God’s Lavish Love is Given Not by Our Merit, But by His Mercy

(See the readings for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

A college chaplain tells a story of a meeting he had with a group of students. The purpose was to gauge the student’s perception of God in their lives. It was a religious college and all the students were Christian and practicing their faith albeit in different denominations.

The chaplain was sorrowfully amazed. As the discussion continued, the clear and common understanding among the students was that God was disappointed with them. They recounted their struggles, their failures and difficulties in living the faith in the world today.

At the end of the discussion the chaplain remarked that everyone seemed to be so focused on themselves that they forgot one of the most basic Christian tenants that God loves us, even in our weaknesses, failures and struggles. He asked them all to reflect on the words in 1 John 4:10: “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”

God loves us. His love is gracious and undeserved. His love is merciful and compassionate. His love is all embracing. His love is beyond price. Our standards of value cannot begin to measure this love because it is infinite and perfect, “priceless.” Perhaps this is one of the points that Jesus is making in the Gospel passage for this Sunday’s liturgy.

The parable is about the landowner who hires workers at different points during the long day to go work in his vineyard. The first group hired in the morning are told they will get a full day’s wage. The second group are hired at 9 a.m. and are told they would be paid what is just. Three more groups are hired at noon, 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.

In the end, the last group is paid first and they get a full day’s wage. Seeing this the first group hired think they will get more because they worked more, probably a natural way of thinking and not too unexpected. They are obviously disappointed when they only get what was agreed to. The landowner questions one of them: “Are you envious because I am generous?” Jesus concludes: “Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Perhaps he is making a reference to what will later be a dispute within the very early Christian communities between the Jewish-Christians and the Gentile-Christians. We see those disputes addressed in Acts of the Apostles and in some of the letters of the apostles. In other cases, Jesus uses the notion of the last being first in reference to repentant sinners who place their faith in Him and find mercy as distinguished from those who seek to justify themselves.

Another possibility that might find resonance here is to the older son in the story of the Loving and Merciful Father (the passage most commonly referred to as “the Prodigal Son.”) In that story, the reaction of the older son to the Father’s graciousness is somewhat like that of the workers hired earlier in the day.

I do not think Jesus is offering a teaching here on social justice or fair labor practices. There is something more going on here because the landowner represents God from whom all good things come. In the parable, the landowner has a relationship with each of the workers. He is the one who hires them. He is the one who gives them a just wage. It is not that each gets what they deserve. Clearly the ones first hired get what they deserve but the others get more than what they deserve. In a certain sense the “pay” represents God’s graciousness which cannot be measured. Anything that God gives is enough, for it is all.

In the Sunday Gospel passages this year we are following sequentially the Gospel According to Matthew. The last few weeks the theme of mercy has been present. Perhaps it is good to read this parable from that context. Mercy is a broad concept tied to God’s graciousness; He freely gives of Himself in love. God, who is love, is being gracious as He shares His life with us. He is being merciful. This surely applies to forgiveness but goes beyond forgiveness to God’s generosity.

It seems in the “Prodigal Son” story, the older brother was not so much grieved by the Father’s forgiving of his brother but for the exuberant, joyful and plentiful manner in which the Father celebrates the younger son’s return.

In today’s parable, jealousy may play a part there as well since the landowner mentions this at the end. However, there is also a failure to recognize the Father’s (in the “Prodigal Son”) or the Landowner’s graciousness to someone else. This graciousness says something about who God is in Himself, something that we experience through revelation but something well beyond full human understanding.

Humility helps us embrace God’s goodness to ourselves but also to others. Trying to quantify the unquantifiable will lead us in a futile quest and distract us from the proper response to His graciousness, which is thanksgiving.

The first reading from Isaiah speaks directly about God’s mercy. “Let the scoundrel forsake his ways and the wicked his thoughts” and seek the mercy of the Lord. The Lord in turn will respond generously: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways … As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.”

Yet as far as God’s ways are distant from our understanding, He is ever present and near as the psalm reminds us: “the Lord is near to all who call upon him.” His compassion, mercy, kindness and goodness are real and ever present.

God loves us. He loves us not because we love Him but because of who He is. We praise Him for His love of ourselves and rejoice in His love for those around us.

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Msgr. Joseph Prior is pastor of St. Dorothy Parish in Drexel Hill and a former professor of Sacred Scripture and rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. Read more reflections by Msgr. Prior here.

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