Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
A world filled with opportunities, avenues open and chances inspire. Purpose gives meaning. Having hope drives us. Nothing drives a person more than a vision. To envision our lives filled with value, meaning, and most importantly transcendence, impacts us to excel.
Value stimulates. Excellence inspires, but transcendence drives us with a passion that makes life worth living. Feeling imprisoned in a fallen world, we seek to break out and become free from the shackles that enslave us in mediocrity which creates hopelessness.
Human weakness is innate. It is ingrained in our nature. As St. Paul tells us, “There is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:22–23). Whether we are Jew or Greek, male or female, free or slave, sin enslaves us. We are imprisoned in a fallen world. This world oppresses us weighing us down demanding we carry the weight of the world—sin, suffering, and death—upon our shoulders. Overwhelmed, the world possesses us as we become obsessed seeking to survive the struggles we face.
Yet, surviving stifles. We want more from life than survival. We seek success. Success creates significance and significance comes from excellence. But even these rich ideals which give life meaning, purpose, and drive, fall short. We still want more because we are made for more. We are made to transcend and live a life fully alive in God’s presence.
Our lives envision transcendence, to be fully alive not only physically, mentally, relationally, and spiritually, but to be alive in Christ. Our purpose then transcends surviving. It even transcends success, significance, and excellence. We crave empowerment not from self, but from Christ Himself. Through divine empowerment, we are no longer slaves to our passions: lust, greed, and gluttony. We are no longer entangled in our ego: pride, envy, and wrath. He breaks us free from mediocrity, a worldly spirit, offering perfection. Our perfection envisions our participation with divine glory.
Craving to be more, we transform our vision from an earthly realm to a heavenly one. No longer seduced by wisdom of the world, we seek the wisdom of God. God’s Wisdom “knows and understands all things, and she will guide me wisely in my actions and guard me with her glory” (Wis 9:11). God’s glory speaks to our heart. It is our purpose. It becomes our goal. It drives us to break free from the oppression, obsessions, and possession of the world. Free, the whole world becomes an opportunity for us to transcend.
Opportunities come daily. They strike, but are we ready to engage and take advantage of them? If we fail to cultivate our gifts and ready ourselves for opportunities, our vision darkens. Yet, cultivation of our gifts: our time, talent, and treasure, prepares us that when opportunities arise, we are ready, willing, and able to take advantage of them. Not only are we ready, willing, and able, we easily discern opportunities as we have a sensitive spirit and a sharpened ability to know what we should or should not do.
Advantages come, all the time, inspiring us to be more—not less. Yet, missed opportunities drain and demoralize us. Depressed, our desires lack motivation and purpose. We feel the oppression and possession of the world heavy upon our hearts. We think ourselves as losers because we lost an opportunity. Yet, opportunities are not once in a lifetime. This is the great fallacy.
Opportunities strike daily and the more aware we are of these opportunities unveiling themselves, the less oppressed we are when one is missed or overlooked. In fact, our mindset, if trained positively, tells us that another opportunity will come and come soon.
Discernment corrects missed opportunities. Through discernment, we examine our lives, the choices we make and the direction those choices take us. Sadly, many believe in fate rather than freewill. Fate does not determine our lives, freewill—the choices we make or do not make—does.
Many who merely survive and, worse, those who spiral down, made choices that created their struggles. They failed to discern and learn from missed opportunities. They merely complained. Grumbling against others rather than examining why I missed this opportunity and, more importantly, what can I do to be ready for the next one coming.
Others discerned and made choices to succeed. Their success made them significant. They pushed themselves to excel—learning, growing, and developing so they become productive. Yet, upon closer discernment, do they have fulfillment?
Success in life demands orderliness and industriousness. It is personal effort, motivated by our desires to grow, develop, mature, and become significant. These goals, especially those of value, powerfully impact our lives. Friends, family, faith, along with vocation, education, and finances are highly valued.
Our vocation calls us to make use of our talents along with our time. We either marry, stay single or become part of the church. Our vocation changes our view of life. We learn to serve and not be served. We learn to give our life to another which is the heart of being human, the heart of being transcendent. Our education expands our mind, learning how to think, not just learning facts and skills. Finally, as we realize from scripture, finances are important. As St. Paul teaches, “for the love of money is the root of all evil” (I Tim 6:10). Money is merely a tool, but for some it becomes their purpose. Like any disorder, it destroys us. We want its power. We relish in its possessions. We know it gives us intense opportunities for pleasures, but it seduces us. Money cannot give us glory.
Nothing stirs us as a good friend, for he is another self. Family supports us and our spouse upholds us when challenges and difficulties arise. Faith grounds us. No longer do we live horizontally, but we see life from a vertical view. That view does not look up but looks down from the heights. The greatest missed opportunity arises when we miss the divine vision. He invites Himself into our lives, transforming us, thus giving us a new vision. This is our divine visitation.
The men working in the vineyard reveal money is not everything. God’s visitation is. Call early to work the whole day, they are deaf to God’s call. They see their work as slavery, enduring the heat, bearing the burden of the day. They failed to realize the opportunity given. The Master gave them a full day’s work, giving them purpose and place. Work is a gift, and when employment arises, we need to be ready to take full advantage of it. They, however, grumble because they receive the same pay. Yet, for whom were they working? Obviously, themselves. They wanted the day’s wage so they could survive yet another day.
These workers did not envision being visited by God in their work. Instead of being idle all day, trying to survive, their early morning employment gave them opportunities. They would survive the day. In fact, if the Master of the Vineyard is so generous, why did they not take the opportunity and ask him to be hired for the next day. Why did they not ask the Master for steady employment? Becoming negative and critical, they lived their survivalist mindset rather than seek greater success. They missed a great opportunity to change their lives.
Yet, the Parable of the Vineyard reveals a much richer insight if discerned under the light of faith. The Vineyard is not a workplace. It is the Kingdom of Heaven. Those invited enter at any time have the fullness of life. They have meaning, purpose, and drive. They no longer sit idle, living futile lives merely hoping to survive. They have security and camaraderie. They have the means to start a family. They have financial safety. They, through their work, develop their minds. Yet, they have the greatest opportunity ever. God calling them to work with Him in his Vineyard, his Church.
Work is much more than merely earning a day’s wage. Work, if understood biblically, worships God. In the garden, God told Adam, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). To till and keep translate the Hebrew word, Avodah. It means work. It also means worship. Our work worships God and our worship works to thank God for the work we do.
As Jesus tells his disciples, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mk 2:27). The Sabbath is a day of blessing in which God gives us rest so we enjoy the fruits of our labor. The laborers were invited to work in the God’s Vineyard and receive blessing upon blessing. God called them to fulfill their lives, not just with money and purpose, but love and friendship too. He calls each of us also to work in his Vineyard, so we may recognize the time of our divine visitation.
Called to worship God on the Sabbath, during the week when we work, our work ought to worship God and not ourselves. In this light, we say, work was made for man and not man for work. Work is a divine gift giving us an identity, not only here on earth, but also in heaven. Our work is a prayer, a labor of love offered to God in which we become united to God taking advantage of each opportunity He sends our way.
To reduce work to mere labor done to earn money, we miss the purpose and plan of work. We lack vision. We are myopic. We live trying to survive and defeat death: hunger and homelessness. But if we discern in light of the Master, God Who is Father, our work pleases Him for we are doing what He wills. Our work uses the time, talent, and treasure He gave us to honor and glorify Him. Through his call to work and worship we become like Him. With work, we also create friends, have families, and embrace our faith, knowing work is God’s gift to me and my work is my gift back to God.
No longer do we live idle, futile lives but grasp that our work draws us into participation with God. We partake of his plan which gives us his glory. Work then, no matter how meaningless or significant it may be, has a divine dimension. Through it we transcend becoming workers in the Kingdom of Heaven, sharing the fruits of a life lived transcendently. St. Paul understood this. He encouraged slaves who had little hope of ever becoming free as he encourages us:
Whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you are serving the Lord Christ (Col 3:23–24).