Reflection for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023

“’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?’”

Welcome as we continue our journey of study and commit ourselves to the work of following, witnessing to, and sharing Jesus.

Last Sunday we talked about celebration, and the many reasons we, who follow, witness to, and share Jesus have for celebrating.

We learned last week of the amazing generosity of God’s forgiveness. After Peter’s question related to accounting for forgiveness Jesus replies that forgiveness for those who follow Him is not a thing to be counted. Rather, our forgiveness must remain uncountable. We are not in Jesus’ gospel life as scorekeepers. The limitless forgiveness of our good and loving God is to be the forgiveness we are known by. 

Our reconciliation and salvation, our redemption all come from the uncountable gift of God’s only Son, and His self-giving to save us.

Imitating God’s uncountable forgiveness we can look at ourselves and each other differently, as freed people.

This Sunday we are once again reminded of God’s generosity.

Jesus’ well-known parable of the landowner and the workers covers several points again related to counting, and there is more to it than what is at face value.

The first workers are looking at the generosity of the landowner and admire it. Wow, this guy is so generous I can’t wait to see what I get. After all, these latecomers are not as good and deserving as I am. They lazed around all day, they’re bums. I’m a hard worker. They felt them less worthy than themselves (counting and judgment). When they get the same, they grumbled.

The early workers are grumbling not just because of the wage, but because of the generous redemption practiced by the landowner. All work was redeemed without counting the score or the before.

St. Paul reminds us to conduct [our]selves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ. That, brothers and sisters, means that we must refrain from counting what others have or have not done, from looking at someone’s past, and from judgmentalism.

Some figure they are at the front of the line for God’s blessing based on history alone. Jesus tells us it is not so. Our generosity modeled on the Father’s in the now (the last thing) is what matters.

Reflection for Sexagesima Sunday 2022

Called to Live Anew.

“Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

Anew – Life Anew in Christ is exhibited especially when we call people to know, love, and serve the Lord and His Holy Church right here at this parish.

Today we enter the second week of this Pre-Lenten season. This season is one in which we prepare ourselves for the rigors of the Lenten season because it is between now and Easter that we endeavor and strive at the vast changes we need in our lives.

Jesus certainly speaks of vast changes, a true upheaval in our lives. Jesus calls His followers to radically different lives. If we were once silent and demure we must now speak up boldly.

In this discourse on living radically different lives Jesus alludes to measures – the weight of our obligation and the generous weight of God’s response.

Certainly, many of us have baked. Perhaps it is only out of a Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines box. Perhaps it is from scratch.

If we have cooked from scratch, consider how the measurement and handling of flour can result in such different weights. A cup of sifted flour seems light while a packed down cup of flour can be quite dense and heavy. As we shake that cup down, we can always seem to add more.

Consider how those weights might represent our call to life anew, to the inner changes we need and our call to drawing others into worship and fellowship right here. 

It is a serious obligation to live as Jesus says we must: loving people who hurt us, giving our all and without expectation of repayment, foregoing judgment and accusation, and forgiving.

We draw people to Jesus because our lives are so different from that of the world. Jesus is saying the cup of our work can always be shaken down more – and that we must put more into it.

In return, Jesus makes an awesome statement. We will be repaid equally. As radically different as our lives are, so radically will God give unto us. What we pack in will be poured into us.

Our Kingdom lives are so vastly different and so amazingly blessed. As St. Paul tells us, the image of the earthly and worldly man in us – the place we came from – is vastly changed because we now bear the image of Christ Jesus. We therefore must give our all and still more for the advancement and growth of the Kingdom because we are the image of the heavenly.

Put the image of God’s generous outpouring into our mind’s eye and pour into the places we go a heavy, not a sifted, weight of our own life in Jesus.