There are four homily notes here, scroll and enjoy reading.
ISAIAH 55:6-9; PSALM 145; PHILIPPIANS 1:20-24, 27; MATTHEW 20:1-16
Fr. Thomas Oyode
“Covetousness and the Magnanimity of God’s Grace”
Arguably what makes Jesus’ parables so powerful is their connectedness to our everyday experiences. Today’s parable bears the same relatedness to our present existential experiences over 2000 years after Christ. They immediately recall the global migrant and labour crises hitting Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas. Few months ago, as the World Cup was taking place there was a widespread denouncement of Saudi Arabia for its abuse of workers, many of whom were immigrants. Across many parts of Europe migrants are either underpaid or exploited without due wage. In the world of Sports, also, there has been a recurrent outcry against unjust and unequal pay between men and women in Sport. Many labour groups in some parts of the world keep angling for improved welfare for workers. We can thus see ourselves in the parable, but the parable is more than a mundane teaching on human labour and working conditions. As characteristic of Jesus, he uses the parable as a paradigm shift in our understanding of God’s ways. It is rather a deconstruction of the mundane system by showing us how God’s justice, God’s grace operates.
Precisely for this reason the first reading reminds us of God’s merciful love and how different his ways are from ours (Isaiah 55:6-9). Taking a cue from the reading therefore, we can say that the wages in today’s parable represents the gifts and graces that God grants us which include generous forgiveness, mercy, life and salvation. As the parable indicates, we are all labourers in the Lord’s vineyard, not priests alone. By this, it reiterates the equality of all the baptised as children of God.
Let us allow the parable itself to guide our reflection (Matthew 20:1-16). The parable of the Workers in the Vineyard is peculiar to Matthew. He also situates the parable immediately after Peter’s question about what the gain would be for all those who have left everything and followed the Lord and Jesus’ reassurance that all those serve God would certainly not be deprived of a reward (cf. Matthew 19:27, 29). The parable compares the Kingdom of heaven to a landowner. Again, Matthew commonly uses “landowner” to refer to God. Matthew, therefore, helps us understand God’s omnipotence, omnipresence and providence. The Lord is the owner of the earth and everything it contains (cf. Psalm 50:12). He rules the world and generously provides for everyone according to his Holy Will and Wisdom.
As it were, the parable is about the attitude of the labourers towards God’s way of rewarding his labourers. It recalls the sin of covetousness, the sin against the tenth Commandment of God: thou shall not covet your neighbour’s good. The other labourers who grumbled did not grumble because they were not paid their due; they grumbled because others who were paid their due did not deserve to be so paid. As Christians, we have been called by God and our call comes at different times. God also decides to bless each person with graces as he dims fit just as much as he blesses us. When we covet God’s blesses and graces upon others, we become ungrateful and rebellious against God. This is the problem of envy. It is not that we have not been blessed by God it is just that our envious hearts push us to wish that others did not enjoy the blessings and graces that they enjoy just as much as we do often because we feel that we are more qualified, we are holier, we are more devout or that we are older or that we are sons and daughters of the soil. As we have seen in the first reading, God’s ways are not our ways. Your envy and covetousness will never prevent God from blessing whom he wants to bless.
******************
Fr. Daniel Evbotokhai
GOD’S THOUGHTS AND WAYS
The first reading tells us to seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near. This implies that there will be a time when we may not be able to seek or find the Lord. Let us seek him now. After our earthly lives, we cannot seek or praise him. Isaiah 38:18 says, “For Sheol cannot thank You; Death cannot praise You. Those who descend to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness”. Similarly,Psalm 6:5 says, “For there is no mention of You in death; who can praise You from Sheol?” Beloved, seek him now and be saved.
Again, the first reading says God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and his ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8). Our thoughts are mostly clouded and limited; God’s thoughts are unlimited. Human thoughts entertain fears. God’s thoughts express faith. Human thoughts are calculation-based: first come, first served. God’s thoughts express providence. He is infinite- we are finite. He knows the end from the beginning while we see just a part of the now. He knows the whys, while we grasp for wisdom. God promises wisdom instead of confusion (James l:5). God promises peace instead of anxiety (Phil. 4:4-7). His ways are different.
The gospel further illustrates how God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, using the parable of the workers in the vineyard. In this parable, the landowner paid his workers what he agreed to pay each for labour, regardless of the time spent at work. This does not suggest unfair treatment to the workers, but rather the generosity of the landowner. God is the best manager. Whoever comes to His vineyard shall be rewarded, and the first reward for every Christian is eternal life.
God’s thoughts are not ours. While secular managers are guided by the principle of first come, first served, but Jesus says, “The last will be first, and the first, will be last” (Matt. 20:16). Hence, any worker who puts God first shall never come last.
God’s thoughts are not ours. Rather than appreciating God’s generosity, the workers begrudged his generosity. Today, we begrudge God’s generosity when we compare our lives with others. Whenever our neighbors are blessed, we begin to ask God plenty of questions. God’s ways are different.
God’s thoughts are not ours. Literally speaking, some of us treat our managers with contempt and disregard. Some people have given all sorts of names to landowners, landlords, and the like. Like these workers, we often feel that they are partial and unjust. No doubt, there may be one or two setbacks, but there are still some very good managers. However, workers often call them names. They probably do not understand the system, the challenges, and the vision. The thoughts of the manager are never the same as those of the workers. Some workers always feel cheated, no matter how hard a manager tries. This is a challenge for us to begin to re-evaluate our disposition. A manager is always a bad person until you become one.
Lastly, the first set of hired workers became envious of their neighbors’ goods. Are we envious of others’ good? St. Thomas Aquinas sees envy as “sorrows over another’s good.” Envy is one of the seven deadly sins. Envy, like greed and lust, is characterized by an insatiable desire. It can be described as a sad or resentful covetousness towards traits, status, abilities, or rewards. It rots the bones if we don’t change.
LET US PRAY
O God, who founded all the commands of your sacred Law upon love of you and of our neighbor, grant that, by keeping your precepts, we may merit to attain eternal life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen!
*****************
Rev. Fr. Evaristus Okeke
Seek the Lord while he may be found (Isa.55:6)
MAKING THE BEST OF LIFE’S OPPORTUNITIES
If there is one thing we are possess differently in life, it is opportunities. Life presents each one of us with different opportunities; and even when two or more persons may have same opportunities, it is not to the same degree. Life happens; and we are not be blamed for it. However, we become responsible for whatever we make of the particular opportunities life gives to us. Often times, we focus on trying to understand why we do not have equal or same opportunities with others. Often times, we try to impute motives into the mind of God for not “blessing” us as much as he blessed others; maybe God is not just after all.
The liturgy of today comes to our rescue. It rescues us from the distractive thought of focusing on how differently we have been opportune, and bids us to rather focus on how we can make best use of whatever opportunities God has given to us. If we do not make the best of the opportunities we’ve got, we will answer for it on the last day. The judgment of God will be about what we made out of the opportunities given to us in this life.
From the first reading, we understand that the best opportunity we can have is the opportunity to repent. This opportunity is the time we have now and the gospel message we hear today. The gift of every new day and the privilege to hear God’s Word at any time, are both opportunities to draw closer to God. Every opportunity has an expiring date; so a time comes when we will no longer be able to repent. Thus, Isaiah beckons on us all to repent with the opportunity we have today. This is a clarion call to forsake procrastination and the fear that God may not show mercy. There is nothing that God cannot forgive and there is no bad habit that he cannot give us the grace to overcome, if only we are sincere with our desire to draw closer.
Sometimes, we give excuses that make us comfortable in complacency. But know this, what makes you feel excused from repenting, may not really excused you in the sight of God. So, Isaiah warns us that our thoughts and ways are far apart from those of God. Where you think that God understands, God does not understand obstinacy in sin. But where you think that your sins are too much for God to show mercy, God comes with abundant pardon. So, today is the best time to stop that bad habit; tomorrow is not assured.
In the gospel reading, Jesus used a very controversial parable to teach us how God will judge us based on the opportunities we’ve got in life. In this parable, we come to realize that the opportunities we must utilize are those whose end is heaven. If the utilization of any opportunity will not bring us to heaven, then it is no opportunity at all. We must be careful that we are not victimizing or riding on others all in the name of utilizing opportunities. The utilization of every opportunity must not contradict love.
In this gospel parable, notice that an agreement was reached between the householder and the first set of hired labourers. You cannot be unjust when you stick to agreement. Yet, we will not blame the first set of hired labourers for expecting more since they worked the longest hours. However, what is common to all the labourers that worked in the vineyard is that they came to the field the very moment they were opportune to meet with the householder. No one met with the householder and procrastinated his going to the field. No one met the householder and refused to work in the field. So, all the labourers utilized the opportunity to work in the field at the time they got the opportunity. None of them is to be blamed for not having this opportunity earlier.
It is the prompt utilization of opportunity that the householder was rewarding, using the agreement template with the first set of workers. This prompt and effective utilization of opportunity is the message Jesus wants us to take home today. The reaction of the first set of workers represents the distraction of comparing opportunities rather than focusing on what we have received.
In a way, this parable teaches us that all of us can still make this heaven even if it is today that we decide to repent. In another way, we should be careful not to envy those who gets this invitation latter than us. Some may think: if all of us can repent at any time and still make heaven, why don’t I enjoy worldliness for some time and repent later. Such thoughts are bargains with the heaven; and are very risky. Man is never in control of time; he can only utilize time. Again, if we think in this way, we consciously decide to waste the opportunity we’ve got today with the hope of utilizing the opportunity of tomorrow. But we shall give account of the opportunity we wasted today. A student who decides to aim at the pass mark of 40, may find himself scoring 38. But when the student aims at 80, he will never be found below the pass mark.
Beloved, make the best of all that life gives you in order to make heaven. It was with this consciousness that St. Paul remarked in the second reading: for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Abhor the culture of waste. Opportunities abound: being alive, having parent(s)/family, being educated, friends and neighbours, your profession/vocation, your location, your temperament and personality, your gifts, strengths and weaknesses, your Faith. All of these should help us to open our hearts to listen to the Words of Jesus. God is generosity personified; we rather utilize it than begrudge it. God Bless You!
********************
Rev. Fr. Stephen Udechukwu
TAKE WHAT BELONGS TO YOU AND GO
Today’s gospel reading can be controversial, scandalous, shocking and thought provoking because of its seemingly “unjust ending” where workers are paid not according to the work done but according to the generosity of the land owner. Imagine as a manager of a company who worked tirelessly during the month for the growth of the company and then at the end of the month the owner of the company decides to pay all workers in the company including the gateman (who people often feel are the “lowest”) the same amount. I am sure that the owner of such a company will probably not see anyone in his company at the beginning of the following month. What justice is there to pay someone who worked ten hours the same thing with someone who worked just one hour?
Social justice demands that each is paid according to his/her work. Someone once asked, “Fr. is the reward in heaven the same? Because if it is the same then can we not say that God is being partial? How can someone who has been committing sin all his life and then probably repent at the end of his life receive the same reward with someone who had been faithful all his life”? This is where our first reading takes its strong root when God says through Isaiah the prophet “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” God’s ways are often controversial and sometimes difficult to accept by many for it is only God who can use what is weak to shame the strong as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:27. It is God and God alone who can feed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish and have twelve baskets left over as we have in Matthew 14:13-21 and Mark 6:30-44. It is only God who would decide to wait for his friend to die and be buried for four days before he is brought back to life as in the case of Lazarus in John 11:1-44. Indeed God’s ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts and will never be for Matthew 5:45 says that “He allows sun to rise on both the wicked and the good, and gives rain to both the just and the unjust”. Hence, all that is required of us is take whatever he has given us and go without grumbling.
Now we notice that in today’s parable the owner of the vineyard went out five good times to hire laborers within the space of a day, he would have hired them at the same time but he did not. After hiring, he negotiated with the first group of workers but the rest agreed to receive whatever is right from him i.e. any amount is ok by them. Now when evening came, the owner of the farm/vineyard said to the manager “call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first. When those hired about eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius (as agreed). But when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more than those hired last and when they didn’t, they began to grumble at the owner of the farm saying “these last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”
The question is why do we always have the feeling that we are to receive more than others? Why do we always think that God should bless or favour us more than others? The story of many of us is not quite different from that of those first workers. Because we have offered God something, because we are always giving the highest donation in the Church; because we are more active in the Church then God must repay us or rather we should be blessed more than those who have not given much; many of us believe and think that our contributions to the service of God should and must earn us a special blessing, place or positions in the church and in the sight of God, but St. Paul will ask such people with this mentality in 1 Corinthians 4:7 “what is it you have that you have not received”? Many of us feel so much entitlement from the Church or their priest/pastors because they feel they have labored so much for the Church. But the point is that there is only one reward for all and that is heaven, so why not take what belongs to you and leave. We can only merit and not earn God’s blessing. God does not owe us anything, hence whatever he gives us is out of his generosity thus we must erase and eradicate the sense of entitlement we often bring before God and his Church.
The gist of this Jesus’ parable today is about the generosity of God. God has called all of us into his Church (vineyard) at different times; some became Christians from birth, some at death bed while some got converted along the way. The fact remains that the same reward awaits us for working in his vineyard and this shows the generosity of God towards us. Why then should we be envious that he is more generous to others? You cannot tell a rich man how to spend his money; rather you can only pray that the rich man considers and favour you.
May God give us the grace to cherish that which God has given to us and remove from us the spirit of envy of another’s blessing. Amen.
HAPPY SUNDAY AND GOD BLESS YOU
