Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 133

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
As high as the heavens are above the earth,
so high are my ways above your ways
and my thoughts above your thoughts.

Now might not be the moment to hear Jesus's parable about the landowner and his dissatisfied workers. Since the last decade of the 19th century, the Church has supported the rights of workers to organize and to demand a living wage, a safe working environment, and opportunity. The Lord's command of charity demands more than handouts of excess wealth to the needy. The entire economy should be retooled to provide a "preferential option for the poor." 

But, to hear today's gospel, we must step away from today's conflicts between labor and management, and excessive wealth and abject poverty. We must hear about God's sovereign authority. We should ponder Isaiah's doctrine, 

As high as the heavens are above the earth,

so high are my ways above your ways

and my thoughts above your thoughts.

Our faith begins with the unexpected good news that God, for reasons of his own, cares for his chosen people and rescues them from their distress. Anyone might argue about God's fairness. They might suppose that God should love everyone equally; and, with the same indifferent laissez-faire.  

But they might as well argue for a different God than the one who has revealed himself as Lord of the Universe and Father of Jesus Christ. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was never cool, indifferent, or distant. We have always known our God as deeply invested in human affairs. And the same God has repeatedly told us, "...my ways are above your ways and my thoughts are above your thoughts."

As we study our scriptures more closely, we realize that it's our ways that are not fair. As Ezekiel says: 

You say, “The LORD’s way is not fair!” 

Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair? 

Are not your ways unfair? 

We complain about unfairness when we think we're being treated unfairly. But when injustice falls on someone else, especially far away, we don't suppose their troubles should become ours. 

Poverty, violence, hunger, disease, natural disasters, war, mass migrations : let them stay far away. Stories of bridges collapsing, banks going belly up, or nations going to war are last week's news within a few days. We have our own problems and can’t be bothered. But, should the ripple effects of foreign catastrophes disturb us, we complain it's not fair. 

Today's gospel reminds us that we don't understand God's ways. Anyone who thinks God should at least explain himself --  maybe when we die -- well, take a number, like Michael Keeton in the movie Beetlejuice, but don’t expect me to sit around with you. I’ve got places I want to see and people I want to meet. 

Read today's gospel more closely. As Saint Matthew tells the story, the landowner speaks to only one fellow -- who is apparently neither a union leader nor a shop steward. And he, the landowner, says he can do with his money as he pleases. 

Who can disagree with that?  But he says nothing more to anyone else because he didn't owe anyone even that much explanation, much less the money they demanded. His remark to one fellow is nothing more than an aside. It is a literary device, an explanation for Saint Matthew’s audience but not for the unhappy workers in the parable.

In other words, it's fair because God says it's fair. As long as we're speaking of unfairness, and of what is or is not owed to us, we should remember that our home planet also owes us nothing and cares not a whit for us. The Earth created and destroyed dinosaurs and dodos and Denisovans and Neanderthals and thousands of extinct species long before we came along, and will keep doing so long after we’re gone.

Nor does The Economy care about us. If some fortunate people make themselves wealthy, neither they nor their stock brokers give a flip about you and me.   

But the same God who seems to govern arbitrarily and unfairly by human standards, is also the God who creates, heals, saves, and delivers us from our sinful bondage, and promises eternal life to those who believe in him. He is the same God who gives his only begotten son to death for our salvation. And the same God who lays down his life to save us from death. And the same God who created our beautiful world. And the same God gives us the eyes to see beauty and the ears to hear music even on the darkest, bleakest days. He is the God who walks with us through dark valleys of death.  

We cannot say he owes any of that. He does not need us but he gives us everything, even the gift of his serene presence in our life.    

Today's parable about a cold-hearted employer reminds us that we must rely on our good God alone, for nothing else and no one else cares enough to save us from ourselves.