Word from the Pastor

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Lord is good to all and compassionate toward all his works.
Isaiah 55:6-9, Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a, Matthew 20:1-16a

Perhaps we are familiar with the concept of schadenfreude, which Merriam Webster’s dictionary describes as “enjoyment obtained from seeing or hearing about the troubles of others.” If we’re honest with ourselves, we all may fall into a bit of schadenfreude at times, particularly when we feel the person experiencing the troubles had it coming to them. Though certainly far from the love of neighbor our Lord calls us to, it’s easy to be tempted to delight when someone whom we dislike, or whom we feel deserves it, experiences some hardship or other.

But there’s also another less than charitable tendency we see in today’s Gospel: We can have a particularly strong reaction when someone we feel hasn’t earned it gets something good. There’s no fancy word like schadenfreude to describe that feeling, but it’s very real. In our Gospel we see the anger and confusion of the laborers who worked from dawn until dusk, grumbling against the landowner that the laborers who only worked an hour got the full daily wage. They are angry because the landowner’s generosity defies their sense of justice, which wants each person to get exactly what they’re due, and no more.

But God’s justice doesn’t work the way human justice works. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways, the Lord says through the prophet Isaiah. Other places in Scripture tell us that God makes the sun rise on the good and the bad, and causes rain to fall on the just and unjust (Mt. 5:45). Or, as our psalm tells us, The Lord is good to all and compassionate toward all his works, good and bad, deserving and undeserving alike.

Why? Why is the Lord so indiscriminately generous, even when someone doesn’t deserve it? Because of his infinite mercy. Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked his thoughts; let him turn to the Lord for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving, Isaiah tells us. The radical generosity of God’s mercy helps the sinner to have confidence that it’s never too late to turn back, it’s never too late to come home.

The message of today’s Gospel is that no matter what, all is not lost. Though we may have squandered our lives in dissolute living like the prodigal son upon coming home to the Father, we know that a heavenly banquet awaits us.

When we move from seeing this Gospel through our small-minded lens of someone getting more than they deserve to understanding it from the vantage point of the infinite mercy of God, then perhaps we can move from our all-too-human reaction of grumbling at the unfairness to praise of God’s goodness. May this Eucharist we share help us to offer thanks and praise to God for his unfathomable mercy, which gives each of us infinitely more than we could ever deserve.

Rev. Fritzner J. Bellonce
Pastor