GENEROUS LANDOWNER - 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle A)

Homily for the 25^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle A)

Based on Mt 20:1-16 (Gospel), Is 55:6-9 (First Reading) and Phil 1:20-24,27 (Second Reading)

From the Series: “Reflections and Teachings of the Desert”

GENEROUS LANDOWNER

“Why be envious because I am generous?” (Mt 20:15)

The Gospel for this  25^th Sunday in Ordinary Time  (Cycle A) is taken from Mt 20:1-16, under the title “Parable of the vineyard laborers^a.” Footnote ^a says “The owner of the vineyard goes on into the evening hiring workmen and yet gives all a full day’s pay. He is generous to some without being unjust to the others. So God acts. Into his kingdom he brings late-comers-sinners and pagans. Those who were called first (the Jewish people who, from Abraham’s time, had been privileged with the covenant) have no right   to be offended.”

Verses 1 to 8 say: ‘Now the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner going out at daybreak to hire workers for his vineyard. He made an agreement with the workers for one denarius a day, and sent them to his vineyard. Going out at about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place. And said to them, “You go to my vineyard too and I will give you a fair wage”. So they went. At about the sixth hour and again at about the ninth hour, he went out and did the same. Then at about the eleventh hour he went out and found more men standing round, and he said to them, “Why have you been standing here all day?” “Because no one has hired us” they answered. He said to them, “You go into my vineyard too”.

In the evening, the owner of the vineyard said to his bailiff, “Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last arrivals and ending with the first”.

Parallel texts of verse 8 are:

1.       Lv 19:13 - You must not exploit or rob your neighbor. You must not keep back the laborer’s wage until next morning.

2.       Dt 24:14-15 - You are not to exploit the hired servant who is poor and destitute, whether he is one of your brothers or a stranger who lives in your towns (v. 14) You must pay him his wages on each day, not allowing the sun to set before you do, for he is poor and is anxious for it; otherwise he may appeal to Yahweh against you, and it would be a sin for you v. 15).

Verses 9 to 15 say: So those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came forward and received one denarius each. When the first came, they expected to get more, but they too received one denarius each. They took it, but grumbled at the landowner. ‘The men who came last” they said ‘have done only one hour, and you treated them the same as us, though we have done a heavy day’s work in all the heat.” He answered one of them and said, ‘MY friend, I am not being unjust to you; did we not agree on one denarius? Take your earnings and go. I choose to pay the last-comer as much as I pay you. Have I no right to do what I like with my own? Why be envious because I am generous?”

Parallel text of verse 15 is Rm 9:19-21 that says: You will ask me, ‘In that case, how can God ever blame anyone, since no one can oppose his will (v. 19)?^f  But what right have you, a human being, to cross-examine God? The pot has no right to say to the potter: Why did you make me this shape (v. 20)? Sure a potter can do what he likes with the clay? It is surely for him to decide whether he will use a particular lump of clay to make a special pot o an ordinary one (v. 21)?  Footnote ^f says “If man’s perversity thus becomes part of God’s design, how can man be accused of not doing the will of God? Apostle Paul replies, as before in a similar case (3:7; 6:1,15), by disallowing the objection. God being the absolute master of what he has made, the question of injustice cannot arise. Cf. Mt 20:15.”

Verse 16 says: Thus the last will be first, and the first, last.’^b Footnote  ^b  says “Add. ‘For many are called, but few are chosen’, probably borrowed from 22:14.”

Parallel text of verse is that says:

1.       Mt 19:30 - Many who are first will be last, and the last, first.

2.       Lk 13:30  - ‘Yes, there are those now last who will be first, and those now first who will be last.’

The First Reading is taken from  Is 55:6-9.

Verse 6 says: Seek Yahweh while he is to be found, call to him while he is still near.

Parallel texts are:

1.       Si 5:7 - For with him are both mercy and wrath, and his rage bears heavy and sinners.

2.       Ho 5:6 - Though they go in search of Yahweh with their sheep and oxen, they do not find him; for he has withdrawn from them.

Verse 7 says: Let the wicked man abandon his way, the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn back to Yahweh who will take pity on him, to our God who is rich in forgiving;

Parallel texts  are:

1.       Dt 4:7 - And indeed, what great nation is there that has its gods so near as Yahweh our God is to us whenever we call to him?^a Footnote  ^a  says “Whereas the other Pentateuchal traditions emphasize the distance between God and man, cf. Ex. 33:20+, Dt calls attention to God’s loving intimacy with his people in whose midst he dwells, 12:5. This same outlook is found in the narrative of the dedication of the Temple, 1 K 8:10-29 and the idea recurs in Ezk 48:35. The NT gives it supreme expression, cf. Jn 1:14+.

2.       Ps 145:18…standing close to all who invoke him, close to all who invoke Yahweh faithfully.

3.       Jr 29:13 - When you seek me you shall find me, when you seek me with all you hearts.

4.       Jn 7:34 - You will look for me and will not find me:ⁿ where I am you cannot come. Footnote ⁿ says “Christ, like God himself, must be sought while there is still time to find him. But the Jews will let his ‘time’ slip by and instead of coming to them, salvation will come to pagans (the ‘Greeks’). Cf. 12:20.”

5.       Ac 17:27 - And he did this so that all nations  might seek the deity^s and, by feeling their way towards him,  succeed in finding him. Yet in fact he is not far from us… Footnote ^s says “Var. ‘God’ or ‘the Lord’.”

6.       Lm 3:40 - Let us examine our path, let us ponder it and return to Yahweh.

7.       Zc 1:3-4- Cry out to the remnant of this people and say to them,  ‘Yahweh Sabaoth says this: Return to me,^d and I will return to you, says Yahweh Sabaoth. (v. 3). Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the prophets in the past cried: Yahweh Sabaoth says this: Turn back from your evil ways and evil deeds. But-it is Yahweh who speaks- they would not listen or pay attention to me (v. 4). Footnote ^d says “‘Cry out to the remnant of this people’ corr., cf. 8:6,11,12. After ‘Return to me’ Hebr. adds ‘it is Yahweh Sabaoth who speaks’ (lit. ‘oracle of Yahweh Sabaoth’), absent from Greek.”

8.      Lk 15:20 - So he left the place and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity.^a He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly. Footnote   ^a  says “The father’s pity symbolizes divine mercy; it contrasts with the elder son’s resentment which is like that of the Pharisees and scribes.”

Verse 8 says: …for my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways not your ways—it is Yahweh who speaks.

Parallel texts are:

1.       1 S 16:7…but Yahweh said to Samuel, ‘Take no notice of his appearance or his height for I have rejected him; God does not see^b as man sees; man looks at appearances but Yahweh looks at the heart’. Footnote ^b says “‘God sees’ Greek.”

2.       Qo 3:11 - All that he does is apt for its time; but though he has permitted man to consider time in its wholeness,^b man cannot comprehend the work of God from beginning to end. Footnote ^b says “Or ‘God has set eternity in their heart’. This phrase, however, is not to be taken I the Christian sense; it means simply: God has given the human heart (mind) awareness of ‘duration’, he has endowed him with the power of reflecting on the sequence of events and thus of controlling the present. But, the author adds, this awareness is deceptive; it does not reveal the meaning of life.”

3.       Mi 4:2…nation without number will come to it; and they will say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the Temple of the God of Jacob so that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in his paths; since from Zion the Law will go out, and the oracle of Yahweh from Jerusalem.’

Verse 9 says: Yes, the heavens are as high above the earth as my ways are above your ways, my thoughts above your thoughts.

Parallel text of verse is that says:

1.       Ps 103:11 - No less than the height of heaven over earth is the greatness of his love for those who fear him…

2.       Qo 3:11 - All that he does is apt for its time; but though he has permitted man to consider time in its wholeness,^b man cannot comprehend the work of God from beginning to end. Footnote ^b  says “Or ‘God has set eternity in their heart’. This phrase, however, is not to be taken I the Christian sense; it means simply: God has given the human heart (mind) awareness of ‘duration’, he has endowed him with the power of reflecting on the sequence of events and thus of controlling the present. But, the author adds, this awareness is deceptive; it does not reveal the meaning of life.” 

The Second Reading is taken from Phil 1:20-24, 27.

Verses, 20, 21 and 22 say: My one hope and trust is that I shall never have to admit defeat, but now as always I shall have the courage for Christ to be glorified in my body,ⁱ whether by my life or by my death. Life to me, of course, is Christ, but then death would bring me something more;  but then again, if living in this body means doing work which is having good results - I do not know what I should choose...Footnote ⁱ says “By baptism and Eucharist a Christian is so closely united to Christ, cf. 1 Co 6:15; 10:17; 12:12f,27; Ga 2:20; Ep 5:30, that his life, sufferings and death can be attributed mystically to Christ living in him, cf. 1 Co 6:20; Rm 14:8. This union would be particularly close I the case of an apostle like Paul, cf. Col 1:24; 2 Co 40f.” 

Parallel texts of verse 21 are:

1.       Ga 2:20…and I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me.^m The life I now live in this bodyⁿ I live in faith; faith in the Son of God,^o who loved me and who sacrificed himself for my sake.  Footnote ^m says “The living acts of a Christian becomes somehow the acts of Christ.”; Footnote ⁿ says “Lit ‘in my flesh’. Though still physically alive, cf. Ep 3:17+; on this paradox, cf Rm 8.”; and Footnote ^o - Var. ‘faith in God and in Christ’.

2.       Col 3:3f  - Because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God(v. 3). But when Christ is revealed – and he is your life - you too will be revealed in all your glory with him ^b(v. 4). Footnote ^b says “Through union with Christ in baptism, 2:12, his followers already live the identical life he lives in heaven, cf. Ep 2:6+, but this spiritual life is not manifest and glorious  as it will be in the parousia.”

Verses 23 and 24 say: I am caught in this dilemma: I want to be gone and be with Christ,^j which would be very much the better, but for me to stay alive in this body is a more urgent need for your sake. Footnote ^j says “As in 2 Co 5:8+, this supposes that the (good) Christian who dies is with Christ at once without any temporal gap between death and ‘last judgment’.”

Parallel text of verse 23 is 2 Co 5:6-9 that says: We are always full of confidence, then, when we remember that to live in the body means to be exiled from the Lord (v. 6), going as we do by faith and not by sight (v. 7) – we are full of confidence, I say, and actually want to be exiled from the body and make our home with the Lord(v. 8).^c Whether we are living in the body or exiled from it, we are intent on pleasing him (v. 9).   Footnote  ^c says “here and in Ph 1:23 Paul has in mind a union of Christians with Christ on the death of each individual. This does not contradict the biblical doctrine of the final universal resurrection, Rm 2:6+; 1 Co 15:44+, but this expectation of happiness for the soul that has left the body after death betrays the influence of Greek thought, an influence already making itself felt in the Judaism of the period, cf. Lk 16:22; 23:43; 1 P 3:19+. Cf also the texts referring to ecstatic states when the soul is ‘out of the body’, 2 Co 12:2f; cf. Rv 1:10; 4:2; 17:3, 21:10.”

Verse 27 says: Avoid anything in your everyday lives^l that would be unworthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come to you and see for myself, or stay at a distance and only hear about you, I shall know that you are unanimous in meeting the attack with firm resistance, united by your love for the faith of the gospel. Footnote ^l says “Lit. “Live your city-life (i.e. your ordinary social life) worthily of the gospel’. The New City of God’s kingdom has Christ for its ruler, the gospel for its law, and the Christians as its free citizens, cf. 3:20; Ep. 2:19.”

Parallel text of verse is that says:

1.       Ep 4:1 - I, prisoner in the Lord, implore you therefore to lead a life worthy of your vocation.

2.       Col 1:10 - So you will be able to lead a kind of life which the Lord expects you, a life acceptable to him in all aspects; showing the results in all the good actions you do and increasing your knowledge of God (v. 10).

3.       1 Th 2:12 - Teaching you what I right, encouraging you and appealing to you to live a life worthy of the God who is calling you^c to share the glory of his kingdom. Footnote   ^c says “Var. ‘called you’.”

Homily –AVOID GETTING INT DEBTS: “Avoid getting into debt, except the debt of mutual love. If you love your fellow men you have carried out your obligations.” (Rm 13:8)