25th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Imagine there are four houses on your street. You own the house on the corner and it is valued at $400,000. The house next door is valued at $300,000; the house across the street is valued at $200,000, and the one at the end of the block is valued at $100,000. Yours has been on the market for months.

One day, the phone rings and you answer it. You can hardly believe what you are hearing. The caller is offering $500,000 for your house. You jump for joy and accept the offer on the spot.

The next day you learn that the other owners on your street sold their houses to the same buyer. Then comes the thunderbolt. They each received $500,000. You are so angry that you call the buyer to vent your dismay. “Did I cheat you?” he asked, “Or are you envious because I am generous?”

This is an incredible parable, perhaps the most disliked parable in scripture since it prompts many to react in much the same way the laborers who had worked in the fields all day did. “Not fair!” might sum up your thoughts as well. We sympathize with those who labored all day in the hot sun. Tired and weary, they watch those who were hired last receive a denarius, the usual full day’s pay, for a mere hour of work. Since the master was so generous to the latecomers, they expected even more, but their smiles fade when the foreman gives them the same pay. When they complained, the vineyard owner pointed out, they received the amount they had agreed upon when hired.

Had the early workers not learned what their employer paid the latecomers, they would have gone home thankful that they could feed their family. Instead, they went home angry and jealous. Why did those who worked all day resent the good fortune of those hired last?

Why would you resent the good fortune of your neighbors who also got a half million dollars for their homes? Why do so many people become happy or sad, depending on whether they think they are better off or worse off than their neighbors?

Jesus hints at the answer when he has the vineyard owner says to those whom he hired first, “My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Are you envious because I am generous?” He hits the nail on the head, doesn’t he? Instead of being grateful for what God has given us, we compare ourselves and our situation to those around us. If we think of others as being better off than we are; that they have more money than we have; that they are better looking than we are; or that they are more talented or popular than we are, jealousy arises, causing us to feel less loved. Jealousy can cause us to miss the point of this gospel, that God wants every one to have the chance to be saved.

Life, as the saying goes, is unfair. Some people are born healthy, others crippled, blind, or like me, hearing impaired. Some have a genius IQ, while others are severely mentally challenged and the majority find themselves somewhere in the middle. We judge ourselves by worldly standards instead of by God’s standards. Envy stops us from appreciating what God has given us in the first place: life and unconditional love.

That God is so generous may be hard for some people to comprehend, but as Isaiah observes, God does not think or act in the same way we do. “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.”

Because we judge ourselves and others by human standards, we don’t know what to make of God’s unconditional love. Regardless of who we are and our status and situation in life, we are loved no less than anyone else in the world. Like the vineyard owner, God intends to offers the same gift, namely, eternal life to anyone who accepts it.

Some might consider this unfair. They might feel like the workers who started early. We bore “the day’s burden and the heat.” We have lived our faith for years, don’t we deserve something more? But what more can God give you than what he is already offering? Heaven is his gift to all who accept his invitation to work for the kingdom, regardless of when in life the invitation is accepted. The benefit for those who have lived the faith is a life well lived, very much aware of God’s love.

Put it this way, the devil wants us to stew, but God wants Stewardship. The devil wants us to compare ourselves to others and to stew about how unfair things are. God thinks differently: God wants us to recognize whatever we have as a free gift that we must invest for his glory and the good of others. By doing that, we can come to appreciate just how much God truly loves us. What matters is that when the Lord returns, you and I are working in the vineyard.

In our first reading, the prophet Isaiah tells us, “Seek the Lord while he may be found.” The key word is “while.” It implies that a time will come when it will be too late for us to do that. By falling into a serious sin such as envy, a person could be digging an unbridgeable chasm between himself and God.

Winston Churchill, the great prime minister of England, was right when he noted, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
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Imagine there are four houses on your street. You own the house on the corner and it is valued at $400,000. The house next door is valued at $300,000; the house across the street is valued at $200,000, and the one at the end of the block is valued at $100,000. Yours has been on the market for months.

One day, the phone rings and you answer it. You can hardly believe what you are hearing. The caller is offering $500,000 for your house. You jump for joy and accept the offer on the spot.

The next day you learn that the other owners on your street sold their houses to the same buyer. Then comes the thunderbolt. They each received $500,000. You are so angry that you call the buyer to vent your dismay. “Did I cheat you?” he asked, “Or are you envious because I am generous?”

This is an incredible parable, perhaps the most disliked parable in scripture since it prompts many to react in much the same way the laborers who had worked in the fields all day did. “Not fair!” might sum up your thoughts as well. We sympathize with those who labored all day in the hot sun. Tired and weary, they watch those who were hired last receive a denarius, the usual full day’s pay, for a mere hour of work. Since the master was so generous to the latecomers, they expected even more, but their smiles fade when the foreman gives them the same pay. When they complained, the vineyard owner pointed out, they received the amount they had agreed upon when hired.

Had the early workers not learned what their employer paid the latecomers, they would have gone home thankful that they could feed their family. Instead, they went home angry and jealous.  Why did those who worked all day resent the good fortune of those hired last?

Why would you resent the good fortune of your neighbors who also got a half million dollars for their homes? Why do so many people become happy or sad, depending on whether they think they are better off or worse off than their neighbors?

Jesus hints at the answer when he has the vineyard owner says to those whom he hired first, “My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Are you envious because I am generous?” He hits the nail on the head, doesn’t he? Instead of being grateful for what God has given us, we compare ourselves and our situation to those around us. If we think of others as being better off than we are; that they have more money than we have; that they are better looking than we are; or that they are more talented or popular than we are, jealousy arises, causing us to feel less loved. Jealousy can cause us to miss the point of this gospel, that God wants every one to have the chance to be saved.

Life, as the saying goes, is unfair. Some people are born healthy, others crippled, blind, or like me, hearing impaired. Some have a genius IQ, while others are severely mentally challenged and the majority find themselves somewhere in the middle.  We judge ourselves by worldly standards instead of by God’s standards. Envy stops us from appreciating what God has given us in the first place: life and unconditional love.

That God is so generous may be hard for some people to comprehend, but as Isaiah observes, God does not think or act in the same way we do. “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.”

Because we judge ourselves and others by human standards, we don’t know what to make of God’s unconditional love. Regardless of who we are and our status and situation in life, we are loved no less than anyone else in the world. Like the vineyard owner, God intends to offers the same gift, namely, eternal life to anyone who accepts it.

Some might consider this unfair. They might feel like the workers who started early. We bore “the day’s burden and the heat.” We have lived our faith for years, don’t we deserve something more? But what more can God give you than what he is already offering? Heaven is his gift to all who accept his invitation to work for the kingdom, regardless of when in life the invitation is accepted. The benefit for those who have lived the faith is a life well lived, very much aware of God’s love.

Put it this way, the devil wants us to stew, but God wants Stewardship. The devil wants us to compare ourselves to others and to stew about how unfair things are. God thinks differently: God wants us to recognize whatever we have as a free gift that we must invest for his glory and the good of others. By doing that, we can come to appreciate just how much God truly loves us. What matters is that when the Lord returns, you and I are working in the vineyard.

In our first reading, the prophet Isaiah tells us, “Seek the Lord while he may be found.” The key word is “while.” It implies that a time will come when it will be too late for us to do that. By falling into a serious sin such as envy, a person could be digging an unbridgeable chasm between himself and God.

Winston Churchill, the great prime minister of England, was right when he noted, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”