Good Works: They Don't and Do Work

Preached by Fr. Alexis Luzi, Capuchin, in a Temple not built by human hands (Acts 7:48)

September 18, 2011, 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Friday, September 23 - The first day of Autumn



Good Works: They Don't and Do Work

September 18, 2011, 25^th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Isaiah 55:6-9 Philemon 1:20-24, 27 Matthew 20:1-16

First reading from Isaiah: My thoughts aren’t your thoughts

Seek the Seek the Lord God while he may be found, call him while he is near. Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked his thoughts; let him turn to the Lord God for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord God. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.

The word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Alleluia, alleluia.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew

Glory to you, Lord.

Jesus told his disciples this parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about nine o’clock, the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.’ So they went off. And he went out again around noon, and around three o’clock, and did likewise. Going out about five o’clock, the landowner found others standing around, and said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’ When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ When those who had started about five o’clock came, each received the usual daily wage. So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage. And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’ He said to one of them in reply, ‘My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?’ Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Introduction

The First Day of Autumn

The year is rolling on; this coming Friday September 23 is the First Day of Autumn – a season filled with mixed emotions, as ”the leaves of brown come tumbling down in September in the rain.” It’s a season filled with gratitude for the fruits of the harvest, but it’s also filled with a kind of mystic melancholy. The possibilities of summer are gone, and the chill of winter is on the horizon. Skies grow grey, and many people turn inward, both physically and mentally. Keat’s poem To Autumn emphasizes the lush abundance of the season, but it also sounds a note of melancholy. French poet Paul Verlaine’s Autumn Song is likewise characterized by strong and sad feelings. Yeat’s poem The Wild Swans at Coole sees Autumn as symbolically representing his own ageing self who has reached his prime, and now must look forward to the inevitability of old age and death.

Good work didn’t work for those who started at early dawn

After Labor Day we all settle down to school or to work. The student works hard to get a good grade from his teacher. The day laborer works hard to get a good check from the boss. No work - no pay! Good work - good pay! Very good work - very good pay! That’s the market economy: we live by it all week long, all year long, and all lifelong. At first thought, the market economy sounds pretty fair and square.

But it is not God’s economy. In the parable today some workers go into the vineyard at early dawn, some at 9 a. m., others at 12 noon, some at 3 p.m. and finally some come straggling in at 5 p.m.. At sunset they all line up for their pay, and the boss gives them all the same pay! The good work of those who started at early dawn didn’t work! So they (and we with them) cry out: “Foul! Unfair!“ But the boss fires back, “Isn’t that what we agreed upon? If I want to be generous to these last guys, that my business.” That disturbs us who live and die by a market economy. At first glance, paying the late stragglers the same wage as the guys on the job at the crack of dawn doesn’t seem very fair.

We, who put in a good day’s work, are perplexed and even disappointed by a God who pays the same wage to late stragglers as He pays to laborers who are in the field at early dawn. For those who are perplexed by such an `unfair’ God, the first reading doesn’t offer much light, as it simply reminds us that God’s thoughts are not like ours, and His ways are different from ours [and God’s economy is different from our economy.](Is. 55:9)

Good work didn’t work for the industrious farmhand

That good work doesn’t work is a New Testament theme. It’s found also in Jesus’ parable of a farm-hand who goes out at sunrise and bears the day’s burden and the heat, plowing the fields and tending the sheep. At sunset he returns to the farmhouse, feeling good about his good work and expecting his boss to reward him. Instead, the boss tells the tired farm-hand that his work isn’t finished; he still has to prepare the boss’ supper. The farmhand’s good work obviously didn’t work, as the boss reminds his servant he’s simply done what was expected of him. (Lk 17: 7-10) That parable too reminds us that God’s thoughts are not like ours, His ways are different from ours, and God’s economy is different from ours.

Good works didn’t work for Luther

Good works didn’t work for Martin Luther (1483 –1546), the father of the Protestant Reformation. He is famous for his attack on the corruption of the 16^th century Roman Church. He is equally famous for his attack on `good works.’ An attack on good works! Luther, a devout (and perhaps also scrupulous) Augustinian monk was conflicted by the Question of Justification: How is a man set right with God? His question was deeply personal. As a devout (and also scrupulous) Augustinian monk, he feverishly worked away at good works. He performed all the monastic observances: he prayed, fasted, scourged his body, went on pilgrimages and gave alms. To no avail! At the end of the day, he felt that good works hadn’t worked for him! They hadn’t worked either because he thought that they weren’t good enough for God, or because he thought that there weren’t enough of them to satisfy God. In that period of his life Luther’ lived with a constantly tortured conscience.

Amazing Grace!

His historians relate how Luther’s tortured conscience was wonderfully set free. They speak about his “tower experience.” One day as Luther was studying St. Paul’s Epistle to Romans in his heated study in the tower of the Black Cloister in Wittenberg, he came upon the words, “The gospel tells us that God makes us right in his eyes when we put our faith and trust in Christ [not in our works] to save us.” (Rom. 1:17) With that reading Luther, exhausted by trying for years to buy God off with good works, suddenly had a huge burden lifted from his back by a very privileged moment of revelation. In Romans 1:17 Luther says he rediscovered the `lost Gospel’ – the wonderful Good News that there is nothing that he has to do to gain salvation, because there is nothing he can do in order to gain salvation. And what’s more, there is nothing that Luther has to do to gain salvation, because Christ has done it all for him. Salvation is not the work of works but the work of Grace alone. So wonderful was that Good News that it gave birth to the Reformation’s mother of all hymns: Amazing Grace.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

(John Newton 1725-1807)

Good works don’t work for God

The parable of the boss, who paid the very same wage to the late stragglers as he paid to those on the job at the crack of dawn, proves that the Lutherans are right when they insist that good works don’t work for God.

That good works don’t work for God is indeed very strange news, but it’s also amazing good news! For it frees us weak human beings from the impossible and terrifying burden of having to buy God off with good works. God is not for sale simply because He is beyond price. The Gospel is the good news that what we could not do for ourselves (buy God off), that Christ did for us on cross.
                                  
                                            Good works do work for us

But Catholics also are right in their driving conviction that good works do work for us. That conviction down through the centuries built an endless chain of hospitals, hospices, old-age-homes, orphanages, schools, etc. Good works do work because Jesus said they do. “I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me. Good works work not only for those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, sick and imprisoned, but also and especially for those who come to their aid. To them the Son of Man will say, “Come you blessed of my Father and take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of creation.” (Mt 25:31-40)

Conclusion

Good works: they don’t and do work

Good works don’t work for God who doesn’t transact and cannot be bought off. But they do, indeed, work for us. A Samaritan on the road to Jericho came upon a man waylaid by robbers and was left half-dead. He stopped and poured the oil of compassion upon the poor man. The Samaritan’s good work didn’t work for God (who doesn’t transact), but it did, indeed, work for the poor man waylaid by robbers. It carried him off to the nearest inn and there provided for the man’s care and cure. More importantly, the Samaritan’s good work worked especially for himself. He needed his own good work even more urgently than the poor victim on the road to Jericho. His good work turned him into that Good Samaritan whose praises have been sung down through the ages.