Homily for 20 September, Trinity XVI
“These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”
Today’s Gospel gives us one of those occasions where it’s quite easy to sympathise with those Christ is trying to correct. Is it really fair that workers who have been hard at it for twelve hours get the same as those who just appeared a few minutes ago? Fortunately, the Lord isn’t giving us a lesson in œconomics but rather he’s talking to us about God and his incredible generosity for us all, and his determination to keep going until we’re all gathered together in his kingdom. Once we start to read this passage from this point-of-view it starts to make much more sense.
The big clue is right at the beginning “the kingdom of heaven is like” – we’re dealing with a parable telling us something about God and his kingdom. So the landowner, that is to say God, goes out to hire some workers – but he doesn’t stop there, he goes back to the market several times and every time that he manages to find some more people he hires them as well. The landowner doesn’t seem to have calculated how many people he needs, and then be content with finding that number – he always wants more people.
God doesn’t have a number of people that he wants to know and love, and once that number is reached he’ll stop – no, God wants all of us, every single person on the planet, and he will keep going back to the market, he’ll keep searching people out, right up until the end of the age.
It’s also interesting that the landowner goes out himself – he has a steward – somebody to run the estate for him – and so we might imagine that he would sit back and let the steward do the hiring…but that’s not God’s way. God wants to get deeply involved with all of us; it’s not that he just wants people to join the Church as an institution and deal with it formally, joining the Church is just part of getting to know God, and drawing ever closer to him. He isn’t an absentee landlord, he isn’t a remote boss who hides away behind secretaries and middle-managers, he is a person who loves us all individually, cares for us all deeply, and wants to draw us closer to him.
This story is also very reassuring when we think about those who aren’t near to God. He’s going to keep going. As soon as somebody goes into the market place, as soon as somebody is ready to receive God into his life, God will be there ready for him. And as long as they do receive him, and seek to draw close to him, God will respond in the only way that God knows – with great generosity. The first workers agreed payment of a denarius for a day’s work; those who first heard this story from Christ would have known immediately that this is a generous wages. It’s not a picture of a scrooge-like employer, seeing how little he can get away with paying his zero-hours contract workers – and because he is entirely generous, whenever people embrace God, they too will receive the same love and blessing as those who have been faithful for their whole lives.
But, there’s always a but, this story isn’t simply there to make us feel warm and fuzzy – it’s also there as a challenge to us. First, to challenge us on how we react to the blessings which others receive. Are we like those workers hired earlier who resent the blessings others receive? Note well, they received what they had agreed; they received what was a generous pay for their work…their problem was with the others. If the other workers had been paid less they would have been happy; if the other workers hadn’t even been hired they would have been happy. As the Lord puts it succinctly “do you begrudge my generosity?” The problem with these workers is their envy – they’re not looking to what they have received, they’re looking to others. And not merely looking to others, but looking to compare with them.
All of us who are bound together as children of God are supposed to be united by bonds of love and charity. If we see those around us receiving blessings from the Lord, the only response we should have is to praise God for his generosity to them. The generosity which we receive is the same as they receive.
The other challenge to us is that we are supposed to be like God. As we come close to him we should become more like him. We are not supposed to leave the search for workers to God, we are part of it. When we say that God wants to draw all people to himself that doesn’t mean that we ignore them; we are a major part of how he draws them to himself. Do we really think of ourselves as searching out people to call them into the vineyard, into a close relationship with God?
It can seem daunting, how do we even begin to call people in? The answer, of course, is God himself. When he wants us to draw people in, that doesn’t mean he sends us off by ourselves in the hope that our knowledge, charm, or whatever will do the trick – he sends us out, but he comes with us. By growing ever closer to God ourselves, we give him the space and the ability to work through us. When people see us, they start to be able to see God at work in us…and this is the point when they can start to hear the call to go into the vineyard. When they see God at work in us, they can start to see what effect it has on us – they can see how this gives us a great and deep happiness; they can start to see that certain ‘something’ which they too would like to possess.
So let us pray that God will assist us to draw closer to him. To become more like him. To draw other people to him. And that we can rejoice with him, and with our fellow believers, in the great generosity which he shows to us and to them.