What Time Is It?

As I was walking down the street one day
A man came up to me and asked me what the time was

That was on my watch.

And I said:

Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care?

Lyrics from a hit song by a group named Chicago nearly 50 years ago.

But the observation is still true today.

Just as it was 2000 years ago.

Some things seem to never change.

In Jesus’ time there were men waiting, some standing idle all day.

Today, if you drive up to certain places, like Home Depot or Lowes,

You’ll see laborers waiting to be hired for the day.

Some are hired early in the morning.

Others are still waiting in the afternoon.

If you drive past certain parks or corners or liquor stores

You’ll see men (maybe some women) gathered together, standing idle.

Those who have given up on being hired.

What do we think about those un-utilized, idle people?

Do we look down on them?

Is it okay if they and their children go without basic needs?

Are they getting what they deserve?

Jesus’s parable is, on the surface, about worldly labor and reward.

And most of us here might feel deserving on that level.

But just below the surface,

The story is about spiritual labor and reward.

If we’re at all self-aware, we won’t feel quite so deserving there.

We’ll see that there’s a lot of work we’ve left undone.

We’ll see that we haven’t been faithfully laboring since dawn.

We’ll see that we should start really caring about what time it is.

And how much time is left.

We’ve heard a lot the past few weeks about forgiveness and mercy.

Those fundamental gifts of God to us.

And our fundamental duty to others.

Do I deserve more than my brother or sister?

How many times must I forgive them?

Should I judge them?

How do I want to be judged?

As my friend and spiritual guide, Fr Joe, always used to say,

You can’t deserve God’s love.

There’s nothing you can do to earn it.

God freely lavishes his love and mercy on all his children.

It’s easy for those of us who have been working since 3:00

To look down on those who didn’t start until 5:00.

And those who started at Noon to think they deserve a greater reward Than those who started at 3:00.

And we certainly understand that those who started at dawn

Would feel that justice demands they receive more 

Than those who started at dusk.

But if we accept that view, we’re thinking as man does, not as God does.

That’s not too surprising, after all, we are human—not God.

But we do have the word of God, delivered through His Son.

We have that instruction to help us recognize and overcome

Our human knee-jerk inclinations.

When we’re tempted to judge someone

On how much work we think they’ve done,

We can catch ourselves and remember that we don’t really know.

We don’t really know what gifts they’ve been given to work with.

What obstacles they’ve been given to deal with.

What they’ve paid in diminished satisfaction and joy and self-esteem.

And we can remember our own failures.

We can’t earn God’s love, but we are expected to return it.

To spread it around, to share it.

How well have we been working to love our neighbors as ourselves?

What material and spiritual support are we giving others?

Have we really been faithfully laboring since dawn?

What time is it anyway?

With those thoughts in mind,

Do we want a reward based on justice?

Or do we want a reward based on God’s great love and mercy?

25th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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