The eleventh hour: God also loves the last ones
Roman Rite
XXV Sunday of Ordinary Time – September 24, 2017
Is 55, 6-9; Ps 145; Phil 1, 20-24.27; Mt 20.1-16?
1) God is not unjust. He is generous.
The first reading of today’s Mass are is taken from verses 6 to 9 of the last chapter of the book of Isaiah, the 55th. In these verses, the prophet is inspired by God who says: “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.”(Is 55, 6-9). Today, Christ, to make us understand the thought of God, tells a magnificent parable that describes a humanly paradoxical way of thinking and acting.
In fact, the parable ends in this way “When it was evening, the master of the vineyard told his farmer “Call the workers and pay them, starting from the last to the first.” When those of the five o’clock in the afternoon came, they received one dinar each. When those of the first hour arrived, they thought that they would have received more but they too received one dinar each. Into receiving it, however, they murmured against the master. ”
This master has upset them because the last ones were paid first and for one hour work they received the full day pay. The generosity of the master towards the workers of the last hour had raised in the workers of the early hour the unjustified expectation of receiving a pay higher than the agreed amount. They complain, but the boss underlines to them that he has respected justice toward them. If he wants to be generous with others, it is his right to give what he wants.
God is not unjust, he is generous. He takes nothing away from the first ones. He generously gives to the others. He launches everyone into an unknown adventure: that of goodness. Goodness is not right, it is more, a lot of more. Human justice is to give each one his own, God’s justice is to give each one the best.
God is not only generous, he is loving and infinite goodness. He does not pay, he gives with free abundance. He is the God of goodness without limit, dizziness in normal thinking that transgresses all the rules of the economy and knows how to surprise us. No boss would do so. But God is not a master, not even the best of the masters. God is not the accountant of humanity and does not pay according to what is right in the distributive sense of the term. He is the Father who gives to his children according to what it is best for them. “Distributive justice” does not give to the human being all that is “his”. Man needs God as and more than bread,. Saint Augustine writes: “If justice is the virtue that distributes to everyone what is his … it is not human justice the one which steals man from the true God. (The City of God, 19, 21)
If he, the divine Master, acts as he does, it is not because he neglects those who have worked more, but because he likes the last ones too. It is not justice that is violated (the master gives to the first called the amount they had together agreed), but distributional proportionality. The space of God’s action is the wide one of goodness, not the narrow one of the “as much as”. The God of the Gospel is not without justice, but does not let himself be imprisoned in the restricted space of proportionality. To man distributional proportionality seems to be the most just possible application of a law, but this does not apply to God. If we want to enter God’s loving mystery, we must free ourselves from the method of rigid proportionality in our relationships.
This way of thinking and acting must be learned and practiced by us “for loyalty to the One who is never tired to go and go again into the squares of men until the eleventh hour to propose his invitation to love “(Pope Francis) and receive Christ as” money ” as reward for our work in the Father’s vineyard.
2) Justice and grace.
God’s righteousness comes from grace, because we are not the ones who heal us and who heal others. The fact that the “atonement” takes place in the “blood” of Jesus means that our sacrifices are not the ones that free us from the burden of guilt. In fact, it is the gesture of God’s love that opens itself up to the utmost, to the point to let enter into it the “the curse” that belongs to us, poor human beings, to send us, in exchange, the “blessing” that belongs to God (cf. Gal 3: 13-14).
The work we do in the Lord’s vineyard “earns” for us the reward not in the sense that God has to pay us, but in the sense that, with this humble and happy work, our mind and our hearts open to the grace that recreates itself in mercy.
If we would say that God is right if he pays us the agreed money, how could we say that justice is where the righteous dies for the guilty and the culprit receives in return the blessing that is for the just? Does not everyone get the opposite of what is right for him? In reality, divine justice is profoundly different from the human one. God in his Son paid for us the price of the ransom, a really disproportionate price.
The Justice of the Cross highlights that we are self-sufficient and autarchic, and that to be fully self we need Another.
This Other is the Father coming home at various times of the day to call us to work in his vineyard and give us happiness. These hours of the day – as St. Gregory the Great writes – are the different ages of human life “The first hours are the childhood of our intelligence. The third hour can be compared to adolescence, as the sun begins to rise, so to speak, in the sense that the ardor of youth begins to warm up. The sixth hour is the age of the maturity: the sun sets itself as a point of balance, since man has come to the fullness of strength. The ninth hour indicates seniority, where the sun goes down somehow from the heavens, because the passions of the ages cool down. Finally, the eleventh hour is the age defined old age … Since some lead an honest life from childhood, others do it in adolescence, others in mature age, others in seniority, and others in the old age, it is as if they were called to the vineyard at different times of the day. ”
Therefore, we have to look at our way of life and see if we started to act as the workers of God. Let us examine our conscience to see if we are working in the vineyard of the Lord happy to be his collaborators. And then, the Holy Pope continues: “The one who did not want to live for God until the last moment of life is like the worker remained idle up to the eleventh hour … “Why are you here idle all day?” It is as if to say clearly “If you did not want to live for God in youth and in the age of maturity, at least repent at the last time … Come at least on the ways of life “… Did the thief not come at the last hour? (Lk 23,39s) Not for old age, but for his condemnation he found himself in the evening of life. He has confessed God on the cross, and gave his last breath as the Lord gave him his judgment. And the Lord of the place, admitting the thief before Peter in the rest of paradise, has well distributed the wages beginning with the last “(St. Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospel, number 19).
An example of how to respond to the various moments of life to the summons of the Lord calling to work in his vineyard is given by the consecrated virgins. It is true that the specific of the “work” or ministry or service to which the Consecration Rite enables them, is to live virginity as the prophetic sign of Parousia, of Christ who comes definitely as bridegroom. But it is equally true that their service is to manifest the love of the bridal church towards “Christ”, “working” with prayer (let us not forget that liturgy means people for God and that the liturgy is also called Opus Dei, the work of God). But it must be kept in mind that “the consecrated virgins in the Church are those women who, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, vow to chastity in order to love Christ more earnestly and to serve their brothers with more devotion… their job is to do works of penance and of mercy, apostolic activity and prayer “(RCV 2) as it is also indicated in the proposed homily for the Consecration Rite”…
Imitate the Mother of God; desire to be called and to be handmaids of the Lord. Preserve the fullness of your faith, the steadfastness of your hope, and the singleheartedness of your love. Be prudent and watch: keep the glory of your virginity uncorrupted by pride. Nourish your love of God by feeding on the body of Christ; strengthen it by self-denial; build it up by study of the Scriptures, by untiring prayer, by works of mercy. Let your thoughts be on the things of God. Let your life be hidden with Christ in God. Make it your concern to pray fervently for the spread of the Christian faith and for the unity of all Christians. Pray earnestly to God for the welfare of the married. Remember also those who have forgotten their Father’s goodness and have abandoned his love, so that God’s mercy may forgive where his justice must condemn. Never forget that you are given over entirely to the service of the Church and of all your brothers and sisters. You are apostles in the Church and in the world, in the things of the Spirit and in the things of the world. Let your light then shine before men and women, that your Father in heaven may be glorified, and his plan of making all things one in Christ come to perfection. Love everyone, especially those in need. Help the poor, care for the weak, teach the ignorant, protect the young, minister to the old, and bring strength and comfort to widows and all in adversity. You have renounced marriage for the sake of Christ. Your motherhood will be a motherhood of the spirit, as you do the will of your Father and work with others in a spirit of charity, so that a great family of children may be born, or reborn, to the life of grace. (CONSECRATION TO A LIFE OF VIRGINITY FOR WOMEN LIVING IN THE WORLD)