Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time-A
The existence of God, and the idea of God, is simply the result of our tendency to create an ideal being with all the best of our own traits, or the traits we wish to have. The statement presupposes that the definition of God is nothing more than our own projection, a projection with the added characteristic of some superhuman traits.
Ludwig Feuerbach, a nineteenth-century German philosopher, argued that faith is a projection. For the faithful Christian, Feuerbach’s theory does not reflect their own spiritual experience. That, however, doesn’t mean there is nothing we can learn from his observation. He does touch on a reality and a tendency of a faithful Christian.
It is not unusual that, during our spiritual journey, we assume God thinks and acts the way we do. It’s not all our fault because our creatureliness limits us; nonetheless, we still do it. Perhaps that’s the point of the atheist Feuerbach. By refusing to believe, Feuerbach did not open himself up to the true wisdom contained in the holy scripture. But we can and should.
In the first reading for this Sunday, the prophet Isaiah, we are taught, “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.” From almost the beginning, faithful preachers and prophets demanded that there is a huge disparity, and rightly so, between the Creator and creature. It is a relationship between the flawless and the flawed.
Even so, God wants his creatures to know more about Himself, and part of Jesus’ mission was to broadcast the inner life of the Trinity through his teaching. Knowing the limitations of the human mind, Jesus used parables to help us better understand who God really is.
This week, Jesus tells us the Kingdom of God is like a landowner hiring workers at dawn, nine, noon, three, and five o’clock. The workers gather at the end of their workday to receive their wages. The twist in the parable is that the landowner pays the same amount to each worker, regardless of when they started. Those who came at 5 PM were paid the same amount as those who worked from dawn.
Our immediate reaction is that it’s unfair to pay each worker the same amount. Those who worked all day, or even half a day, in justice deserve more than the lazy workers who only worked an hour. The landowner told the workers he cheated no one, because the early workers agreed to a wage, and only after they saw the same wage go to everyone did they want to break the contract.
If we defend the early workers’ assumption, then Feuerbach was right. We have placed our sense of mercy and justice in the lap of God and demand that he honors it. The parable’s teaching easily transfers to our spiritual reality, which we need to grapple with.
Many Christians were baptized in infancy and raised in the faith. If they stayed true to their upbringing throughout their lives, they can be compared with the workers who started at dawn. Similarly, some Christians come to the faith at various times of life, just like the workers who started working at different times. It is the will of God to save his people regardless of when they gave their lives to Him. Who among us would want to deny any person who believes, no matter when, the chance to have their souls saved for all eternity?
If we still struggle to see the fairness of God’s justice, consider what you have already been given far surpassing anything we can expect. What can be a more important gift than being an adopted son and daughter of God? The Kingdom of God is open to all, and through our baptism we have already been invited. Whether we accept the invitation is our decision, and if we do, we have agreed to the wage or gift offered.
When all is said and done, the ways of God are simply a Kingdom of Divine love. Once the love is bestowed, there is nothing more; nothing needs to be more. God’s love is not rationed or adjusted when his creature finds and follows him. It is available to everyone, and His love is all we will ever need. Then it is never necessary to compare what God has given us with what he has given to someone else. We have our fill, and if we live in that love as we should, we will never feel cheated.
Thank God for all of us that the Kingdom can be compared to the landowner who paid the last employee the same wage as the first.