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Our Sunday Reflection - September 24, 2023
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"Are you envious because I am generous? Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last."
Matthew 20:15-16
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Introduction to the Liturgy of the Day
After something terrible happens in our lives, we may conclude that God doesn’t care, that God has abandoned us, or that there is no God. This is natural, for we cannot see our world as God sees our world. Isaiah tries to impress upon his listeners that God’s thoughts and actions are so far above our own that we will never understand them.
As Christians, we believe that God so loves us that God sent the Son, who suffered and died to save us. We trust that no matter what, God is with us. May we be reassured by that truth as we gather today in God’s name.Introduction to the Liturgy of the Word
The Lord may surprise us and even confound us, but that is because God’s ways are so far above our own. Nevertheless, Isaiah tells us,
we can depend upon God for mercy. Paul trusts that Christ is with
him, in life as well as in death. Jesus tells his disciples that God is more generous than what we would consider sensible. Listening to God’s
word today, let us take comfort in God’s unfathomable generosity
and mercy..Reflections
- The parable Jesus tells his disciples relates the story of a landowner and the laborers he hires. But as we know, the details of a parable stand for something else. It is clear that the landowner represents God, that we are the laborers, and that the vineyard is the world. But what work have we been hired to do and what is the customary wage? Perhaps we can find an answer in a passage just a few chapters later in Matthew. At the Last Judgment, Jesus tells his disciples, the Son of Man will welcome into the kingdom those who served the neediest among us: the hungry, the poor, the ill, the imprisoned. This is the work of God’s vineyard, and the “usual wage” is eternal life.
- A couple of implications of this: First, because our merciful God will reward even those who worked very little, we are not doomed by our previous inaction. There is always hope. Second, because the wage is the same for all, there is no special place in heaven, no extra amount of bliss, no additional access to God’s presence among all those whom God has chosen to save. Let us not judge ourselves to be superior because we seem to have done more for a longer period of time.
- The resentful laborers who worked all day grumbled because they could not accept generosity favored over fairness. Yes, without a doubt, the landowner was being unfair. Moreover, the landowner teased the ones who worked since dawn by paying the last ones first, raising expectations for the hardest workers. But for God, generosity and mercy are more important than fairness. The landowner’s modus operandi is unfathomable to us, but, as Isaiah said, God’s ways are so above our ways that we cannot possibly fully understand them.
Question of the Week
How can I prioritize generosity over fairness in how I regard and treat others?
-from Pastoral Patterns
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readings of the mass
LISTEN HERE to the Audio Recordings of the Readings of Sunday, September 24, 2023
SELECT HERE for the Readings of Sunday, September 24, 2023
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Offerings
The Sunday offerings are a portion of our blessings that we give to God (Church) in gratitude to what God has done for us...ONLINE GIVING OPTIONS -
Reflections on the readings
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