What's the most generous thing you have done lately?

 Homily

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time AII

20 September 2020

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG +JMJ +m

Three things you'll never hear Jesus say.

That's mine.  I deserve more. That's not fair.

He says instead - nobody takes my life from me.  I freely give it.

God's ways are not my ways.  God's thoughts are not my thoughts.

What's the most generous thing you have done lately?  Our pivotal question is meant to jolt us out of our politics - what's fair, what's mine, what do I deserve - and to get us in touch with God's generosity.

The parable is crystal clear on one point!  Everything is grace, friends - life is pure gift!  Including our life's work - our vocation - our purpose.  It is too is a gift - not something we can capture or control or politic.

In today's striking parable, God as the greatest employer of all time is on full display.  He never stops seeking, never stops inviting, never stops hiring - worker after worker after worker - into the greatest enterprise of all time. Building the Kingdom of Heaven!  I have a role - you have a role - everyone has a unique and indispensable role - in defeating the evils of our day, in conquering fear and hate with love, in being faithful to promises that will bearing fruit lasting into eternity, in laying claim to the fullness of life for which we are made!

God hires me not because He has to but because He deeply wants to!  He hires me out of sheer love!  He delights in me figuring out the problem I was created to solve!  If I know my why, I have a gift of meaning and purpose that provides a greater happiness than any salary number ever could! .

And by the way, I am the one hired at 5pm - at the 11th hour!  In case you haven't noticed, God has been hiring into this vineyard - he's been making wine - for quite some time already!  Unless my name is Abraham, who was hired first some 3800 years ago, then I am hired last, not first.  

If I see anything other than this in the parable, I am thinking not as God does but am trapped in my own politics.  What's mine?  What's fair?  What do I deserve?

And if I am trapped in my own politics I am not praying!  I am trapped in worshiping my own thinking!  For prayer is for nothing less than a changing of our minds, turning our worldview and expectations and politics upside down, over and over and over again.  Knowing that I yet have no idea what it means for the first to be last and the last to be first.

I wish I was there.  Instead, this parable bothers the heck out of me.  I am envious that He is generous.  I deserve to get paid.

Today's parable instead begs me to experience my life's work as a great gift.  There's no room left for fretting about what I deserve, what's fair or what's mine.

There's only time left for the law of the gift. So what is the most generous thing you have done lately?

Our pivotal question is actually a trap!  Don't take the bait!   It's a great question to ask myself in private, but Jesus says to keep it there, so that our almsgiving may be in secret, and that our Father who sees in secret will repay us.

It's another of the great consolations in life, to know that someone is keeping score in secret so that I don't have to.  God's generosity is on high display today; but He will in the end give each man what He chooses. His justice like his generosity will not be late.  It will be sure.

So today I can simply ask - what is the most generous thing I have done lately?

Compared to God's generosity in today's parable, the answer is certainly - nothing.

And I only have a chance to change that - to become more like Him, to be truly generous, if I can honestly answer his question first.

Am I envious that He is generous?