Matthew 20:1-16 for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
With
today’s Gospel parable, Christ upholds God’s boundless freedom and
openhandedness.
God
acts with untold freedom, and is openhanded to the point of seeming foolish and
unfair.
His
freedom to do what he wills goes against the belief we might at first hold in
hearing this parable.
For,
whereas the parable’s vineyard owner OWES his workers their
earnings, God— who MADE us from NOTHING— God OWES us NOTHING.
What
he gives any of us is thoroughgoing grace and openhandedness beyond all earthly
reckoning.
Owing
us nothing and needing nothing, God is unfathomable in the freedom with which
he gives his all to those he made from nothing.
It
is the freedom of thoroughgoing love.
In
the face of it the most and the best we can do is fall into grateful wonder and
worship.
Even
in our best and greatest worship, we borrow from God.
In
Christ his Son, God himself becomes the payment for what we owe him.
We
can do no better than throw ourselves utterly into Christ’s sacrifice of
himself.
In
taking, eating and drinking his Eucharistic Body and Blood with freedom and the
right goal, we are taken IN and UP with Christ in his sacrifice of perfect thankfulness and worship.
If
we give ourselves over to it, the Eucharist takes, eats and drinks US into Christ up to the Father in the oneness of the Holy Spirit.
In
the Father’s kingdom the first are no longer first, and the last are no longer
last.
All
owe a debt to God, and none but Christ can pay.
All
owe a debt, but Christ alone has paid for all.
What
we have left is the mission of spending our lives to worship and imitate God in
his goodness to us.
Our lives need to uphold, show and flow from the Eucharistic worship we offer to God.
Turn. Love. Repeat.
