Is our identity in our being or our doing? Many people would answer the latter. But the fact is my fundamental identity is in my being and not in my accomplishments. Who am I? I am a child of God, created in his image, redeemed by the blood of Christ, adopted as a son or daughter, and filled with the Holy Spirit. In all of this, I have accomplished nothing. If I embrace this truth, then whatever I accomplish should flow from this foundation. Whether I accomplish a lot or little, whether I am acclaimed by others or rejected, my identity is still in tact.

On the contrary, when my identity is determined by my doing and accomplishments, then I leave myself controlled by these externals. If I am successful and popular, then I am "fulfilled". But if I am not successful or even unhappy in spite of my accomplishments, then I see myself as a failure. Something remains missing in my life.

My true identity is God-given. I am who I am in the eyes of God, nothing more, nothing less. How I see myself; how others see me; how I think others see me--is not the true me. God sees me as his son or daughter and that is who I truly am. If I accept this mystery, then I can be at peace. But if I do not see myself thus, then my life will be an endless search, leading ultimately nowhere.

"Charity is that with which no man is lost, and without which no man is saved....Peace and union are the most necessary of all things for men who live in common, and nothing serves so well to establish and maintain these as the forbearing charity whereby we put up with one another's defects....On the last day, when the general examination takes place, there will be no question at all on the text of Aristotle, the aphorisms of Hippocrates, or the paragraphs of Justinian. Charity will be the whole syllabus" (St. Robert Bellarmine).

As Jesus has made clear, the only thing that ultimately matters is love. It is not just human, emotional love, but love that reflects God, who is love. As God's love focuses on the other, so our love is to focus on the other. Because God is perfect, his love is perfect. Not so with us. We are imperfect and thus our love will be imperfect. But did we tried to love as God has loved us? That will be the question God will ask us on the day of judgment. And it will flow from a previous question: Who do you say I am? For if Jesus is the Lord of our lives, then we will love as he has loved. 

 

Homily: Twenty-fifth Sunday Year A

Reading 1: This reading speaks of an obvious mystery. Have you ever wondered, can God forgive me of my sins after all I have done? How could God forgive the terrorists or the abortionists or the serial murderers? The answers are beyond me. God’s ways and God’s thoughts are beyond our understanding. At the same time, we are to seek him and to call to him, even though we cannot begin to comprehend the plan of God, the love of God, the infinite mercy and forgiveness of God.

He chooses the foolish and confounds the wise; the weak to confound the strong. Of all the nations of the earth he chose Israel to be his chosen people. Of the seven sons of Jesse, he chose David, the youngest. He chose to become man. He chose to be born in a stable in Bethlehem, the least of the town of Judah. He chose to save us from our sins through the cross. We cannot make logical sense of God’s ways, because they flow not from the human process but the divine process of his loving being. 

We are told by the prophet to seek the Lord; call to him; turn away from sin and turn back to God who is generous in forgiving. This word, generous, is key to the Gospel.

Gospel: Human beings demand justice towards themselves when it is to their advantage versus God’s extravagant mercy, which is given to all. It is good to be just versus unjust, but better to be merciful and generous.

 

Last week we heard the response of Jesus to Peter: forgive not 7 x 7 but 70x70. We are to both receive and acknowledge God’s mercy as well as extend mercy. Last Sunday the master forgave the larger debt of his servant, but the servant would not show the same mercy to another servant who owed him a much smaller fraction.

Here the invitation to work in the field is a grace/gift and the wage was a gift. Yes, the workers responded. But the gift was from the owner to the others was complained against because they saw that they were owed more than the one who work less. 

God’s ways are mysterious. He is just and merciful. We judge according to human standards of justice or expectations. He who does more should receive more. Salvation is not something we earn or gain, but a gift we receive from the bounteous goodness of God.

 In Jesus’time, the Pharisees and Scribes could not understand or accept that pubic sinners, such as prostitutes and tax collectors, could be saved. These Jewish religious leaders could not accept that pagan believers could be saved without becoming circumcised and following the Mosaic Laws.

On the human side, people who worked longer and harder should be paid more than someone who worked only one hour. From God’s perspective salvation is a gift from him. He determines the rules, if you will. God’s ways are not our ways. If he wishes to grant salvation to the thief on the cross at the last moment of his life, who am I to object. He received the mercy of God as I received the mercy of God. We can’t be presumptuous over God’s mercy and forgiveness. We have to be willing to respond at the moment.

We want mercy for ourselves but not others. What the men who worked all day wanted was justice and they got justice. Had they rejoiced in the mercy shown to others, they would have received mercy as well. Do we want to be judged with the blind scale of justice or by the generous scale of God’s mercy? The measure with which we measure will be measured back to us. 

Reading 2: Paul was so in love and so committed to Jesus as the Lord of his life that he desired to die and be with his Lord. What he wanted to do was to please Jesus whether in life or in death. He did not fear death, but saw it as the final moment before seeing and being with Jesus eternally. At the same time, he knew that if he continued to live, he would be doing what God wanted him to do, namely to proclaim the Good News of salvation to others. Whether he lived or died he belonged to Christ. All he wanted was to be and do the will of Jesus. 

His final statement is a haunting challenge for us. Conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of God. Live as Jesus has called us to live. Have we gotten there yet? Am I conscious of magnifying Christ in my body, so that whether I live or die, it makes no difference, as long as I am glorifying Christ?

 "Be constantly committed to prayer or reading of the Scriptures; by  praying,  you speak to God; in reading, God speaks to you" (St. Cyprian).

These two gifts have sustained many saints in their journey to God. They form the ebb and flow of dialogue with God. We would not think of going long without food and drink and thus physically dehydrating. Why would we not expect spiritual dehydration, if we starve ourselves from prayer and reading of the Scriptures? Food and drink are daily priorities. Should not prayer and the Scriptures be also? The former provides for our temporal reality; but the latter provides for our eternal reality. We can't use the excuse of time. It is the very thing God gives  us so that we can grow in our relationship with him.

 Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Gospel A

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, he 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, he 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.' 

· Have we ever felt that God’s ways are unfair?  Or is it that God sees things differently than we do?

· Instead of thinking about money, substitute grace. If no one earns grace,--it is freely given by God to whomever he chooses-- does it make any difference who gets what?

· Or look at it from the point of view of eternal life, which is also a gift from God. If God chooses to give the repentant thief on the cross eternal life does that take away anything from the same gift to us? Being a disciple for many years or being a disciple for a short time, God chooses to give eternal life freely to both. Their equality comes not from what they did but from what God freely gave them.

· What is their real complaint? They got what was agreed to at the beginning of the day.  They figured that if the owner was going to be generous towards those who worked less, he should be more generous with those who worked longer. Human standards vs Divine standards.

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? 

· How does Christ’s words challenge the world’s understanding of justice (and maybe yours)?

Are you envious because I am generous?' Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last." 

· Is there envy or jealousy in our hearts over what God seemingly does for others? His blessing to them in comparison to his blessings to us?

· How grateful are we for the generosity of God whose gifts are gratuitous?

"Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day....You don't think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking." (Henri Nouwen) 

God has gifted us with natural ability to think and to will. We can chose to think positively or negatively. Accordingly, our life will be directed. Just as we train our bodies through discipline, so we train our mind. This is what St. Paul meant when he said that we should take captive our thoughts. We may not be able to prevent what comes into our mind, but we can choose what we will do with these thoughts. A good see produces good fruit, whereas a bad see does not.

So, if I want to have a realistic but joyful outlook on life, then I must choose to do so and act accordingly. It doesn't happen overnight. But with practice this will become my frame of reference through which I view life. This is the joy that God wants for us.

"Had there been no cross, Christ could not  have been crucified. Had there been no cross, life itself could not have been nailed to the tree. And if life had not been nailed to it there would be no streams of immortality pouring from Christ's side, blood and water for the world's cleansing. The legal bond of our sin would not be canceled, we should not have attained our freedom, we should not h ave enjoyed the fruit of the tree of life and the gates of paradise would not stand open. Had there been no cross, death would not have been trodden underfoot, nor hell despoiled" (St. Andrew of Crete).

The cross, in a sense, is neutral. What human beings do with it determines how it is looked upon. Men have used the cross to punish others through a cruel, painful, inhuman, slow death. It was a way of stripping the person of all dignity. But Jesus embraced this form of death in order to transform the cross, for those who believe in him, into a sign of victory. The same instrument, two different results.

Therefore, with St. Paul we can proclaim: "May I never boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! Through it, the world has been crucified to me and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14).