2026-09-20 Twenty-fifth Sunday of the year

 

Opening prayer

Good and gracious Lord of the Vineyard,
You call us at every hour of the day, and your generosity knows no measure of our merit. As we open our hearts to your word this day, free us from the envy that counts another's blessing as our loss, and from the pride that believes we have earned  your mercy, which you give freely.
Teach us that our ways are not your ways, and our thoughts are not your thoughts. Help us to rejoice when your goodness falls on others as it falls on us - just like the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Teach us to trust that the last will be first, and the first will be last, in your unending love.
Open our ears now to hear what you would say to us, and open our hearts to receive it with gratitude, and not with calculation.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Prayer for healing: Heavenly Father, we surrender our loved one and friends who are in need of healing to your loving care and miraculous healing. May the life-giving powers of your touch flow into every cell of their bodies and into the very depth of their souls, cleansing, purifying, and restoring them to wholeness and full life. Grant them the strength, courage, and patience to endure their suffering. Help them to accept God's will and to find peace in His love. At this time we lift up the following people: Eunice Kim, Iris Simon, Eloise Dutil, George Horton, Don Mamayek, Janet Schaffer, Bernice Comfort, John and Buddy Fox, Abbi, Debbie, EJ, Gretchen, Bob and Aida Heller, Lynn, Patti Sharrow, Jill,  ... whom else should we pray for ...

  

Practice of faith from last week

1. Reflect on times when you have forgiven others or when you received forgiveness, how did you feel? How can you carry that feeling forward to future encounters?
2. Consider how you extend forgiveness to someone who never asks for it. How might God's grace strengthen and soften your heart to do so?
3. Pray for the specific graces that come from God's forgiveness of us

 

Lessons from today's liturgical readings

Matthews 20:6-9 is meant to bother us, because Jesus tells the parable of the landowner who hires people at various times of the day and then pays everyone the same.

 

It is a parable that exposes a deep spiritual dissonance because humans logically believe that if someone who worked for only 1 hour and still get the full days wage - then another who worked all day under the hot sun, should rightfully get 8 times the payment - this is how humans think, but is not how God thinks. 

This human thinking exposes a lack of mercy or love for the other which is to wish the best for the other - instead we look inward to ourselves and get a sense of outrageous injustice, inexplicable inequity, and self-righteous unfairness.

After all, it is based on a selfish premise that we have been good Christians all our life - we've paid the price with prayer, fasting, penance and sacrifice - and earned the reward of redemption.  

Then along comes someone who is reckless, sinful all his life and then at the last moment on the deathbed makes a confession and receives redemption - in other words the repentant good thief Dismas gets to go to heaven the same as the pious St Francis of Assisi - this must be very hard for self-righteous Christians who feel outraged. 

But God does not think like that - instead as the first reading by Isaiah says

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 clearly shows God is not mercenary, nor miserly in terms of who is redeemed or not. God is all knowing, all loving and all-forgiving - it is his and his alone to decide who gets to Heaven - we should not second guess God, instead we should rejoice seeing many people - even those we thought unworthy - in heaven.

If we felt outrage then our spirituality needs to be examined. Do you think someone like St Teresa of Calcutta in heaven, would begrudge a sinner a place in heaven to experience the same love she feels? It was that love  for God that drove her to serve the poorest of poor - and if she sees one of those in heaven, wouldn't she be happy? Because all her life she wanted these others to get to know Jesus and ultimately be redeemed by him.

Pray that we might think like Mother Teresa and not be stuck in our limited sense of self-righteousness.

Sources: 

1. https://www.wordonfire.org/videos/sermons/how-not-to-think-about-heaven-2/
2. https://www.wordonfire.org/reflections/a-ordinary-wk20-wednesday/

Practice of faith for this week

1. Pray and reflect on a time when you were the recipient of extravagant generosity and felt undeserving. How can you pay that forward?
2. To whom do we need to extend more generosity, even if it feels unfair?
3. Research organisations that serve those on the margins. Pay attention to systems that are compassionate to those who need mercy, such as addiction ministries or reentry programs. How can you support them with your time, talent and treasure? 

Closing prayer

Good and gracious God,
We thank you for this time together, for the chance to sit with your word and let it search our hearts. Forgive us for the moments we have measured your goodness by our own standards, and for the times we have grumbled at grace freely given to others.
As we leave this place, root out any lingering envy in us, and replace it with the joy of the workers who trust the master's word: "Am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?" Let us go now not counting hours worked or wages earned, but grateful simply to have been called into the vineyard at all.
Bless our conversation here, that it may bear fruit in how we treat one another this week — especially those we are tempted to think deserve less than we do.
Go with us now, Lord, and keep us mindful that your ways are higher than our ways, and your mercy wider than we can measure.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.