25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A Reflection homily. YOUR WAYS ARE NOT MY WAYS.

OUTLINE

1. Summary of ideas to today’s readings
2. Your ways are not my ways
3. The Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard: God calls us to different ways and at different hours, but gives us the same reward. 

1. Summary of ideas to today’s readings

Today’s Sunday readings remind us that God has His own ways which are different from ours: God’s logic is different from human logic. What seems to be reasonable and just for us could be different from what God has planned, for His thoughts and Will surpass all human expectations.

• It is precisely in the 1^st reading from Isaiah 55:6-9 where God manifested this:

“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.”

• This important idea is exemplified in the 2nd reading and the Gospel as well. In the 2nd reading taken from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a, the Apostle of the Gentiles, we are reminded that “For to me life is Christ, and death is gain” and to “conduct ourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ.”
  • To live Christ’s life, a life worthy of the Gospel, requires to die unto our self, very much contrary to the worldly ambition to aim to what is pleasurable and material, seeking one’s life instead.
• The Gospel taken from St. Matthew 20:1-16a recounts the Parable of the labourers in the vineyard where God’s way of saving the humanity is a mystery in itself, arising from His Infinite Goodness and Mercy as manifested by the fact that those who were called at the 3rd, 6th and ninth hours received the same wages.

2. Your ways are not my ways

The fact that God’s thoughts and ways surpass what man could envision is a source of hope for each one of us and should spur us to trust more in God’s Will and thank Him for His Infinite Wisdom.

• Many times we pray and hope for something, and in spite of our insistence, God seems to play deaf to our petitions. This is not the case.
• God’s logic is different from ours, and so is His Divine Will from our finite and limited human will. We must always remember that GOD ALWAYS KNOWS MOST AND BEST if at times discouragement sets in due to unanswered prayers or to the presence of suffering and evil in the world which we see in our daily life.
• The attitude of a Christian must always be: LORD, I TRUST IN YOU! IF THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT, THEN THIS IS WHAT I WANT. MAY THY MOST HOLY WILL BE PRAISED AND GLORIFIED.

3. The Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard: God calls us to different ways and at different hours, but gives us the same reward.

This parable is addressed to the Jewish people, whom God called at an early hour, centuries ago.

• Now the Gentiles or non-Jews are also being called — with an equal right to form part of the new people of God, the Church.
• In both cases it is a matter of a gratuitous, unmerited, invitation; therefore, those who were the “first” to receive the call have no grounds for complaining when God calls the “last” and gives them the same reward — membership of his people.
• At first sight the labourers of the first hour seem to have a genuine grievance — because they do not realize that to have a job in the Lord’s vineyard is a divine gift. Jesus leaves us in no doubt that although he calls us to FOLLOW DIFFERENT WAYS AND AT DIFFERENT HOURS, all receive THE SAME REWARD — HEAVEN.

Let us thank the Most Blessed Trinity, who assured us that “I am the Savior of all people, says the Lord. Whatever their troubles, I will answer their cry, and I will always be their Lord. (Entrance antiphon),” for His Infinite Wisdom, Goodness, Love and Mercy. Let us always remember that His Ways are not our ways and He know most and what is best for each one of us so as to entrust and abandon our concerns, our life into His Hands.

Through the intercession of Our Lady of Ransom, we pray: Lord, do not consider what we truly deserve, but grant us your forgiveness.

PHOTO CREDIT: RICHARD FAENZA 2012 IN FLICKR