Extravagance

A friend of mine once mentioned that we should aim for a higher place in Heaven.

That surprised me.

I always envisioned everyone as being equal in Heaven.

The worldly ranks and honors and statuses left behind.

We'll all have the beatific vision.

We'll all see God.

We'll all know everything that can be known.

Eventually we'll all have perfect, gloriously resurrected bodies.

We'll all be ecstatically happy in Heaven.

If you're blissed out, you're blissed out.

How could it get any better?

My friend's a very thoughtful, wise and holy man.

So I had to consider that he might be right.

Maybe there are different levels of Heaven.

Maybe there isn't full equality among all the triumphant.

Jesus's parable in today's Gospel deals with equality of effort and reward.

All the laborers received the same reward.

Whether they'd worked twelve hours, through the heat of the day.

Or just the one final hour of the workday.

Those who worked the full 12-hour day were content with their promised full-day pay.

Until they saw that those who worked only one hour were getting a full-day's wage.

When they saw that, they assumed they'd get something extra too.

So when the master didn't give them a bonus, they grumbled.

They felt somehow cheated.

They were envious of those who got so much pay for so little work.

We can all relate to that.

Do football commissioners, CEOs, movie stars or the Wall Street wizards

Really deserve to make hundreds of times what we make?

But, on the other hand,

Do we really deserve so much more than the hard-working struggling poor of the world?

At the surface level, Jesus's parable aptly applies to material rewards in our daily lives.

At the deeper level, it deals with our spiritual efforts and the reward of Heaven.

Jesus makes it clear that the reward is not directly proportionate to our effort.

Some may be called to service early in life.

Some may not hear the call until later.

The important thing is that when we do hear the call, we answer.

But the reward of Heaven isn't really something we can deserve or earn.

What could we ever do to earn it?

It's a gift—totally a gift.

A gift that God wants to give each one of us.

He wants so much to give it to us, that he keeps calling us—repeatedly.

He pursues us throughout our lives.

Perhaps even meeting us with a final offer at the instant of our death.

Today's parable is a story about the Good News.

The Good News that Jesus asks us to spread throughout the world.

So we need to know what the Good News is.

It's the revelation and assurance from Jesus—from God Himself—that:

There's more to life than this worldly existence.

There is a God.

A God who loves each one of us—as we are.

A God who wants us to be happy with him in Heaven for eternity

A God who is extravagantly generous and merciful and forgiving and patient.

When we're slow to hear Him, He's patient

When we slip up, He's forgiving

When He judges us, He does it with abundant mercy.

All he asks in return is that we acknowledge Him.

That we love Him.

That we show that love by loving ourselves and others.

That we believe this Good News and share this Good News.

That we claim the place that He has already prepared for us in Heaven.

It's good to contemplate on Heaven; to build an expectation of what it might be like.

That helps us keep our goal in mind.

And we don't have to worry about building our expectations too high.

Jesus has told us that Heaven is greater than we could ever imagine.

When my friend spoke of a higher level of Heaven, I asked him what that might be.

He agreed that we'd all be completely happy in Heaven.

But he believed that, in this life,

We can expand our capacity for happiness in the next.

So that in Heaven each of us is indeed existing in total joyful bliss.

All filled to the max and overflowing.

But some of us will have developed a greater capacity than others.

And those will be able to reach a higher level of joy in Heaven.

If that's the case, then there is a bonus for the long-laboring after all.

Not only do they have a longer time in this life to enjoy the satisfaction of their labor.

They also build a greater capacity for joy in Heaven.

But neither those of us who labor long nor those of us who labor only briefly

Have any cause to envy God's generosity to the other.

None of us would even exist, let alone be going to Heaven,

Without that extravagant generosity.

25th Sunday of  Ordinary Time

Mt 20:1-16          Read this Scripture @usccb.org