Year A, Lectionary 133
God focuses on the well being of each of us. Because we bring our own limited perspectives, we often cannot understand God's mercy, love and care for others. Whereas we compare others to our standards, God graces us all the same with dignity and attention. It is not for us to convince God to see things our way but instead start seeing and treating others as God does.
“Paul expects long before his body is raised on the last day that his soul will be with Christ after his death”
“The fear of others doing better than us is often a wound in a life where we have learned not to be utterly confident of love”
“Salvation doesn't come at the end of Christianity, salvation is the beginning of Christianity and everything else is our gratitude”
“He's talking about, in essence, how the Kingdom of God turns everything upside down, it turns our expectations about what is even just upside down. It turns upside down our expectations about what is owed to us.”
“Each of us has a life and each life is like a book in God's hands. God is the author of the book. Please do not close the book until God is done writing.”
“In the light of today's parable, I wonder whether we are sometimes just as suspicious of God. We find it easier to believe in a God who rewards people according to what they deserve than in a God whose generosity exceeds all our expectations. We keep looking for the catch, when all the while God is simply being generous.”
“So perhaps the question is not: 'why did the late workers receive so much?' Maybe it is: 'when did I forget how much I have received?'”
“So the question is not simply 'what can I accomplish?' The deeper Christian question is this: 'what can my life produce for the good of others?'”
“Because the truth of our daily lives is each one of us receive much more from God's grace and goodness than fairness. We receive love. We receive life.”
“The point of all the gospels is Jesus telling us something about God, so rather than saying 'I get it, those guys that were hired at dawn,' instead I make myself say 'okay, but what is Jesus letting us know about God now in this?'”
“God's generous favors to others will never deprive us of what is rightfully ours and if I feel troubled by God's generosity to others perhaps I have a long way to go in growing into the image and likeness of God”
“Yes Lord, I don't want you to be like me, my Lord, because then we'd all be in big, big trouble. Help me to be more like you.”
“We live in a society where success is measured by your job title, the amount of money you make, how many cars or houses you have, how many followers you have on social media, and even by the amount of hours you work. It's never measured by the amount of people you serve or how much you give.”
“What Christ is trying to point to is that God's mercy sees everyone. You don't have to like everybody but God's mercy sees everyone and responds to everyone. God will hire us no matter the point of the day.”
“Why do you labor in God's vineyard? Is it for a quid pro quo so that the Lord will be good to you back?...Or do you labor in God's vineyard because of the sheer joy of getting to labor for Christ because you love God and you love God's harvest, which are God's people, and you love them so much that the labor itself is the reward?”
“Our God cannot be tamed within the made-up constructs of in or out, worthy or unworthy, last or first. Our God is near to all who call upon the divine name in truth, no matter if we got to work at the crack of dawn or right before quitting time.”
“God is better than fair. God is generous beyond measure. God is rich in grace and mercy. God is full of compassion. God's love is beyond our ability to comprehend it and sometimes even to receive it.”
“there are a lot of saints out there nobody has ever given them the Word of God. Nobody explained to them the mercy of God. They would turn to the Lord if some missioner, some evangelist, some church folks...had made the little least effort to go out and tell them the Good News.”
“Yes, people of God, God has a plan but our faith formation is deepened, as well as our intellectual formation, when we understand how to read things. Because when we can understand how to read things and how to experience things we can be better disciples.”
“in case you are in doubt and you want to know whether you are truly doing the work of God or not, you check whether your fulfillment comes from what you get at the end of the work or whether your fulfillment comes from doing the will of God”
“God's hands are not tied to our narrow calculus of justice. God's mercy is not bounded by the limitations of our compassion.”
“And so the parable is not meant to make us resentful of what we're lacking but rather grateful for receiving far more than we deserve”
“You and I need to ask: what did God do and give to you and what are you doing with what God gave you? That's the question. In this world God gives us every grace and gift that we need not only to be able to be, be saved but to save some sorry souls.”
