NewCreation

Homily for Sunday 25 in Ordinary Time Year A

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this homily for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time. We've jumped a chapter since last time. Last time we ended, if you remember, with the parable of the hard-hearted servant who wouldn't forgive the debt of the unimportant servant, and how what Jesus was trying to provoke was a world in which, as we constantly forgive each other, so we open up creation — that that is the way that the kingdom will be brought into being. Now we've jumped to his last major parable teaching before he turns his face to Jerusalem and heads there. And it's a parable teaching which is not really comprehensible unless we take into account what he's just been teaching between last week's parable and this. After he's taught them all about how forgiveness is what is absolutely central for the leadership roles in the Church — what's it going to be like to live inside the Church? It's going to be like spreading forgiveness about, taking the unimportant servant boy as the criteria for how to act and how not to scandalize people — in other words, showing a radically different understanding of what getting on together is going to look like. He's then faced with the question about marriage, to which he gives a hard answer based on an understanding of how only the people involved can actually decide whether or not they are married. No one else in the Church can interfere. In fact, he bases himself on Genesis, shows that it is actually part of what's meant by creation — he's really going back to the sense of the author of Genesis, which is that this is something to do with being human and being free to enter into creation, rather than something organized by structures or hierarchies, and therefore capable of being set apart by structures and hierarchies. And having said that, he then throws out to his disciples, who are quite reasonably a little bit shocked by this, he throws out the examples of eunuchs as being something rather positive. He talks about in a very matter-of-fact way, and immediately afterwards some children are brought to him. The disciples, again with the usual thinking that this is not serious stuff, try to keep them away, and yet again Jesus has to put them right by saying: "Let the children come to me," and lays his hands on them and blesses them and sends them away. And then it's a rich young man who comes, whom Jesus again questions, talks with him about the commandments, and then puts to him the question of giving up all that he has so as to follow him — and he goes away sad. And the disciples again are then completely shocked by this, because what Jesus is saying is that riches do not matter at all for the coming into the kingdom in fact, giving them away is the best thing you can do. And then says, "Yep, it's true, it'll be harder for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle." In other words, literally everything he's saying about what the rules of engagement are going to be produce shock and dismay among his disciples. They're completely discombobulated by the notion of the sort of living together which will be ours in the kingdom. So Peter then says — and you can tell that this is an important point because Peter is always brought in to represent a certain understanding which then gets undone — Peter says, "Look, we've left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" In other words, "Hey, you know, we're the good guys here, we've left everything. So what's it going to be like for us? We want a reward. What's going to be the reward structure?" That's when Jesus tells them: "Renewal of all things happens in the new creation. You will be" — the 12 apostles will be the equivalent of the heads of the 12 tribes — indicating how the new Israel is being brought into being. And in addition he says, "And anyone who leaves houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my name's sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life." In other words, he's saying, "Yeah, but it's not only you — the whole of the belonging involves looking like people who've left things, and so have come into something much, much bigger because they've lost a certain security." Then he says — and this is the translation which we most frequently have, and the reason this is important is because the same phrase comes at the end of our parable — "For many who are first will be last, and the last will be first." Now mostly in our hearing that comes across in what I call po-faced style. It's a way of saying, "Yes, you know, all sorts of people who are in important places now, they'll be in very, very low places at the end, and people who are in low places now will be in important places at the end" — as though Jesus was simply being moralistic. But actually that's not what the little phrase means. The little phrase is badly translated if we say "the first will be last and the last will be first." It's an English language approximation. Actually it says, "All will be firsts lasts and lasts firsts." In other words, there's something much, much more interesting being taught here, which is actually very much in line with our reading from Isaiah about "my ways are unimaginably greater than your ways." And it's this that Jesus is bringing out in his answer to Peter, and as a way of illustrating all… the strange upsets that he's taught about marriage, about riches, about children, and about all the people who are going to be inside his kingdom. It's all about the oddness of all of us, all those who might be insiders. For the word "many," the underlying word in Aramaic is inclusive: it's "many" meaning "all." There are two ways of saying "many," two ways of saying "all" — "all" as in a block of people, or "many" referring to all the individuals involved. So here he's referring to all the individuals, all those who are going to be on the inside of this experiment. It'll be a question of being first-lastest and last-firstest. This is not so much a moralism as a teaching about discombobulation. So let's bring that out in the parable which we now have. The landowner goes to the market in the morning, he finds labourers, he calls them in, he agrees to pay them a day's wage, they go and they work, and so on throughout the day, until finally, just before close of day, he finds another group who hadn't yet been hired, hires them, and then comes time to pay. Curiously, he starts with the most recently hired, the one who's only been there an hour, and gives them a day's wage. And the others, thinking he's a generous type, maybe he's going to give us more — and then finally it gets to those who started at eight in the morning, and they receive exactly the same as those who've only done one hour's work. And so they complain. And here's the point: "Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?" — actually, "Do you have a bad eye because I am generous?" — "So the last will be first, and the first will be last." Now, as far as I can see, the point of this is to do with how we appreciate our relationship with others inside this project. All of us are first-lasts and last-firsts. There are elements in which some of us started very early, and there are elements in which some have started very late, and there are also elements in our lives in which we are the ones who started late and others started much earlier. The problem is comparison. The "bad eye" to which he refers is the jealousy of comparison. What he's suggesting is that actually all those who are in this inside project have come to life in quite different ways, at quite different times, have let go of different things at different points, who found themselves called in in different ways. The biography of each one is astounding and unique, and only I, who am outside… time I'm able to determine how it is that I give sonship, daughterhood to these who are coming into my kingdom. That's the thing which we're inheriting — is the same; everyone's inheriting the same, but everyone's inheriting in a different way and through a different process. There are bits where we are last-firstest and there are bits where we are first-lastest. But the one thing we mustn't do is to allow ourselves to get caught up in jealousy about what is apparently being given to others, because that means we won't be able to appreciate what might be given ourselves. I think that it's this sense that Jesus is so richly bringing out: that the life stories of those of us who are involved in this are going to be incommensurable one with each other. We've really no idea where we have been caught up in the coming into the kingdom. It's only after a long time that we may discover something that was part of our life and which suddenly blossoms into who we really are. All of these things are not to be measured in advance, not to be worked out by comparison. "I haven't made it to such and such a professional status by such and such an age. All my classmates seem to have great jobs. Why have I got such a dull career compared to them?" Et cetera, et cetera. Just think how many ways we are dependent on comparison to judge of being brought into being as sons and daughters — and that's quite literally jealousy, mimetic jealousy, destroying our imagination of the goodness of the one who is trying to give us a gift. This, for me, is — if you like — the culmination of Jesus' teaching of being on the inside of the life of the new creation coming into being, of which the Church is supposed to be a sign. Very often the Church is absolutely full of careerists and people who are simply judging other people by what they regard as more or less fake signs of goodness. Ah, we're all screw-ups. We're all being called into being in rather extraordinary ways and finding ourselves on the insides of a process of being brought into being as daughters and sons — the unique reward which is glory. And if we can begin to imagine how utterly astounding the lives, the patterns, the ways of being are of our contemporaries, our friends, our enemies, those of whom we're jealous — just be able to sit back a little bit from our comparative jealousy, their insecurity, to be able to see where they are first-lasters and last-firsters, just as we are last-firsters and first-lasters in different aspects of our lives — in that sense we might be able to come and enjoy. with a good eye the sheer goodness, vivacity, and strangeness of the one who is bringing us out of the corrupt and futile ways in which our world tends to curve down. That's what's being offered, and that's what Jesus is trying to bring out at the end of his what's called ecclesial teaching on how it is that we are to live together in coming into the new kingdom. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.