Martin Jumbam
The Universal Church celebrates Sunday, September 21, 2014 as the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time in the liturgical year A. The 21st day of September is also celebrated as the feast day of Saint Matthew, the Evangelist and Apostle of Christ. The Gospel passage of this Sunday's Mass is taken from his Gospel. Christ calls Matthew from his post as a tax collector to become one of his Apostles. The synoptic Evangelists (Matthew, Mark and Luke) narrate how Matthew, also called Levi, gives a quick and generous response to Christ’s invitation to follow him. He immediately leaves all that he is doing to follow our Lord (Mt 9: 9-13; Mk 2: 13-17; Lk 5: 27-28). The Jews despise him as a publican who collects taxes for the pagan Roman Empire. His post is an attractive one as it enables him to acquire much wealth. He wrote his Gospel in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, but it was soon translated into Greek. He is believed to have been martyred in Persia. We wish all those who bear the name Matthew a very happy feast day!
In the Entrance Antiphon of this Mass we pray: “I am the Saviour of all people, says the Lord. Whatever their troubles, I will answer their cry, and I will always be their Lord. Amen.” The theme of this day’s holy Mass is God’s generosity to all, irrespective of whether we hear his call in the early hours of our youth or during the declining years of our lives.
In the first reading, from the prophecy of Isaiah, the prophet tells his people of Israel, and us, that we human beings fail to understand God’s plans and designs for us because God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways. God bestows his favours on whom he wants, when he wants it. This comes out clearly in Saint Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus tells the parable of the vineyard owner, who shows no favours towards any of his workers. From his prison cell, Saint Paul, in the second reading, urges his converts of Philippi to be prepared to spread Christ’s Gospel to others no matter the cost.
First Reading: Isaiah 55: 6-9.
Seek the Lord while he may be found, call him while he is near. Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked his thoughts; let him turn to the Lord for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
The authors of The African Bible tell me that Isaiah was in many ways the greatest of all the prophets. He was born in about 765 BC into an aristocratic family of Jerusalem. His prophetic ministry spanned over forty years and he lived and preached at a period when Israel was increasingly under threat from its more powerful neighbours, the Assyrians. He had a deep conviction that everything was under God’s wise and powerful control, including the destinies of the mighty foreign nations that were then threatening Israel.
The passage of our meditation is usually known as Second Isaiah. It is a message of consolation for an oppressed people languishing in exile. Isaiah speaks of the coming restoration of the people and their holy city Jerusalem. This passage is one of the Old Testament’s best testimonies to the power of God’s word. He urges the people of Israel in exile, as well as those still living in the Holy Land, to pay particular attention to God’s word because it is in his word to them that God’s intentions are made known in the prophet’s voice. He tells them clearly that God’s wisdom cannot be understood by human standards. This prepares us for the generosity shown to his workers by the master-owner of the vineyard, as we hear in Matthew’s Gospel of this day.
Isaiah urges the people of Israel not to be jealous because God is also showing his generosity to the Gentiles. God alone will decide who to bestow his generosity on. This reading is a comforting reminder to us that God does not show favours to any one people over the others. His grace is for all of us who abandon our old ways and strive through daily conversion to live by His Word alone.
Let us sing with the Psalmist: “The glory of the Lord is everlasting; the Lord rejoices in his works. I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will praise my God as long as I breathe. Amen.”
Second Reading: Philippians 1: 20-24. 27.
Brothers and sisters: Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me life is Christ, and death is gain. If I go on living in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. And I do not know which I shall choose. I am caught between the two. I long to depart this life and be with Christ, for that is far better. Yet that I remain in the flesh is more necessary for your benefit. Only, conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
Saint Paul’s letter to the Philippians, as we saw last Sunday, is one of “Captivity Epistles,” so called because he wrote it from prison. The others are his letters to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon.
Philippi was quite an important commercial and historical city in Saint Paul’s time. It was in Macedonia and anyone traveling from Asia Minor to Greece would have stopped there. In the 4th century BC, Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, had built a fortified camp, which was called after him. It was later conquered by the Romans and in Paul’s days, the Romans were still there.
The church of Philippi was the first Paul founded when he came to Europe during his second missionary journey around the year 50 or 51 AD. What is the overall message of Paul’s letter to the Philippians? In tender, familiar language, Saint Paul gives his readers news of the progress of the Gospel. From his prison, he encourages them to put his teachings into practice and to foster the growth of Christian virtues. The letter generally deals with important points of doctrine – the eternal destiny of man; the Christian’s attitude to earthly realities; the profound mystery of Christ and the example of his life on earth.
In the passage the Church has selected for our meditation, Saint Paul urges the Philippians to be prepared to continue their labours to spread the Gospel to others even if this brings them death. Paul’s love of Christ leads him to wish for intimate personal union with him. A believer, Paul says, should aspire to identify with Jesus to such an extent that he can say “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). Everything we have, he points out, is a gift from God; and a Christian’s life in the body, with any suffering he or she may experience, identifies him or her with Christ’s own life.
Let us pray for the courage to continue to work in the vineyard of the Lord with all our strength. When negative forces threaten to discourage us, Lord, come to our rescue. Amen.
Gospel: Matthew 20: 1-16.
Jesus told his disciples this parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about nine o’clock, the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.’ So they went off. And he went out again around noon, and around three o’clock, and did likewise. Going out about five o’clock, the landowner found others standing around, and said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’ When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ When those who had started about five o’clock came, each received the usual daily wage. So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage. And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’ He said to one of them in reply, ‘My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?’ Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
V/ The Gospel of the Lord.
R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Comment
Experts in labour relations and trade unionists of all shades and colour would, no doubt, have a hard time accepting Matthew’s parable of the vineyard contained in the Gospel of this day. It seems unfair to employ someone in the morning hours to work in your field and employ another one in the evening for work in the same field and pay all of them a similar wage. That is the reasoning of the labourers who were employed earlier in the day. They cannot understand why they are receiving the same pay as those who came later.
The relationship God has with us does not follow the logic of capitalism or of industrial relations, which dictates that those who work a full day should receive a full day’s wage while those who work a shorter time receive less pay for their work. We can therefore not understand the Gospel message of this day if we do not go beyond human reasoning and look at this message from the point of view of faith. The day’s wages for everybody is God’s grace. The Lord wants us simply to understand that God bestows his grace to everyone, irrespective of age or state of life. Those who are called to God’s vineyard in the early years of their youth do not necessarily have any particular advantage over those who might have been called later in age. Although God may call each of us into his vineyard at different hours of the day, he still gives us the same grace.
He remains the same comforting, compassionate and generous God to each of us, irrespective of when we hear his call: whether as a young man or woman, or on our deathbeds. After all, does our Lord not pardon a thief on the cross as both of them are about to die?
In his beautiful book, Harden not your Hearts, Jesuit priest, Father Kizito Forbi says that no matter when a person enters the Kingdom, late or soon, in the first flush of youth, in the strength of adolescence, or when the shadows are lengthening with age, all are equally dear to God. When Jesus talks of hiring workers for the vineyard at different moments of the day and giving them similar wages, he is simply telling us that God is always willing and ready to comfort anyone at anytime when we come running to him for shelter from the storms of our daily lives. Christ is therefore calling on Christians to come to God in prayer and he will give them comfort and consolation.
The workers who are grumbling against their master can be compared to the Scribes and Pharisees who think of themselves as the privileged ones, the first in God’s kingdom. Christ wants to show that God thinks differently from us and his justice is not to be measured by man’s yardstick. His is a kingdom of grace, which accepts everyone, Jew or Gentile alike. The Jews, who may feel that they deserve more because they are the first to be chosen as God’s people, are shocked to see that God also treats the Gentiles, the late-comers, with the same compassion and grace.
There is room in the Lord’s vineyard for everyone: young or old, rich or poor, black or white, red or yellow, man or woman, be they in the prime of life or in their sunset years, whether they have time to spare or no time at all.
What is this vineyard the Lord is calling us to this day? We do not need to go far to find it. It is first of all our very own family, which we have to bring to the Lord. Through the example of our Christian life, we can bring our brothers and sisters, whose faith has weakened, or who have never known the Lord at all, to the Lord’s vineyard and they will receive the same grace from God as ourselves. The vineyard to which the Lord is calling us can also be our work places where, through the witness of our Christian lives, we can bring others to know God.
The Gospel of this day, therefore, invites us to approach God with the certainty and hope that he will comfort us, show compassion to us, and be generous to us, irrespective of when we come to him. Once we have experienced the three favours of comfort, compassion and generosity from God, advises Father Kizito Forbi, we should then, in turn, give that same comfort, that same compassion, and that same generosity to others. Rather than spend time envying others and grumbling because of what God has done for them, as the labourers employed early in the day are doing in this Gospel, let us instead religiously share with others what God has done for us. Through Christ the risen Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit one God forever and ever. Amen.
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