TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (Cycle A)

IT JUST ISN'T FAIR!

Isaiah 55:6-9; Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a; Matthew 20:1-16a 

Arguably, the greatest composer in the history of the world is the classical music virtuoso, Mozart. It’s ironic that such a great and prolific composer of over six hundred compositions, including twenty-one stage and opera works, fifteen masses, over fifty symphonies, twenty-five piano concertos, twelve violin concertos, twenty-seven concert arias, seventeen piano sonatas, twenty-six string quartets, and many other works, is known to the world and throughout history by a single, two-syllable name, simply: MOZART. But interestingly, the 1984 Academy Award winning film based on his life derives its title, not from that simple two-syllable name that is synonymous with musical genius, but rather his middle name, AMADEUS, a name which translates “loved by God” or “favored by God.” The movie portrays Mozart as an eccentric, almost schizophrenic genius. Another composer, the devout Antonio Salieri, despised Mozart and considered him immature, flippant, arrogant and obnoxious. He became obsessed with why Mozart should be so favored by God as such a brilliant musician and composer when he didn't deserve it. After all, Salieri was the Lord's servant, faithful in obedience to God. Why shouldn't God bestow this gift on him instead of Mozart? He was a better person and he deserved it more. In a moment of despair, feeling that the Lord he has been so faithful to has forsaken him, he removes the crucifix from his wall and burns it. Salieri couldn’t live with God's love and grace. He wanted fairness and justice; he wanted from God what he thought he had worked for, earned and deserved.

How many times have you said, "It just isn’t fair!"

• The time that, despite all your expertise and experience, someone less qualified got the job you wanted and deserved.
• The times when you give all you’ve got to your son or daughter - your time, your energy, your attention, and they can’t lift a finger to help you or even say “thank you.”
• The times you loved so deeply and put so much into a relationship, and the one that you focused all that love on and was so devoted to, was unfaithful and preferred someone else’s love.
• The times you worked so hard for something to be a success, and someone else took the credit.
• The times you prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and God seemed to have turned a deaf ear to you, and your prayer wasn’t answered.

The Bible, too, is full of examples of seemingly unfair situations. Just in the New Testament we hear about:

• The humble poor widow who drops two small coins in the offering bowl, and Jesus praises her gift as more valuable than the wealthy who made a show of their substantial contribution to the Temple treasury.
• A shepherd who leaves the flock of ninety-nine behind to search for the one lost sheep.
• The disgraced runaway son who is forgiven by his father and his return home celebrated even after wasting all his inheritance. Yet nothing is given and no fuss made over his faithful, hardworking and devoted brother. 
• The thief on the cross alongside Jesus, who after a life of wickedness, makes a last minute confession and Jesus promises that he will be saved. 
• And today’s Gospel: a farmer pays the same wage to the laborers who have sweated twelve long hours in his vineyard as those who have only put in nine hours, as those who put in six hours, as those who put in three hours, as those who put in only one hour. It just doesn’t seem fair. 

My guess is that this is not on the list of your ten favorite bible stories. This story offends our sense of fairness. You and I have been taught all of our lives that hard work pays off, that good behavior brings rewards, an hour's work deserves an hour's pay, and that those who have worked the longest deserve special honor. We believe in merit, want to live by it, and reap its rewards in everything from our places of employment, to our households, to our religious lives. But Jesus comes along and tells this story which is not only bad business, faulty economic policy, and poor religious practice, but plainly unfair. On the other hand, whoever said that God was fair? At least in the ways we judge fairness.

In our way of reckoning, one plus one equals two – always and only two. But God's math is completely different: Two small coins are worth more than a heap of money, one sheep is of equal value as ninety-nine sheep, a son who runs away and blows all his cash, is loved as much as the son who has always done the right thing, and whether a person works one hour or twelve hours, it makes no difference to a landowner who treats everyone alike. For God’s ways are not our ways. And our thoughts are not God’s thoughts.

I think, maybe, in order to get a better handle on what God is trying to tell us in this parable, we've got to look at what it's not about. It's not about economics, or a just wage, or labor-management relationships or, and perhaps most of all, it's not about fairness. This parable is about generosity and mercy. Not about the fairness of God, but about the lavishness of God.

So, let me ask you this: Would you rather God judge you with fairness, or would you prefer that He judge you with mercy? The reason I ask is, if we want the latter, we've got to get beyond some traditional American ideas that run along the lines of: “You get what you deserve.” “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” “You want something? Work for it.” “If you don't catch a break . . . tough.”

Instead of these attitudes, God tells us that He doesn't want us even trying to earn our way into heaven because none of us can do it. Not St. Anthony the Hermit who served God faithfully for 105 years. Not St. Agnes of Rome who was martyred at age 13. Not St. Therese of Lisieux, our patron saint, who spent eight years in prayer in a cloistered monastery. Not Mother Teresa, who spent fifty-five years on the streets serving the poorest of the poor. Not me. Not you.

This is why God is so great.! He doesn't want people exclaiming, "Look at all that I've done for God!” He wants us to boast, “Look at all God has done for me!” God's kingdom is His free gift to us. All we’re asked to do is love and trust. Love God and our neighbor and trust that He will give us all the graces that we will ever need toward our salvation, all the graces to die in His arms and in His love. But that’s God - generous and compassionate in His love for us.

Perhaps the best way to look at how this parable relates to us is this: All that is good in us is ours, not by right but as a free gift of God. To be sure, there is much that we have earned: our salary, our home, the cars that we drive. . . But, all this is possible only because so much has been given to us: eyes to see, ears to hear, hands to touch, a good mind, a heart to beat with love, life itself. All of these things and so much more are pure gifts, not rewards. Each of us is incredibly dear to our Lord. But, none of us are able to do anything to have either earned it or demanded it. This runs counter-cultural to what our American society reinforces, but isn’t it nice to know that our individual worth isn’t based on what we do and how much we earn and how much we’ve succeeded, but simply on the fact that we are children of a loving, compassionate, merciful, generous God?

So where are you in your faith journey? Are you like the workers who showed up at dawn, a lifelong person of faith? Are you like the workers that were hired at the ninth, or twelfth, or the three or five o’clock hour and the importance of your faith came to you just recently, perhaps through the example of a friend, a passage from the Bible you read, a homily you heard, a retreat experience, or a tragedy you’ve had to deal with? Or are you someone who has just been going through the motions, and you becoming a person of faith is still yet to come? Today’s gospel tells us that it doesn’t matter when you arrive in the vineyard, but that you arrive. And whether you’ve been a person of faith all your life, at the end of your life, or sometime in-between, you are welcomed, loved, and blessed by our Father in heaven. And yes, we can all understand the grumbling of the workers in today’s gospel because we’ve all been there. But let’s remember that God's ways are not our ways and God's thoughts are not our thoughts. And most of all, let’s remember to let God be God: generous . . . merciful . . . lavish.

The Exultation Of The Cross

For God So Loved The World

Numbers 21:4b-9; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17

The words we just heard in the gospel contain what is probably the most quoted line in all of Scripture. As a matter of fact, whenever you turn on a football game, you’re sure to see someone in the stands holding up a sign for all to see book chapter and verse: John: 3:16. And on this Sunday, that the Church celebrates the Feast of the Exultation of the Cross (and sports fans across our country celebrate the second Sunday of the football season!) John 3:16 is once again held up for all to see, to hear to take notice of, to never forget: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.

But it’s funny, isn’t it, on a day that the Church focuses our attention on the cross that, other than a veiled reference to the Son of Man being “lifted up”, there is no specific reference to the cross in our gospel. No, it doesn't mention the cross. Not here. Not yet. Nothing about the cost. Nothing about the price of it all. Just the gift. Only that "God so loved the world, that he sent his only Son" so that we may have eternal life.

Being loved is always a surprise. The very fact that someone chooses to love us is exciting. It supports us in what we do. It gives us new insight into our value as a human. Even when we recognize our self worth, being loved is still a startling experience. "Are we worthy of such devotion?" we wonder. "Will it last?"

It is no wonder then, that being loved by God comes as a great surprise to us. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life." That is amazing love! The ultimate example of love! It is the pattern and model of the kind of love that we, as Christians, are called to show in our lives. And it is offered to every one of us.

This amazing love of God is not something we have earned. It is not something we deserve. It is a love totally unmerited by us! It is grace, freely given. Yet love offered is not necessarily love accepted. The suitor can be spurned. We can say yes or no. And yes, free though it may be, it is not without cost. Loving always comes at a cost to self. And opening ourselves to the gift of God’s love means that we cannot avoid the experience of the cross. Opening ourselves to the gift of God’s love means opening ourselves to the possibility of suffering, as well as to the probability of great joy.

The cross, for a a Christian, is a sign of contradiction. What was once a sign of infamy and disgrace becomes a sign of vulnerability and love. But it was only through sacrifice, through the sufferings of Jesus, that this contradiction was made possible. And so, the ideal is set before us: that as followers of Jesus, as people with a personal relationship with the Lord who loves each of us, we have to be willing to sacrifice everything we have to fill the world with the Father's love. Our daily turmoil, our problems, our pains all take on an infinite value when we trust them to Jesus, when we unite our cross to his cross.

We need to look upon the cross today and recognize its power to save. We need to explore the depths of John 3:16 and not just simply flaunt it on a banner at a football stadium! The more firmly we embrace the cross, the more self-emptying we accomplish, and God is able to fill us to our depths with a love we never dreamed possible.

For the love so freely given to us and so underserved by us, calls us in turn, to come into relationship, not only with that loving God, but also to reach out in love to our neighbor. Not the neighbor I choose to love, mind you. Not the one whose culture and race match mine, but the one God calls me to serve. My neighbor is the addicted, the perverted, the selfish, the corrupted. My neighbor is the one of another faith. My neighbor is the one person in the parish that I just cannot stand. Our great God who gave us such amazing love, now calls us to extend that love to others. Friends. Enemies. Neighbors. Strangers. Old. Young. Men. Women. Gay. Straight. Democrat. Republican. Christian, Jewish, Muslim. American. Iraqi. No exceptions. “For God so loved the world” and as those who have been filled with that love, we are called to do the same.

And so, on this day on which we celebrate the Exultation of the Cross, we acknowledge that the realization that we are truly and freely and totally and undeservedly loved by God is difficult for us to grasp. Yet the signs of God's love are all around us. And the humanity of Christ is God's fullest sign of love for us. That Christ should live and die as one of us is truly an amazing sign. For we have a God who has reached out to embrace us with outstretched arms from a cross of wood. If we believe that, then the symbol of the cross should support, thrill, excite, and re-create us. For we are truly loved.