work in us to abolish our pettiness and indignations and replace it with generosity of heart. Furthermore, it can transform us so completely that we too can extend mercy towards others rather than exact retribution from them. Judgement belongs to God, and God exercises it mercifully. We are, therefore, called to conduct ourselves with the same kind of generosity, love and mercy. Paul is an example of this kind of generous giving. Happy Sunday! John I. Okoye