Sept 24, 2023 English

A stark contrast is palpable in today’s gospel story from Matthew 20:1-16. Those laborers who worked from early in the morning under the scorching sun are receiving the same wage as those who worked only for an hour before sundown. Unfair? Maybe. But not unjust. That’s what Jesus says. Because the motivation is magnanimous generosity. Our sense of fairness and justice crumbles before God’s incredible and unimaginable kindness, goodness, and mercy. This story resembles that of the prodigal father in Luke 15. Totally undeserving, yet these latecomers or squanderers receive the same full gift – grace - like the rest. Grace means gift. Mercy is not a matter of entitlement or justice. Salvation is not based on merits and achievements on our part.

An older gentleman, whom I helped to become a Catholic through private instructions and RCIA (Rites of Christian Initiation of Adults), would repeatedly say how personally apropos today’s parable is to him. This reminds me of the famous saying of St. Augustine: “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you.”

Pope Francis states: “The Gospel’s message is for everyone, the Gospel does not condemn the wealthy, but the idolatry of wealth, the idolatry that makes people indifferent to the call of the poor.”

Jesus’ concern for those in the margin is undeniable yet his message is not readily accepted and appropriated by everybody in every age. First will be last, last will be first. I came not for the righteous but for sinners. Prostitutes and tax collectors will enter the kingdom of heaven first. His logic of mercy is on a collision course with our sense of justice and fairness.
 
So Isaiah proclaims: “…let [the wicked] turn to the LORD for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.

As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.”
As we muddle through economic and racial inequality, the phenomenon of so many people on the move around the world, and the political jockeying around immigration policy controversy, we are challenged to overcome our self-interest, sense of entitlement, fear, and myopia. In today’s gospel story, we are invited to imitate God’s mercy and generosity! We are likely to be proud and grateful to be American, but our first and foremost allegiance is to the kingdom of God. After all, we have the citizenship of heaven through God’s generosity. Are our perspectives and attitudes in line with those of Jesus?
 
Fr. Paul D. Lee, STD