25th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Cycle A

For anyone who is a parent, or anyone who’s had to mediate a dispute among children, you likely have confronted the phrase “But that’s not fair!”  How many times in your life have you uttered that phrase?  Even as adults we have a tendency to equate “justice” with “fairness.”  But here’s the thing – what is “just” may not always be “fair,” and what is “fair” to one person may not always be “fair” to the other.  Our readings this week deal with just that problem, the difference between what we think is fair and what God thinks is both fair and just.

The Word for the 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Isaiah 55:6-9
Psalm 145:2-3, 8-9, 17-18
Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a
Matthew 20-1-16a

We open with a reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, in this case from the closing chapter of Deutero or “second” Isaiah.  This comes from a point in Israelite history where the people have been released from their Exile in Babylon.  The Lord has shown them great mercy and forgiveness by freeing them from the Exile.  But why?  They had broken their covenant with God and they were being punished.  Why take them back?  By our human standards of fairness this is difficult to understand, but we humans also have a tendency to dwell in the past at the expense of the now.  As the prophet tells us, for those who turn to the Lord, he is always near.  In this case with the Israelites in Exile, they have changed their ways and turned back to the Lord.  God understands that as human beings we may find such mercy and forgiveness impossible, but he reminds us through Isaiah, “your ways are not my ways.”  Like a loving parent trying to teach a child, God is asking us to trust him on this.  Stay near and follow my example.  Our Psalm for this Sunday continues this theme as we sing “The Lord is near to all who call upon him.”

Our Gospel from Matthew continues with this theme of fairness and forgiveness.  In order to help us better understand God’s idea of fairness, Jesus, the master teacher, gives us the Parable of the Landowner.  At first reading, it seems easy to side with the laborers who were in the field all day.  If the landowner pays a full day’s wage to those who only worked a few hours, it only seems fair in our own minds that those who worked longer should get even more.  But in order to truly grasp the impact of this teaching you need to dive deeper into the story and see the larger implications.  These earlier workers had already made a deal with the landowner, and the landowner honored that deal.  Instead of looking outward and praising the landowner for his generosity towards those who came to work later, those earlier laborers looked inward and felt cheated, even though they had agreed with the wage earlier in the day.

As a follower of Christ, our human sense of fair play has to be completely put aside.  We need to recognize that our sense of what is fair is often coming from a place of selfishness.  That is to say, “since I worked in the field all day, I deserve more.  God is saying, “no, you don’t.”  True love comes from a selfless place – putting others first.  As the parable suggests, we shouldn’t be envious of God’s generosity.  Instead we should revel in it.  Not only does this parable speak well to the passage we read today in Isaiah, its teaching runs deep through the Gospels.  While this particular parable is unique to the Matthew’s Gospel its lessons can also be found in the familiar Parable of the Prodigal Son which is found only in Luke’s Gospel.

For our second reading we leave behind our long study of Paul’s letter to the Romans and turn to Paul’s letter to the Philippians.  In today’s opening chapter Paul teaches us that our bodies are magnified by Christ, whether by life or by death.  But this creates a conundrum for Paul and causes him some lament.  He sees life with Christ, either here on earth or after death, to be a gain.  So which to choose?  As you read this passage it seems that Paul is longing for death, not surprising since he is sick and in prison.  Death would bring him closer to Christ, but he also sees that his continued work here on earth is a benefit and can also bring him close to Christ.  It is a challenge for him, and for us, but his final message is clear – we need to conduct ourselves in a way that is “worthy of the Gospel.”  There are many times in our lives where we might not feel the presence of God, but that doesn’t mean we should abandon God’s ways.  Even St. Theresa of Calcutta wrote of her moments where she felt God had abandoned her, but she, like Paul, continued to serve the Gospel.  It’s a reminder for us that no matter how we feel, we must continue to serve the Gospel, and if we do, as our Psalm reminds us, when we call, God will be near.

Final thoughts:
All too often our sense of what is fair is tied with our sense of self-interest.  “What’s in it for me?  How do I benefit?”  That’s followed closely by, “How does this work out better for me than for the other guy?”  It’s an ideal that permeates our American culture – the desire to always be on top.  The common element in all of this is, quite literally, selfishness.  And that selfishness is what drives much of our modern “it’s all about me” selfie-obsessed society.  But as children of God, we’re called to something different.  We’re called to turn our interests outward, away from ourselves and onto others.  To love our neighbor as ourselves.  To look out for each other.  To be selfless.

When asked “what’s fair,” how often do you think about how that would benefit others over yourself?  In fact, how often are you willing to make a true sacrifice in order to accommodate what is fair in a given situation?  You don’t need to look too far to see how this plays out with our contemporary issues of reparations for slavery and red-lining and immigration reforms.  Just imagine how these issues could be addressed through the lessons of this parable!  This is our challenge.  Isaiah reminds us that God’s way are not our ways.  We may not understand God’s ways entirely, but at the very least we can follow his example – to learn by doing.  Then perhaps we may find the truth in the words in the prayer of St. Francis:  “it is in giving that we receive.”