The usual daily wage. Obviously there was no Union Local # 170 from my UPS days to represent the workers who entered the vineyard early in the morning, working hard and sweating all day, watching the last workers receive a usual daily wage – meaning a full day’s pay. Then came their time to be paid, thinking they would receive more. “We’re getting double the usual wage.” They were disappointed. After listening to this parable, don’t you think our hearts should go out to all the dedicated, hard workers who bore the brunt of the hot sun and day’s work? After all, they hauled in 10 times more corn, wheat, tobacco, and tomatoes than the 5:00 p.m. people. The 5:00 a.m. people loaded up 3 full carts, whereas the last ones being paid first and handsomely, realized it was dinner time and probably ate half of what they picked. One gets hungry being idle all day. The usual daily wage speaks to God being the Vineyard Owner and his system of payment. It would be nice if the U.S. Tax Code was this simple. One easy system. Where fewer CPA’s and lawyers are needed. But this usual daily wage of the Vineyard Owner; isn’t this God’s system of payment, the reward for doing his work, for living our faith in the wider vineyard, in the outer world? God’s system of payment is not complicated at all, even though we find ways to complain about it. It’s either Hades or Heaven, with a possible holdover in Purgatory. The usual daily wage is going to lift our souls and eventually our bodies next to all those great Saints, many of whom died for Christ, and many of whom lived for Christ from birth. Over the centuries, how many parents dedicated the life of their child to God’s service? Many have, becoming Saints as a result. We take the opposite approach today, where parents guide and lead their children softly into the person the child is meant to be, hoping and praying they arrive at the vineyard of the Lord and collect the usual daily wage someday. What happened to dedicating a child to God’s service for life? Does that happen anymore? Anyway, the system of payment God has set up for our practice of faith, hope, and love is a very simple, generous system of payment. The timing of entrance into the vineyard of serving the Lord is less important than the vineyard being entered. The usual daily wage will not be received until after we die. So all people have until that time to enter the vineyard. Yes, there are some good payments along the way; assisting the poor, marriage & family, good friendships. But the final usual daily wage is at the end of the day, if you know what I mean. Which brings me to St. Paul’s internal struggle in this awesome 2nd reading. Have you ever had an internal struggle between your life and your death, and which one you want at that point in life? This is what Paul struggles with in his Letter to the Philippians. But it’s not the usual sort of struggle. His words: “I am caught between the two. I long to depart this life and be with Christ, for that is far better.” Why? Because he wants his usual daily wage. Then he continues, “Yet that I remain in the flesh” – that he remains in the vineyard – “is more necessary for your benefit.” Such is the life of an Apostle. Paul’s struggle that is centered in collecting of his usual daily wage, my friends, is a good struggle. His faith in Christ is so explicit and so internally deep that he has the best of both worlds. His present life of doing God’s work fulltime, and the life with Christ in heaven that he knows awaits him. He fears neither death nor life, for the good reason of loving his life, because he knows the usual daily wage is the payment that lasts forever. And remember, St. Paul entered the vineyard a little on the late side. Our situation is no different from St. Paul’s. He loves his life. His internal struggle is that of, not living a few years, but having lived a lifetime. He’s done much. Paul’s is similar to the struggle of an elder person who knows their earthly life is drawing to a close. “When is he going to call me?” Maybe even, “Why has he taken all my Apostle friends and left me here?” What makes this a healthy struggle is maintaining a steadfast faith until our last moment in this vineyard. Don’t lose your faith in Christ. It’s your precious pearl. Lastly, a most important understanding is that Paul does not own his life. God owns his life. When reading Paul’s words here, one can get the impression that he – Paul – will decide when he will depart to be with Christ. No, he won’t! The great Apostle would be the first to tell us so. He can write these words about his life and death and which is better because he has given his every breath to Christ Jesus his Lord. Christ is the Master; Paul is the servant. God owns the life of St. Paul in the same way he owns ours. The final decision of life and death belongs to the Vineyard Owner who doles out the usual daily wage at the proper time.

There’s the good side of God forgetting our iniquities with total forgetfulness. And, there’s the bad side of God remembering our sins in detail, as today’s first reading from Sirach notes. It’s a fearful thought that God would remember in detail every sin committed against his majesty. Every blow that strikes another; every looting that destroys; every angry word yelled at another in vengeance. Every detail – minute detail – of every action and move, every facial quiver, how much saliva flew out of the mouth when screaming, all measured by God. To think that God would not forget such details we wouldn’t even consider is a fearful thought. Here we are again back to the virtue of forgiveness. It seems to come up at those necessary times throughout the Church year. At times, I get the sense we may treat forgiveness like Superman treats kryptonite; avoid it at all cost because if I draw near to it, it will kill me. When in truth, it does the opposite. It will save us. Just like it saved all those horrible, horrible men standing near the bottom of Jesus’ Cross, asking his Father in heaven to forgive these violent actors because they don’t know what they do. Some of the last words Christ would speak in his brief life. A life, by the way, not taken from him, but given over freely. The power of his life and death belonged to him alone, and not those horrible people standing down below him on that first Good Friday. Here we are, with readings that center on the most difficult virtue to put into practice from that long list of Christian virtues. So the king had first forgiven the large debt of a lowly servant after the servant begged for mercy. In fact, the king went further than the beggar’s request. The servant only wanted more time to repay. “Give me a couple more months and I’ll give you back all I owe.” But the compassionate king, acting like the God we love, forgave everything. “Don’t worry about it, Judas,” the king said, “you’re all set. You’re free of all you owe me. Keep what you make, and your wife and kids I was going to sell, buy them something nice instead.” Don’t you think the wider world, and our personal world, would be a better place if we could forgive as easily as that? Where God would have no need of remembering all our sins in great detail? Where forgiveness was not on the top of the list of difficulty, but somewhere down in the middle of the long list of virtues? Instead, Judas walks off, encounters someone just like himself in social standing, doesn’t keep his social distance because he starts to choke the guy – for it’s hard to choke someone from 6 feet away – probably spit in the guy’s face too like the Sanhedrin did to Jesus. He does his best impression of Robert DeNiro in a drunken rage. How can anyone be so quickly forgetful and so short-sighted about the mercy they were just shown by someone else who had the power to crush out their life? How can we lose sight of the mercy freely given to any of us so quickly? That amazes me more than any other detail in this lengthy parable. That the mercy shown to the first servant, the forgiveness that was just won through begging, could not be carried forth to the next human encounter. That’s what the Lord wants us to do with it. He doesn’t want us to lose the mercy we receive from him. But to forward it to our next encounter. Where we become God in the best sense. Where the Divine within us is spread like a heavenly virus. We understand why forgiveness is on the top of the difficult list. While many offenses against our person are actually tiny in nature, where we make them out to be large, once in a while there’s a large offense that makes forgiveness, mercy, and compassion genuinely hard to practice. But, the model here is the Cross, the largest offense in all human history, with Christ hanging on it, as we hang onto his words. When the Lord spoke those words of forgiveness from the Cross on that darkest of afternoons, it was in that moment that his humanity knew full and everlasting peace. He did it for them, those horrible people who wanted him up there, like the king in the parable forgiving the servant. But he also forgave for himself. Christ filled his human nature with goodness in that moment. And that’s what the virtue that is most difficult to practice does for us. It fills us with God’s peace. A very good reason to practice forgiveness, at least from our hearts.

The influence and powerful results of communal prayer are quite apparent according to the words of our Lord. And the community that prays does not always have to be enormous. Jesus does not say, “Where two or three hundred are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” Or, “two or three thousand,” like my family, “there I am in their midst.” It seems like the Lord speaks of his presence among us in a special way to families. Where two or three, or seven or eight are gathered in his name, the blessings will flow. The first blessing being his presence in our midst. It’s a telling statement by Christ that speaks to the effects of family prayer. Speaking of speaking to effects, our readings this Sunday address the responsibility we all have of speaking. In the sense of making our voices heard. Many times this term, making your voice heard, refers to the world of politics, like that’s the only place our voices matter. Whatever is important to us is connected only to that insane and crazy world, we’re told. Making your voice heard is a good thing when trying to bring about some form of true and holy justice, and not some form of fabricated, false justice. All true justice is grounded in our Creator. This means seeking justice without violence. Seeking justice through violence is a human concept. Since we’re all sinful creatures, true, holy, and lasting justice cannot be had through violent means. Our readings this Sunday reveal true justice by way of making your voice heard. At times, such vocal noise will involve the world of politics, and sometimes not. Family prayer of two or three gathered in the holy name of Jesus while praying a Rosary, the Creed, the Angelus, is obviously not politics. Although we may pray for situations influenced by politics. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him, the Lord says. Speak the words. Build up some holy courage, get into your holy car, and tell him. Speak truthfully and to the point without reading him or her the riot act or a 400-page novel that’s boring. Tell them what they need to hear. Use your vocal cords for good production. Produce a verbal vaccine that will cure the spiritual pandemic. If that doesn’t work, if your personal vaccine does not cure the spiritual illness, invite in a couple others and give him or her more voices to hear. Good, just, trusting, and holy voices. Remember, this is not politics. And if that doesn’t work, Jesus says, then tell the church. To which I will add, be careful who you tell there also, because some priests have big mouths. The readings address the importance and necessity of speaking spiritually. In Ezekiel, God tells him in reference to the Israelites, “You shall warn them for me. You shall speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way. Not someone else Ezekiel, but you.” There was a bunch of wickedness occurring in the house of Israel during Ezekiel’s time of prophecy. Things that children should not hear. God told Ezekiel, “You’re my prophet. You need to tell them so they will turn back to me. They won’t listen to me anymore.” Clearly, the human condition has not changed from Old Testament times to the year 2020. Spiritual speakers are needed. You’ve all been baptized; a priest, prophet, and kings and queens. Who has the courage? Our second reading from Romans centers our spiritually speaking to others in the only spiritual place it belongs: “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another…You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” What does this look like? What Paul writes to the Romans: ‘Do not commit adultery; do not kill, steal, or covet.” By not committing these mortal sins, we love our neighbor as our self. By participating in them, we hate our neighbor as our self. Spiritual speaking can be very easy, such a spraying the Rosary. It can also be very difficult when living and preaching the Gospel, and making good choices along the way. But spiritually speak we must. Otherwise, the political world and political speaking will take over your life. And if that happens, we are not worth listening to. The ears of our listeners get tired really fast. Speak the things of God. Warn, dissuade, love, without violence. You are a prophet by means of your Baptism. Use your prophecy to continue to build up God’s kingdom.