God cares about and cares for all people and God works through all people to accomplish good in the world and we are all called on to praise God. Human beings have always realised that, in comparison with the grandeur and expansiveness of the universe within which they live, they are weak and vulnerable creatures. This has led them to believe in and offer homage to a divine being, or beings. Praise of God has always been an expression of awe and gratitude as well as humility. Today’s readings suggest that it is service of others that helps to break down the walls of prejudice. Social activists of our own age liberate not only the oppressed groups to which they belong, but also those who oppress them. The lives of these dynamic people show us that service of others draws them into our circles and encircles us in theirs. With open arms God invites all into an embrace of divine love. As God has embraced us, so we are called to embrace all others.
As incredible as it may seem, some people turn down the invitation to the heavenly banquet. This is the case, both in this week’s parable and in our world today. This invitation seems much less interesting than life’s other pursuits. So much time and energy is spent either climbing the economic ladder or just trying to keep our heads above water. Even if we are interested in the banquet, many struggle to find the time and energy it might require. And so we send our regrets. What a shame! We can forget that everything is tending toward the end; all of our plans, interests and distractions will cease. Only the banquet will remain. All God asks of us is that we receive the blessings that have been prepared for us. We need not work for them. In fact, we cannot work for them on our own. All we can do is accept them. God provides whatever we need in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. We needn’t negotiate with God.
The reign of God must be tended and protected from what might endanger it, so that it may produce abundant and delectable fruit. In the gospel account, the vine does indeed produce an abundant crop. In fact, it is the very productivity of the vineyard that sets the stage for the treachery described. We can see ourselves in both uses of the vineyard metaphor. There are times when, regardless of what God seems to be doing for us, we simply rebel against God’s plans. We stand in defiance. There are other times when we, who are disciples of Jesus, act as if the kingdom is ours. We might even marginalise or force out others with whom we do not agree, so that we have sole control. When we consider the justice of God, it is important that we place it within the right context, lest we create a picture of God that is false and misleading. It is because of God’s tender love for the vineyard that treachery cannot be tolerated. If we have produced unacceptable fruits, it is for our own good that God steps in and dismantles the structures that enabled us to produce bad fruit. It is appropriate that God would snatch the vineyard from our grasp and entrust it to one who will faithfully carry out God’s plans.
We are called to discipleship, and it is an invitation that is to be accepted freely. As is the case with life itself, options are placed before us all the way along the road. We are invited to choose in favour of the reign of God, or we are free to ignore the invitation. However, the invitation always remains open to us, because God’s desire for our acceptance is persistent and enduring. The real choice set before us today is the imitation of Christ. The specific characteristic of Christ today is his humility. Since demanding one’s rights can undermine the loving quality of community, Jesus’ humility is offered for our imitation. It is very clear that whichever aspect of discipleship we examine, some aspect of community is also present. To be a disciple of Jesus is to follow him humbly as a member of a believing community.
Today’s gospel reading shows how the graciousness of God can be easily mistaken for injustice. On the one hand, it does not seem fair to pay all of the labourers the same wage regardless of the amount of time they worked. On the other hand, they all received exactly the amount for which they had contracted. Therefore, there was no injustice. In the owner’s payment we find the shift in perspective that we have come to expect in Jesus’ parables. He demonstrates the eschatological reversal: the last shall be first. The real paradox is seen in his generosity, which supersedes his justice. It is clear that justice and grace do not always fit well together. This parable shows that the reign of God is based on the latter, not the former.
How many times …? What are the limits of love? Can love be measured? These questions lie behind Peter’s query about forgiveness. He obviously considers seven a most generous number since it echoes God’s words through the prophet Amos, ‘For three transgressions and for four, I will not revoke the punishment.’ (2:1). Jesus replies with an incalculable number ‘seventy times seven’. Forgiveness, like love, has no limits. This week’s parable sets up the measuring stick for Christian love and this measure is that of the generous, forgiving master. From the experience of God’s extraordinary generosity we ought to be able to be generous in our turn. The servant in the parable forgot his experience of being forgiven and focussed only on his being wronged. Christians need to be people with long memories, able to recall the times they have failed and been forgiven, and from this place reach out in forgiveness of others. Remembering that we fail again and again and again might enable us to forgive ‘seventy times seven’.
Gathering two or three together in prayerful collaboration is not as easy as it sounds. If collaboration is to be effective, we have to be open and honest about our opinions and our biases, and respectful of the opinions and biases of others. We must work for the common good and not merely for what we personally think is best. We must be willing to accept and implement decisions with which we may not totally agree, and we must live with them gracefully. All of this calls for unselfish love. Love fulfils the entire law only: when we honour our personal commitments and the personal commitments of others; when we value the life, dignity and reputation of others; and when we respect their possessions. It is only because love is so demanding that it covers all of our responsibilities.
Speaking to all the disciples, Jesus goes on to lay down the conditions for any who want to follow him: it means taking up one’s own cross and losing one’s life in order to find it. This is the path that Jesus must go and the path that all who would seek association with him must also be prepared to embrace. The fact that the so recently exalted Peter had so much difficulty with it and even that Jesus had difficulty with it should be for us all a source of comfort. Christian discipleship is not Stoic indifference. Both Peter’s remonstrance and Jeremiah’s complaint will often echo in our hearts in the daily struggle to go with Jesus along the costly prophetic way. Our ‘bodies’ refers not simply to our physical bodies but to our whole pattern of bodily life, everything we do or say. To ‘offer (our) bodies’ in this sense as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God entails a similar preparedness to discern and follow what is not the way of the world but the way of God.
The readings highlight two different but related themes: the character of our understanding of Christ, and our understanding of discipleship that flows from it. If Jesus were to pose the question to us today that he posed to the disciples: Who do you say I am?, how would we answer? Who is this one who multiplies loaves of bread, who walks on turbulent waters, who breaks the boundaries that separate insider from outsider? It is none other than the messiah. Like Peter, we too may have good intentions, but when they are put to the test we realise that that was all that they were – good intentions. Still, we should not be discouraged by our weaknesses, for just as Peter’s failure did not deter God from entrusting him with power and authority, so our failures need not be obstacles to God’s grace in our lives. We watch God entrust the church to individuals who are weak and undependable, and we realise that judgments are inscrutable and God’s ways unsearchable.
The overarching theme derived from today’s readings is the question of insider-outsider. We see here that the divisions and barriers that emerge out of human experience have been shattered by the graciousness of God. Jesus’ openness to ‘the other’ finds a precedent in the prophetic tradition. Isaiah spoke of a time when outsiders would join insiders in worshipping God, thus dissolving the categories of insider and outsider. He was, of course, referring to the age of messianic fulfilment. This age dawned with the coming of Jesus. Jesus himself moved out of the constraints of his own cultural worldview, and he directs us to do the same. People are either excluded because of gender, culture or religious perspective, or included only because they are able and willing to conform to discriminatory standards. In the reign of God, this should not be the case. People are accepted along with their own cultural profiles.