Homily for August 22, 2018
_“Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you, and go.” *(Matthew 20:13-14)*_
In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus tells the parable of the Landowner to further teach us the need to avoid pride in our lives; whether based on our material possessions or our spiritual wealth. Basically, Jesus wants us to know how essentially equal we are before God, our creator.
A landowner recruits people to his vineyard and agrees with each how much he would pay at the end of the day’s work. Each person had the opportunity to bargain for his own pay before they started the work. At the end of the day’s work, everyone got exactly what he bargained for. The problem started when those who had earlier agreed to be paid a denarius in the morning realised that even those who started work in the evening got the same denarius.
That is just life for you. Like these workers in the vineyard, what separates us from each other are unimportant factors. There is no need looking down on anyone or taking anyone to be a god because at the end of the day, even if it seems we are better or worse than others now, we are still equal before God.
Jesus has said it all: “The last will be first, and the first will be last.” The essence of the Christian life is COLLABORATION, not COMPETITION. Why engage in a fight with someone who in a few years from now would become dust just like you under the ground? What’s the point of boasting or treating people like garbage when we do not know what tomorrow holds? Imagine the workers employed in the morning mocking the ones employed in the evening not knowing they were not going to get a dime extra!
Today, we celebrate a woman whose fear of God brought her great reward. Today’s feast, The Queenship of Mary, is a natural follow-up of her glorious Assumption into heaven; her final reward so to say and the fulfilment of the words of Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom, there will be no end.” Luke 1, verses 31 to 33.
If Jesus Christ is a king whose reign shall last forever, it follows that Mary his mother is a Queen who Queenship shall last forever. Like Mary, we all are somehow going to be partakers of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ so far as we endure to the end.
Let us pray: Lord Jesus, give me the grace of humility and generosity that I may not be like the young man who walked away sorrowful. Amen
*Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you. (Our Lady, Mother and Queen. Bible Study: Ezekiel 34:1-11, Psalm 23:1-6, Matthew 20:1-16).*
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