Homily for the 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A)
Today’s Gospel raises a host of tricky questions—what is justice? What is the relationship between divine justice and human justice? Or between God’s justice and his mercy? What does the apparently unfair situation described by Jesus in the Gospel—no doubt in violation of several labor laws—tell us about salvation? Or conversion? One thing, however, is clear: if I preach for eight hours, or five hours, or three hours, or twelve minutes, I’m going to get paid the same amount anyway. So I’ll leave some of these questions unanswered.
It’s obvious that Jesus is not giving instruction for how to run a business, but is instead trying to teach us something about salvation. He is also reinforcing what the prophet Isaiah says: “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.” No matter how much advice we give the Lord, he has his own ideas about how to run the universe and he doesn’t always explain them to us. And sometimes he does explain, but we hear only the parts we want to hear.
In its original context, the earliest Christians probably understood today’s parable to be about the relationship between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, which was the big controversy in the first century. Even though the Jewish people received divine revelation first, this did not mean that Gentiles who converted to Christianity were in any way less Christian. Still, even then the passage’s broader meaning would have been apparent to everyone: conversion is possible, even for the worst sinner, even a deathbed conversion. Thus, Isaiah says, “Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked his thoughts.”
Now it sounds very nice to say conversion is possible for even the worst sinners. But Jesus’ parable forces us to confront the difficult question: is that really fair? Or, to put it another way, what does this mean about the relationship between God’s mercy and his justice? Do they contradict each other? We know that God is both merciful and just, but sometimes it’s hard to understand how he can be both. Is he 50% just, 50% merciful? Is he just in the obvious cases, but merciful in the ones that are borderline, sort of willing to round up? In fact, God is 100% merciful and 100% just, and there can be no contradiction between his mercy and his justice. If we’re thinking about divine justice and divine mercy as contradictory, we’re thinking about them wrong.
Now we’re probably more inclined to favor God’s mercy at the expense of his justice than the other way around. Being sinners ourselves, we have a vested interest in guilty people getting off the hook. And if we’re honest about where we fit in today’s parable, most of us will have to admit we haven’t been working since dawn and may have been dozing a bit on the job too. So we might be OK with a co-dependent deity who is willing to close his eyes and brush aside the rules in the name of cheap mercy.
But to see the problem with this idea of mercy, imagine that the President’s pollsters tell him that in order to win re-election he needs to be perceived by the public as more merciful. And so he decides to pardon every criminal in all the state and federal penitentiaries in the country and let them all go free. A more merciful country would not be the result. In some way, mercy requires justice. Today the heresy that hell does not exist, that everyone is saved, is popular, and this error results from an idea of mercy divorced from justice. In effect, this belief abolishes heaven, not hell. Imagine that after settling into your comfy cottage in the afterlife, you set out to meet the neighbors and on one side you meet a serial killer who invites you over for a barbeque. His special recipe. And on the other side, an unrepentant concentration camp guard greets you with a friendly, “Heil Hitler!” Have a nice eternity.
So let’s admit, in some way, we can’t do without justice. The reason the problem of relating God’s mercy to his justice seems so hard to us is probably because even though we use the word justice all the time, we don’t really know what it means. Either we think of justice simply in terms of punishment and reward or we imagine it means equality. Justice is neither. The basic definition of justice in Catholic thought is right relationship. Now you don’t have to think very hard to come up with examples in which a right relationship is not an equal relationship. Parent and child do not get an equal say in managing the family finances. And we know from the brutal experience of communism in the past century that trying to make everyone equal in all ways does not result in social justice. In certain things, yes. When it comes to the fundamental right to life, for example, justice demands equality. We cannot have a right relationship if I can take your life. This is why, for example, no one who supports the “right” to abortion can ever claim to be for social justice.
Now keeping in mind the definition of justice as right relationship, I hope you can see that by definition salvation requires justice. If we are not in a right relationship with God and the saints, we are not saved. There can’t be exploitation or manipulation or acrimony in heaven. If Paul is moping around muttering about how Peter gets too much credit, it’s not heaven. Salvation means absolute justice, being united in a web of harmonious relationships with God, rightly, at the center.
So where does that leave mercy? I think it’s obvious we aren’t in heaven yet (though South Dakota is pretty nice). Not all of our relationships are right, including our relationship with God. We can put some of those unjust relationships right on our own, for example, by paying back a debt. But in other cases, making our wrongs right is beyond our power. We need a higher power to put our relationships right, to establish justice. But here’s the thing: since we’re in the wrong, we have no grounds to force that higher power to do so. It’s up to him to fix that wrong, to bringing us into right relationship. God’s mercy is the product of his goodness and his strength. Mercy means a higher power, who is in the right, bringing a weaker power, who is in the wrong, back into right relationship even when there is no outside force compelling him to do so. Now do you see why there is no contradiction between God’s mercy and his justice? Because God’s mercy creates justice.
So now think back to the parable from the Gospel. All of the workers receive an equal wage, which means they are all saved, all are brought into right relationship with God. As an aside, this does not necessarily mean that everyone will be exactly equal in heaven; Mother Teresa’s light will no doubt shine a lot brighter than mine—if I make it—and Mary’s will be brighter than all of ours, but that’s the way it should be. That’s a right relationship. And in order to be in a right relationship with God and others, some of us are going to require some changes. That’s why conversion is necessary–and is possible even for a contrite serial killer or a repentant Nazi, but not unless they change. The process of conversion means penance in this life and purgatory in the next, and both of those things are difficult, even painful, dimensions of accepting God’s mercy. And purgatory and penance raise a whole host of complicated questions—enough, in fact, for another homily. But two homilies in one Mass would be neither just nor merciful. So I’ll just summarize. Justice is—right relationship. And God is fully merciful and fully just. There’s no contradiction between the two because God’s mercy establishes justice; despite our wrongs, it brings us into right relationship. If you remember that, then I’d say, even if it’s only been fifteen minutes, you’ve earned your wage for this Sunday.
Readings: Is 55:6-9; Phil 1:20c-24, 27a; Mt 20:1-16a
St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church
Rapid City, South Dakota
2020
Tony Lusvardi, S.J. 