Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast, where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the Word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Glory to you, O Lord.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: 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 9 o', clock, the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace and he said to them, you two 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 3 o' clock and did likewise.
Going out about 5 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 5 o' clock came, each received the usual daily wage.
So when the first came, they thought they would receive more.
But each of them also got the usual wage, and on receiving it, they grumbled against the landowners, 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.
The Gospel of the Lord.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: A little confession to make, and I guess this would be the right place to make it.
For the last several years I have really wanted to put this gospel into tangible practice, and I've wanted to do it at the picnic where the first people in line were going to be moved to the back, and the back people were going to be moved to the front.
But thankfully I have a staff that tempers my instincts a little bit, and we didn't end up doing that.
But what I really want to talk to you about is how we can identify with the characters in Scripture.
A couple of Weeks ago, we had two straight weeks of St. Peter, first being the star pupil and then being the class fool.
And I think many of us could identify with Peter.
Then last week we heard that story of how God's lavish forgiveness is given to us, and we're expected to give it to one another.
And we probably identified with some of the characters in that reading.
But this week, I think if we're all open and honest with ourselves, at least the first time we can remember hearing this gospel, if not the third, fourth, fifth, seventh time we heard it, we kind of identify with those first people that went out in the vineyard.
There's a thing about our vision of fairness that we identify with. Yeah, I get it. They put all that work in. Why didn't they get any more?
Am I telling the truth? You've all thought that, right here's the problem.
It's not the problem that we identify with that because Jesus understands that's how our brains sometimes work.
The problem is that when we hear this, we're supposed to identify most of all with the last people who go to work, because that is really most of our reality.
We all say, I will be a better person tomorrow.
I will be kinder to those around me tomorrow.
I will be more understanding of those people I work with tomorrow.
I will stop using certain gestures in traffic tomorrow.
And what happens is tomorrow never arise.
So Jesus is giving us this understanding to know that, guess what, folks, it's never too late.
But it does require us to trust.
It requires us to place our lives in the hands of Christ, knowing that his mercy is infinite, knowing that his ability to heal us infinite, knowing that his love is infinite, and that we would probably all be better off if instead of saying, I'll do it tomorrow, we at least started with I trust today.
