Homilies

30th Sunday of the Year October 23, 2005 In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul made a statement that catches my attention; “You became a model for all the believers of Macedonia and Achaia.” Hmm, could Paul address such a letter to us? Have we become a model for all the believers of South Whidbey? He went on to observe that the Thessalonians had turned from idols to serve the living God in whom they have grounded their new faith. Have we done the same thing?

Years ago, I read about a man who went to an exhibit on idols, expecting to see idols from India, Africa and the South Seas. Instead he found several large panels. One was covered with tobacco and numerous cigarette labels; the second was covered with labels from assorted liquor bottles; the third was covered with pennants from different football teams, and the last one was covered with dollar bills. He realized that idols were everywhere, not just in distant lands. Many people value idols of power, money, alcohol, drugs, tobacco, that piece of pigskin known also as a football, and/or that appliance given various names such as the boob tube which can command our undivided attention for several hours each evening. Do any of these idols stop us from serving the one true God?

Paul tells the Thessalonians that the Word of the Lord has echoed forth from them resoundingly, not only in Macedonia and Achaia; but also throughout every region where their faith in God is celebrated.

The Thessalonians were like megaphones. By their lifestyles, people elsewhere could see how these onetime pagans accepted and lived the word of God. The success of their approach doesn’t surprise me. Aren’t we often sold on a product because someone has convinced us to try it out?

Within a year after it was first introduced into this country 25 years ago, sales for the Pentel felt-tip pen were phenomenal. All this happened without any advertising except by “word of mouth.” People in all kinds of offices across the country advertised the pen by introducing it to others.

Most anyone in business will tell you that to sell any product well, you have to believe in what you are selling. The Thessalonians believed in what they were selling. Could Paul commend us for convincingly selling the Word of God? Maybe you don’t see yourself as a salesperson, much less an evangelist, but most likely you do sell to others what you personally believe in including your favorite brand names, TV shows, and political candidates. How then can we best sell God to others? Today’s Gospel gives us that answer.

When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus was quick to tell his listeners, “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Knowing that they would need some pointers on how to fulfill this commandment, he added another for good measure. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That added line makes sense for love of neighbor tests the reality of our love for God. Our love for God cannot be something only thought or even only said, such as in prayer. It must be carried out by loving actions.

Being human, none of us are perfect. We all have shortcomings especially when it comes to love. More than once I have been confronted on my own shortcomings as a person of love. What matters is that we never give up trying to be the lovers that God is calling us to be.

In his renowned book, The Road Less Traveled, the late Scott Peck defines love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another person’s spiritual growth.” Love’s primary task, he notes, is attention giving. We cannot claim to love someone when we fail to pay attention to that person.

Often people will complain to me that they cannot love a certain person. What they come to realize is that they don’t like the person. Liking and loving are not the same thing. Dr. Peck observes, “Liking or affection is primarily a feeling; love is primarily a matter of decision and action.”

How we pay attention to others, to God, and even to ourselves is what makes us unique. In case you are at a loss for ideas on how to love, here are a few tips that you may find useful written by an anonymous author.

“Mend a quarrel. Search out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a love letter. Share some treasure. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed.

“Keep a promise. Find the time. Forego a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Listen. Apologize if you were wrong. Try to understand. Flout envy. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Appreciate, be kind, be gentle, laugh a little more.

“Deserve confidence. Take up arms against malice. Decry complacency. Express your gratitude. Worship your God. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love. Speak it again. Speak it still again. Speak it still once again.”

To understand today’s gospel, it will help to consider the context. We just heard a dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees on the question of paying the census tax. Every adult in the Roman Empire under the age of 65, regardless of gender or status had to pay this tax, which for many people was the equivalent of a day’s wages. They returned to Caesar something that already belonged to the emperor, a coin bearing his image. For the Jews, that was scandalous for unlike the Romans, they did not see Caesar as a deity.

Instead of taking sides, by saying yea or nay to the question about paying the census tax, Jesus replies with one of his unforgettable lines, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

What belongs to Caesar is easy enough for us to know. The many different government agencies, from the county auditor to the IRS, find ways to tell us what we owe in taxes. But what do we repay to God? That is a question that a fair number of us pay little attention to.

At the moment I suspect you are thinking, “There goes Father, talking about money again,” and for good reason. We owe God much more than the loose change in our pockets. We owe God our very existence. What to repay God is an expression of our gratitude for all that God has blessed us with.

Admittedly, many people think of stewardship simply as a way for the parish to raise money. I won’t deny that, but more importantly, stewardship should be seen as a personal and spiritual journey, not just another fund-raising technique. You could say that stewardship is an attitude of gratitude.

The contrast of Caesar and God is a timeless reminder of the world we live in, a clash between the earthly and spiritual powers that compete for our attention. As people of faith, we are continually challenged to travel a road less traveled. That means seeing our relationship with God as an ongoing daily journey, fully conscious of the many spiritual and worldly blessings that we have been given. Such a lifestyle is a dramatic departure from our society’s consumer mindset with its emphasis on wealth, materialism, and individualism.

As people of faith, we are called to share what we have, serve others, and be actively engaged in a faith community. In the typical family setting, its members usually come to realize that each person has an important role to play if the family is to thrive. In the family setting, we can see stewardship at work. When everyone pitches in, life on the home front is richly blessed.

Speaking of families, the late Danny Thomas shared how he was introduced to stewardship as a young man. At a time when his wife, Rosie, was expecting a baby, he lost his life savings of $600. Danny worked part time jobs so Rosie could buy groceries. It was a tough time in his life.

A week before the baby was born, Danny had the grand total of $7.85 to his name. What would he do? “My despair led me to my first exposure to the powers of faith.” That Sunday morning, Danny went to Mass. When the collection basket was passed, he put in his usual one dollar. But something unexpected then happened. The priest announced that another collection was being taken up for missions. Danny felt that he had to give something. “I got carried away and ended up giving my seven dollars.”

He had given away all his money that day. What was he to do? After Mass, he walked up to the altar rail, got on his knees and prayed aloud, “Look, I’ve given my last seven bucks. I need it back tenfold because I’ve got a kid on the way, and I have to pay the hospital bill.” He went home with 85 cents in his pocket…all the money he had in the world.

“You won’t believe this,” Danny later wrote, “but the next morning the phone rang.” It was a job offer for a part in a commercial. It wasn’t much but the pay was good…$75. “I literally dropped the telephone receiver,” Danny related, “First I whooped for joy; then an eerie feeling came over me. The $75 fee, unheard of for me at that time was almost exactly ten times the amount of money I had donated to the church.” Those who remember Danny Thomas will recall that he continued to repay God many times over, raising funds for St. Jude’s children’s hospital in Memphis, TN.

Giving of their time, talent, and treasure may seem a bit overwhelming to most people since they have so much going on in their lives, yet repaying God is something we must all do if we are in fact grateful for all that God has given us in this lifetime.

A married couple in our diocese gave a beautiful testimony to this. They talked about their financial struggles and the decisions they were faced with in the family budget. Worries and troubles overwhelmed them until they started to look at things differently. When all is said and done, they realized, everything comes from God. It all belongs to him. On their
checks, right above the signature line, they had these words imprinted: God owns it all. What a difference that made!

Consider how different your life and mine would be if that truth could penetrate our hearts. God owns it all so, as Jesus said, repay to God what belongs to God.

Earlier this year, Oprah Winfrey, one of the most popular talk show hosts on television, hosted a party to end all parties in honor of the people she considered her heroes. Each person on the exclusive invitation list was instructed to wear white. The event was a smashing success; it was clearly the most coveted invitation in town, so to no one’s surprise, almost every guest showed up.

Imagine if none of the guests had accepted the invitation? “No way!” you would say, “That would never happen in a million years!” And you’re right. How could anyone pass up the opportunity to attend such an opulent affair?

Yet that is the scenario Jesus painted in this parable. The host in this instance was not a popular television personality, but a king. If there was ever a command performance, this was it, yet his guests turned him down. To make this story even more absurd, some of those guests did more than just decline the invitation. They went so far as to mistreat or kill the king’s servants.

This was Jesus’ way of pointing out that many people in the course of history had rejected the prophets who repeated called them to repentance. But God wasn’t about to cancel the party. To the contrary, the invitation to this great feast is now extended to everyone. “Go out, therefore, into the main roads, and invite to the feast whomever you find,” the servants were told. So they gathered up all they could find, good and bad alike.

Amongst all the guests who filled the hall was a man who was not dressed in a wedding garment. “My friend,” the king asked, “how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?” When the guest could provide no excuse, he was cast into the darkness outside.

If this outcome sounds strange to you, try dining at some fancy restaurant that requires a coat and tie and if you have neither, the maitre d’ would gladly provide you with one. In biblical times, guests who came improperly attired were provided with wedding garments. For some reason, the guest, even when given the chance, chose not to wear one.

The issue here is not the article of clothing, but the meaning behind the garment. As the saying goes, clothes make the man. Wearing purple and gold, for example, sends the message to anyone at Husky stadium that the person with such colors is a Husky fan. Many others are there to enjoy the game, but not necessarily to see the Huskies win, especially those who might be wearing crimson and gray!

The point Jesus is making here is that God is a generous host who has thrown open the doors to anyone who cares to come to the heavenly banquet: the good, the bad, and the indifferent. But as we are told, many declined the invitation for any number of reasons ranging from apathy to having been offended in some way by someone claiming to be a Christian.

Being invited is easy enough, but getting to stay is a different story. Through the sacrament of baptism, we accept God’s invitation to the heavenly banquet, but as the ousted guest learned, having the invitation in hand is no assurance that one gets to stay and enjoy the heavenly feast.

If you have witnessed an infant’s baptism, you may recall the words spoken by the celebrant after the baptism. “You have become a new creation, and have clothed yourself in Christ. See in this white garment the outward sign of your Christian dignity. With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring that dignity unstained into the everlasting life of heaven.” In other words, we are told to arrive at the gates of heaven with our dignity unstained by sin as a sign that we are still wedded to Christ.

We cannot expect to be seated at the heavenly banquet if we make no effort in our lifetime to reject Satan, and all his works, and all his empty promises. In effect, when we sin, we put aside our wedding garment. Those who will be chosen are those who have made their peace with God.

This parable is a metaphor for sin in our lives, addressing the reality that sin weakens our relationship with God. It is dangerous to presume that when the moment comes for us to stand before God, we will be ready. As the news media points out often, death can come when we least expect it.

Have you ever responded to a request with the line, “I’ll get a round to it?” Well, I have more than once. One day, a dear friend handed me a cross section of a tree branch, about the size of a thick poker chip, on which were written the letters, t,o,i,t. I asked her what was the meaning behind this and she explained, “Well, you keep saying that one of these days you’ll get around to it, so I figured you needed one!”

How often do we say that we will get around to doing something, only to discover that time passes and the resolution remains undone? Perhaps that resolution was breaking a bad habit like smoking, losing weight, simplifying one’s lifestyle, become more prayerful, spending more time with loved ones, getting more exercise, or writing that long overdue letter. Yes, our good intentions often remain good intentions that have yet to be carried out.

Beginning with Adam and Eve, people have long made excuses when, for whatever reason, they chose not to follow the will of God. Many made the promise to, as did the second son in today’s parable, but they never carried out their good intentions.

Jesus shared this parable of the two sons with the chief priests and elders to rebuke them for acting holy, yet inwardly failing to do their part in bringing about the kingdom of God. Like the second son in the parable, the chief priests and the elders made their promises but in Jesus’ opinion, they were not obeying his Father’s will.

Jesus undoubtedly startled them when he said, “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.”

“Excuse me?” must have been their immediate reaction. “You question our holiness?” Indeed Jesus did for they were not backing up their words with any credible evidence of holiness. Like the son who agreed to go to the vineyard, they were not carrying out their promise.

On the other hand, Jesus praised the tax collectors and the prostitutes, whom the chief priests scorned, for being the ones who ultimately did what God asked of them. You could say that they got around to it. They heeded the call of John the Baptist to repent and change their ways. They were doing the will of the Father.

By changing their lives, Jesus pointed out that sinners were entering the kingdom of God. He didn’t say they were going to at some future date. He said they were entering. In other words, through conversion, Jesus tells us, we can enter the kingdom of God in this lifetime. The choice is up to us.

At baptism, when we entered into a faith relationship with God, we promised to work for the coming of the kingdom, to make God real in our lives. Our very presence suggests that we hold a common belief in God, but are we willing to obey God in all that he asked of us? Have we the attitude one finds in Jesus Christ?

I suspect not always. We tend to be selective in what we believe and what we do, so far as the teachings and commands of our faith go. Claiming that the Lord’s ways are unfair, we sometimes ignore God’s will, regarding it as being old fashioned and out of touch with reality. Consequently, we do sin and in those instances, our selfish ways prevent us from making the kingdom evident to those around us.

Do you remember Mary Poppins? In the 1964 movie, she is the magical nanny hired to care for Jane and Michael Banks. At the end of the first spectacular day, she is putting her new charges to bed. Jane asks Mary, “You will never leave us, will you?” Her younger brother quickly adds his own rash pledge; “Will you stay if we promise to be good?” Mary Poppins smiles and replies, “That is a pie crust promise. Easily made. Easily broken.” Jesus sees this tendency in his own “pie crust promise” disciples, who are slow to repent and believe. Does he see this in us, too?

If we want to enter the kingdom of God, then we must imitate the good son. We can choose to make a difference today in making the kingdom of God very real. How? For starters, we could choose to love, rather than hate. We could choose to smile, rather than frown. We could choose to build, rather than destroy. We could choose to persevere, rather than quit. We could choose to praise, rather than gossip. We could choose to heal, rather than wound. We could choose to give, rather than grasp. We could choose to act, rather than delay. We could choose to pray, rather than despair. We could choose to forgive, rather than curse.

When asked what remedy there was for the evils in the world, St. Francis of Assisi observed that we must first be what we ought to be; otherwise, evil would remain as a disorder everywhere. Each day brings us opportunities to choose between doing God’s will or doing evil. Do you see yourself being what you ought to be and taking on the attitude of Jesus? If not, when will you get around to it so that others can see the attitude of Christ in you?

This is an incredible parable. Like any good parable, it catches our attention because someone acted unexpectedly. In this case, the vineyard owner gives the same pay to everyone, regardless of how much work that person did. The laborers hired at dawn felt cheated even though they received what was promised when they were hired. Like them, we are inclined to protest, “That’s unfair!”

You might even be thinking this isn’t common sense either. One just doesn’t operate a business that way, paying every employee the same wage, especially if some do nothing more than show up for work before the end of the job shift. To better appreciate where Jesus is coming from, keep in mind that we are made in the image of God, not the other way around. As Isaiah reminds us, God’s thoughts are not our thoughts nor are God’s ways our ways.

With this parable, Jesus is telling his disciples that God has only one reward in store for all who work in the kingdom, whether one has been working all their lives or came aboard at the last moment. The Pharisees were miffed to think that sinners, especially tax collectors and prostitutes, would get the same compensation that they would. Like the laborers who slaved all day, they felt, “That isn’t fair!”

For that matter, how would many life-long Christians feel if they were to meet some scoundrel like Ted Bundy or Adolf Hitler in heaven? I suspect they too would protest, “That isn’t fair!” Faithfully keeping the commandments, being moral and upright in their lifestyles, they might  react in the same way the vineyard workers did if they knew that someone after a life of scandal would receive the same gift. After all, why be virtuous, turn the other cheek, say our prayers, conquer our temptations, and keep the commandments if God will smile just as kindly on gang-members, terrorists, and prostitutes?

If that is your gut reaction, then you need to reflect on your baptism and ask yourself, “What did God promise me?”

In baptism we are promised the gift of heaven. For most of us, baptism happened early in life; so like the laborers hired at dawn, we will find ourselves working all day long. Others will be drawn to the Lord later in life, some even on their deathbed. What matters to God is that they accepted an invitation to find salvation in Jesus Christ through the Church. Instead of being envious, we should be glad that another person found God before it was too late.

This is the deal Jesus presents, and those of us who count ourselves among the faithful had better get used to it.

Notorious sinners who come to Christ on their deathbed after living dissolute, immoral lives have as much opportunity to gain eternal paradise as those of us who go to church, follow the rules, and practice virtuous habits. Is this fair? That really does not matter for God never promised us our form of justice. His is a divine justice linked to divine mercy, and for most of us, whether we appreciate it or not, that will prove to be a very good thing.

Divine generosity is a scandal to people, like the Pharisees, who believe that it should only be granted to those who deserve it. But this is where their reasoning falls short. None of us deserve the generosity of God. Salvation is a gift God freely gives to all who accept it. If we think of heaven as something we deserve, then we will resent those who in our judgement do not. It would be arrogant to think that we have earned our way for heaven is God’s gift to us, not a paycheck for what we have done in this lifetime. What we do, however, is a testimony of what we believe.

God didn’t come into our lives for the purpose of hiring us in the manner that our employers did. Remember, the vineyard owner called the protesting laborer a friend, not a servant or brother. Likewise, Jesus comes into our lives as a friend to offer us the gift of salvation, which will be ours if we are in the vineyard come sundown. That is, if we are in a relationship with God at the hour of our death, which could come when we least expect it.

Instead of acting smugly, presuming that heaven is already ours, we should continually seek to be with God. Turn to God now is Isaiah’s message to us because tomorrow maybe too late. Consider the sacrament of reconciliation if you have need of it, for as Isaiah also points out, our God is generous in forgiving. Commit yourself to regular prayer habits, especially if you have been too busy to spend much time in prayer. Forgive anyone who is waiting on your forgiveness. After all, that is the promise you make each time you say the Lord’s Prayer.

As this parable suggests, God’s uncommon sense of generosity, love and forgiveness often strikes us with an extravagance that violates our sense of “fair play.” Rather than be offended by God’s ways, and fume that someone undeserving could possibly be in heaven with you someday, count yourself fortunate that God’s ways wisely puts love ahead of our notion of common sense and fairness. I recall a poem from years ago that says it well: I dreamt death came to me the other night, and heaven’s gate swung wide.

With kindly grace, the angels ushered me inside. And there to my astonishment, stood folks I’d known on earth, some of whom I had judged as being unfit and of little worth. Indignant words rose to my lips but never were set free, for every face showed stunned surprise. Not one expected me!