25th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Fairness and Equality in God

One of the highest demands of workers all over the world is fair wage and equality. Sadly, many workers in our country do not even receive the legally mandated minimum wage, let alone, the real just wage and the benefits that they ought to receive.

Fairness and equality are values that many workers around the world still struggle for today.  Despite the promise of capitalism – the dominant economic system in our world – that a robust economy will bring benefits to all, the actual reality paints a different picture. The poor is getting poorer and the rich getting richer. Fairness and equality continue to be beyond the reach of many poor people.

Fairness and equality are also values in the kingdom of God. In God’s kingdom, there will be no poor and no rich. All will partake of the richness and abundance of God’s blessings. There is a huge gap, however, between fairness in this world and fairness in God’s kingdom not to mention that God’s kingdom is more than just fairness and equality.

As in last Sunday, our readings today exposes the huge gap between the human and divine. In the hymn contained in the first reading from Isaiah today, which is also used as the fifth reading at the Easter Vigil, we heard,

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.

St Paul, in the Second Reading, also experiences this dilemma. He, too, has difficulty in understanding God’s ways. He wants to be with Christ, but also wishes to continue his work on earth. Finally, Paul was able to reach perfect acceptance of what God wants and God’s ways and the total merging of his vision with God’s.

In today’s gospel from Matthew, Jesus tells the parable of the laborers in the vineyard  which highlights the grumbling of disgruntled workers about the master being unfair. If there is one thing that the master could be faulted, it is not for being unjust or unfair. Instead, he could be faulted for being extravagant and generous.

God is fair and just, but more. God is generous and prodigal in his love for all of his creation. God’s love is lavishly offered to all. It does not discriminate based on how much we have done or how long have we served the Lord.  Unlike in this world, there is no hierarchy in heaven, there is no rank, no junior or senior, there is no first and last, there is no latecomer only late bloomer. To enjoy the fruits of the kingdom is not a matter of merit, how much effort, how much we have done or not done. We all will partake of the fruits of the kingdom whether we we have given so much or so little. The crucial thing is whether we have accepted God’s free invitation to work in his vineyard and whether we share in the same generosity and gratuitousness of God’s love to others especially to those who are latecomers or late bloomers.

Rewards in God are not denied, but they are not the purpose of toil for Christ and his kingdom.  The rewards in the kingdom of God, is not based on quantity of work nor who came first and who came last. No one can work one’s way to heaven. Salvation is God’s free gift. He gives it generously to anyone who will receive it, but it is still God’s free gift.

Before we continue to side with the grumbling workers, it might help to consider our own situation. We ought to be very grateful that we have a God whose justice is so utterly unjust. He loves Mary his Mother, he loves Mother Teresa, he loves St. Francis of Assisi and he loves all of us with exactly the same love. Is that just? Is that what we deserve? Should we complain or should we bow down in humble gratitude that we are treated so well, that as one of the “last” we get the same treatment as the “first”? This also means that no matter how many times we fail, no matter how many times we do wrong, no matter how late in life we come to find Jesus, we are assured of the same welcome that the saints got.

Should we become envious because God is generous? If we always compare ourselves with others, we either become envious or proud. As the words of wisdom from “Desiderata” tells us:

“If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be lesser or greater persons than yourself.”

Lord grant us a new way of thinking (metanoia) that we may think according to your thoughts and walk according to your ways so that instead of being jealous we can be more gracious and generous. Amen.

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time: The Abundance of God and the Hunger of the World

Laging Saklolo Kitchen in Baclaran church to feed the hungry during the pandemic

Despite the abundant riches and resources that mother nature can give, many still go hungry and/or are malnourished. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that about 815 million people of the 7.6 billion people in the world, or 10.7%, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2016. Almost all the hungry people live in lower-middle-income countries.

In the Philippines, the number of Filipino families who experienced involuntary hunger at least once rose in the third quarter of 2017, the latest poll from Social Weather Stations showed. An estimated 2.7 million families or 11.8 percent experienced hunger in the past three months, a 2.3 percentage point increase from 9.5 percent in June 2017.

Our readings for today’s 18th Sunday in ordinary time proclaims God’s abundance bestowed upon all of God’s creation. God invites all to partake of his abundance.

In the first reading, from the book of the prophet Isaiah, we read

Thus says the LORD:
All you who are thirsty,
come to the water!
You who have no money,
come, receive grain and eat;
Come, without paying and without cost,
drink wine and milk!
Why spend your money for what is not bread;
your wages for what fails to satisfy?
Heed me, and you shall eat well,
you shall delight in rich fare.
Come to me heedfully,
listen, that you may have life.

In the gospel, we read about the miracle of the multiplication of loaves and fishes. The disciples came to Jesus with the request to dismiss the people to go find food after a whole day listening to Jesus’ preaching. But Jesus challenged them with the question: “Why do you not give them something to eat yourselves?”

As the day was drawing to a close,
the Twelve approached him and said,
“Dismiss the crowd
so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms
and find lodging and provisions;
for we are in a deserted place here.”
He said to them, “Give them some food yourselves.”

Jesus’ summon or question to his disciples more than 2,000 years ago, continues to haunts us today.

• There is more than enough food that is grown to feed everyone on this planet. “Why do you not give them something to eat yourselves?”
• Nearly one in five people worldwide is chronically malnourished—too hungry to lead a productive, active life. “Why do you not give them something to eat yourselves?”
• One-third of the world’s children are significantly underweight for their age. “Why do you not give them something to eat yourselves?”
• The amount of money the world spends on weapons in one minute could feed 2,000 malnourished children for a year. “Why do you not give them something to eat yourselves?”

Pope Francis highlighted the radical demand of this gospel passage. The gospel challenges us to place our whole lives and resources, how little or small they are, to feed the hungry and those who have lesser in life.

In the face of the crowd’s needs, this is the disciples’ solution: everyone takes care of himself; dismiss the crowd. Many times we Christians have that same temptation; we don’t take on the needs of others, but dismiss them with a compassionate “May God help you” or a not-so-compassionate “Good luck.” …

What Jesus encouraged the disciples to do was an act of “solidarity”… placing at God’s disposal what little we have, our humble abilities, because only in sharing and giving will our lives be fruitful. …

At the same time, in receiving the Eucharist faithfully the Lord leads us to follow his path —that of service, sharing and giving; the little that we have, the little that we are, if shared, becomes a treasure because the power of God, who is love, descends to our poverty and transforms it.

Corpus Christi Homily, May 31, 2013

Our planet has more than enough food to feed the more than 7 billion people all over the world. God has given blessings to the world: if only we could learn to use those blessings for the benefit of all. As Vatican II’s, Gaudium et Spes: Constitution on the Church in the Modern World urges us all,

Since there are so many people in this world afflicted with hunger, this sacred Council urges all, both individuals and governments, to remember the saying of the Fathers: “Feed the man dying of hunger, because if you have not fed him you have killed him” (Gaudium et Spes, #69).

Today’s reading serves as an indictment of the present world order. Jesus wants us to take a stock of our lifestyles. Jesus offers us an alternative lifestyle that is counter-cultural to the present world order. Jesus wants us to believe that a world of abundance is possible. But this will demand change in the social system and our attitudes. There is more than enough for everyone if we would believe that everyone deserves a share in the abundant food from nature that God has given us.

Christ comes among us today proclaiming God’s abundant blessings, in his Word, in our community life, and in the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is an invitation for us to participate in the miracle of multiplication of food that Jesus has first shown us.

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time: The Great Abyss Between the Rich and the Poor

Economic inequality, the huge gap between the rich and the poor, is one of the most tragic reality of our times. Despite globalization and the height of capitalism which increased the wealth of the world to unimaginable levels, the gap between the rich and the poor is worst today than ever before. Michael Hunt, in his book, The World Transformed: 1945 to the Present, stated that in 1820, the ratio between the income of the top and bottom 20 percent of the world’s population was three to one. By 1991, it was eighty-six to one.[1]

Oxfam, a confederation of 20 independent charitable organizations founded in 1942 to focus on the alleviation of global poverty, reported that in 2017, 82% of global wealth generated went to the wealthiest 1%.[2] In 2019 ,Oxfam reported that the poorest half of the human population has been losing wealth (around 11%) at the same time that a billionaire is minted every two days. [3]

The gap between the rich and the poor will continue to rise in the years ahead just as the average temperature of the earth will keep rising over the next years. There is so much wealth in the world at the expense of 99% of the people and the degradation of mother nature.

The readings for today’s 26th Sunday in ordinary time also also talked about the “great abyss” between the rich and the poor.

In the first reading, the prophet Amos depicts the scandalous luxury of the rich at the expense of the poor, 500 years before Jesus’ times

Lying upon beds of ivory,
stretched comfortably on their couches,
they eat lambs taken from the flock,
and calves from the stall!
Improvising to the music of the harp,
like David, they devise their own accompaniment.
They drink wine from bowls
and anoint themselves with the best oils;

In the gospel Jesus tells the story of Lazarus and a rich man. Jesus illustrates graphically the scandalous gap between the life of  Lazarus and the rich man.

There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen
and dined sumptuously each day.
And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,
who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps
that fell from the rich man’s table.

Ironically, the rich man goes nameless, whereas Jesus told us at the outset that the beggar is named Lazarus. The irony is that while it is a preoccupation of the “great ones” of this world to be remembered, it is one of the “nameless ones”—the beggar, who gets named in the story.

The huge gap between Lazarus and the rich man did not just happen on earth but continued in heaven.

Between us and you a great chasm is established
to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go
from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’

In heaven, however, the wheel of fortune are overturned.

When the poor man died,
he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.
The rich man also died and was buried,
and from the netherworld, where he was in torment,
he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off
and Lazarus at his side.

Indeed the story illustrates Luke’s version of the Beatitudes and “Woes” proclaimed earlier in his gospel: “Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied (Lk 6:21). “But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry” (Lk 6:25).

The rich man’s problem in the gospel and the problem of the rich in Amos’ first reading is not their wealth but their complacency.  Amos proclaims the woe of the Lord upon the complacency of the rich: Woe to the complacent in Zion! Amos satirizes the self-indulgent wealthy who have become oblivious to the decline of their society (“the collapse of Joseph”). Like the “complacent in Zion” who “are not made ill by the collapse of Joseph,” the rich man in the Gospel can neither see nor hear: he does not see Lazarus in need at his door; he does not listen to Moses and the prophets who guide him in right ways. The rich man is not in “the netherworld, where he was in torment” simply because of the good he received during his lifetime, but because his self-contained, self-satisfied lifestyle was not faithful to the teaching and practice of the Mosaic covenant.

The Gospel and First Reading proclaims prophetic warning to the rich.  The letter to Timothy in the second reading adds its own wake-up call:

I charge you before God, who gives life to all things,
and before Christ Jesus, …
to keep the commandment without stain or reproach
until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Pope Francis in his General Audience on May 18, 2016 says that Lazarus represents the silent cry of the poor of all times and the contradictions of a world where vast wealth and resources are in the hands of few.

The problem of shocking inequality may tempt us, especially from 1st world countries, to shrug off any responsibility for our personal part in it. But we reap the fruits from the prosperity of the developed world that began with products that were looted from the colonies. This exploitation continues today. We get primary resources from developing countries for a relative pittance, like the tea and coffee we drink, or our year-long supply of fruit from tropical countries. We can buy clothes of quality brands because a woman in El Salvador makes clothes for 56 cents an hour. We can enjoy lots of chocolates at the expense of widespread use of child labor, and in some cases slavery, on cocoa farms in Western Africa.

Added to that, 1st world countries still look to poorer countries to accept their toxic waste. After feeding and clothing ourselves with their resources, we want to return our rubbish to them. Almost all of us are contributing to climate change, yet we don’t relish the lifestyle changes that must happen, to reverse those abuses.

We who live today have even a further revelation beyond Moses and the prophets: we are to hear and put into practice the truth of the Gospel affirmed by Jesus who rose from the dead.

We need to learn from the ultimate fates of Dives and Lazarus. Our world is too small to bear such inequalities as our greedy complacency allows to continue. Unless we share our surplus and care for our world, we will end up in a hell of our own making. By so doing, we choose now on which side of the chasm we will be in the next life.

 

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[1] Hunt, Michael (2004). The World Transformed: 1945 to the Present. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. p. 442.

[2] Elliott, Larry (January 21, 2018). “Inequality gap widens as 42 people hold same wealth as 3.7bn poorest”. The Guardian. Retrieved January 23, 2018.

[3] Picchi, Aimee (January 20, 2019). “A new billionaire is minted every 2 days as the poor lose wealth”. CBS News. Retrieved January 21, 2019.