25th Sunday of the Year A

At one level the meaning of today’s parable is obvious enough. In the context of the early Church those who worked hard all day in the vineyard were clearly the Jewish people, while those who came at the eleventh hour were the gentile nations, the message being that the Jews, despite their history as God’s chosen people, were to have no advantage over the gentiles within the Church. Not that this was clear to people then. It gave rise, as we know, to the first great crisis in the Church over whether the gentiles should be circumcised or not and on more than one occasion St Paul had to remind people that, in Christ, there was no more distinction between Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free-man; in the kingdom of God all men and women are equal. And although it might seem that this issue has long ago been resolved, it’s still possible, in parishes up and down the country, whenever new people appear, to hear things like, ‘who does he think he is. I’ve been in this parish for forty years.’ It happened here twenty three years ago, when a recent arrival in the parish took on a leadership role in the Renew programme.

But at a deeper level the parable means much more than that, the clue being in the first reading. There, Isaiah tells us that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, his ways are not our ways, and that the heavens are as high above the earth as God’s ways are above our ways. God simply does not think as we do and at this critical moment in history perhaps the greatest challenge facing humanity – greater even than global warming and far far greater than the current turmoil in the financial markets – is the challenge to move beyond failed human ways of thinking – symbolized in the story by those who complained because the landowner was generous - and embrace the ways of the kingdom which demand a whole new mindset and way of seeing the world which makes no sense in traditional human terms. And so Jesus calls us to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us and so on. But there is one particular idea I would like to focus on today and it’s the question of grace. Because that’s ultimately what today’s parable is about.

The expectation on the part of those who had worked all day that they would be paid more than those who had come at the eleventh hour was, of course, entirely justified in human terms. That’s how the world works. We get what we deserve. Success is rewarded. Good behaviour wins approval, and from our very earliest years we are conditioned to think in this way. ‘Eat your cabbage and then you can have your pudding; tidy your room first and then you can go out.’ And all through our lives this way of thinking is reinforced for us, not only through the working of the market – buying and selling, payment for work done and so on – but by sayings like, ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ or ‘one good turn deserves another’. And I suppose it’s all summed up in that other well known saying, ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch.’ Everything in life has to be paid for somewhere. There’s no such thing as something for nothing. If it seems too good to be true then it probably is. And what happens, of course, is that we carry this way of thinking into our relationship with God where it becomes the engine that drives the thing we have spent years trying to move beyond, the thing we call religion without faith.

With God, you see – and this is almost impossible for us to get our minds round – none of the things we have been talking about for the last few minutes apply. There’s no ‘quid pro quo’ with God. There’s no rewarding, no deserving and no earning. Since God is love and God’s love is eternal and unchanging, nothing we could ever do can increase or diminish the love that is God. We cannot earn God’s love, we cannot deserve God’s love, and God’s love is never a reward for something we have done, no matter how holy or religious it might appear. And herein lies the tragedy of religion without faith, as those who inhabit this Godless world – and to varying degrees that is all of us – expend enormous energy performing religious actions and doing good works in an attempt to keep God happy, deflect his anger and earn the reward we call heaven. And it’s not that there is anything wrong with the actions or good works in themselves. The problem is that in this world of religion without faith they are motivated by fear rather than love. And it is all so unnecessary for the very simple reason that everything that comes from God is already freely given. Or, to put it another way, there is no need to earn it because it is all GRACE. And that’s what the parable is really about. Those who complained were thinking in human terms. The landowner was talking about something completely different. And yet even as I say this to you, I am aware how hard it is to understand it. Such love is found nowhere else in the whole of creation; only in God. And it is because it is so different from everything that we experience that we find it almost impossible to get our heads round it. And so I invite you to reflect on something that happened to me this week.

It was on Thursday afternoon when I said Mass in the prison for those who are ‘on protection’ – separated from the other prisoners for their own safety. When the time came, I asked if anyone wanted to go to Holy Communion, and among those who came was one boy who, judging by his eyes, was on drugs. It could have been medication, but I doubt it. He also, as it happened, had a cup of coffee in one hand as he held out the other one for Communion. And as I went to put the host in his hand he said to me. ‘What is it?’ I saw immediatelt the enormity of the question and wanted to say that it was the body and blood of Jesus, but what I actually said was that it was Holy Communion. I then asked him if he had never been to Holy Communion before, to which he answered ‘no’. ‘But I want it.’ He said.

So what should I have done? I’d love to know what you think. And you could even use our new website, the address of which you will find again in this week’s bulletin.

BIDDING PRAYERS

Called to be people of faith means putting our complete trust in God. This, in its turn, means letting go of the notion that we can achieve salvation by our own efforts through performing religious actions or doing good works. This illusion, based on fear in the face of a hostile world, is at the root of all primitive religions and, despite the coming of Jesus, we are still infected by it, And so we pray again today for the grace we need to move beyond this...................Lord hear us

When we ask God for things that are consistent with who God is we are not asking for anything that God is not already longing and trying to give us. Our prayers do not so much influence what God does as help us recognize our own needs and begin to open us up to the very things we ask for. And so we pray that the needs we express to God here each week in our bidding prayers will have this effect on us, stirring in us a real desire for the things we seek.....................Lord hear us

‘Seek the Lord while he is still to be found,’ the first reading told us. But often the biggest obstacle to finding God in our lives is our attachment to limited ways of thinking. But God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, his ways not our ways, the prophet Isaiah told us. And so we pray for a willingness to let go of cherished but limited ways of thinking and a willingness, when necessary, to go where God leads, especially when we would rather not go..............Lord hear us

The workers who stood all day in the market-place because no one had hired them are a reminder to us of the millions of men, women and children in the world today whose gifts and talents lie dormant and un-used through a lack of opportunity. The real tragedy of world poverty is the inability of so many human beings to become the people God longs for them to be and we look forward to and pray for the coming of the day when this terrible waste will become a thing of the past in every part of the world....................Lord hear us

In recent days, the world has had an opportunity to see, in all its ugliness, the greed that drives our financial system. The evils of uncontrolled market forces have, for a few days at least, been exposed to the light for all to see. And it has been a truly frightening experience. And so we pray that, if and when the current crisis passes, the world will not choose to forget what it has seen during these days and that what has happened will lead to a profound change in the way we live......................Lord hear us

The parish website which has recently come into existence is potentially very important. It can become a way of reaching out to others, a means by which the people of the parish learn to communicate with each other in new ways, a focus for discussion and education and, through the various links, a way out into the wider Church. But this will only happen if we grasp the opportunities offered and we pray for the insight and foresight we need to do this.....Lord hear us