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25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Mt 20: 1-26 |
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| Background: Today’s story is not intended to be a paradigm for labor-management
relations nor material for a business school ethics seminar. It has but one purpose, to
teach us about the nature of God’s love. All other lessons are not pertinent to the
story. It would seem that the outline of this story was well known to those who were
listening to Jesus. It was a rabbinic story which ended with those who came at the 11th
hour working so hard that they earned the day’s wage. Jesus characteristically twists
the ending in a very different direction. He shows those who came late wasting their time
wondering how much pay they will get. The emphasis is not on their industry but on the
generosity, one might almost say the crazy generosity of the farmer. That’s what God
is like, by human standards his generosity is crazy. |
read the padre |
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Story: Once upon a time Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were doing
their white wash scam on the local kids. It worked every year. They conned five kids to
white wash all the fences. Then when they had finished, Becky Thatcher – you remember
her, don’t you? – said to the suckers, come on guys, Tom and Huck are going to
take you down to the ice cream score for a cone. Hey, Tom and Huck said, we didn’t
promise that. But you’re going to do it, she replied, because you’re nice guys
and you want to be generous to these kids. Generous to sucker? Shush, Becky said. You want
them to come back next year. Well . . . OK, but next year we won’t. We’re not
THAT crazy! Yes, you are said Becky because both of you are very generous people.
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