Between Pay & Passion

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9; Psalm 144:2-3,8-9,17-18; Philippians 1:20-24,27; Matthew 20:1-16

Picture: cc brett jordan

Sisters and brothers, have you ever heard people talk about the difference between a job and a passion? A job, as you know, is something that we do in exchange for a salary. We may or may not like the work itself. In fact, we may even find it very burdensome. But we still do it, because we need the money. A passion, on the other hand, is something that we are enthusiastic about. We may or may not receive any money for it. In fact, we may even have to spend our own money to get it done. But we do it anyway, because it’s important to us. It gives our lives meaning. The work energises us. Makes us happy. Even if we don’t get paid for it.

What makes the difference between a job and a passion is our motivation. What we are seeking. In one case, it’s the money. In the other, it’s the activity itself. There are, of course, some lucky people whose jobs are their passion. They are paid to do what they like to do. So a teacher, for example, may receive a salary for her work. And she may need it to survive. But the money may not be her primary motivation. It’s not what gets her out of bed in the morning. She may teach not so much for the money, but more because she really wants to share her knowledge and experience with others. To help the young learn new things. To make a difference in their lives. And in society as a whole.

People like that are truly fortunate. But, for the rest of us, our jobs are often something we do only because we need to make a living. Which is fine. There’s even a dignity in that. And it’s important that we receive a just wage for it. And yet, monetary rewards can only go so far to motivate us. Sometimes the work may become so burdensome that the money just doesn’t seem worth all the effort. All the stress. What to do? Some of us may quit. Look for another job. Or, if that’s not possible, we may be forced to stay on. Going through the motions of our daily routine in a more or less mechanical fashion. Beginning each workday already eagerly looking forward to its end. What a contrast between this kind of work and the kind done by the passionate teacher!

And it’s not just at work that we find this difference between an oppressive job and an energising passion. We find it in the spiritual life as well. Actually, I think this difference is also what our Mass readings are inviting us to ponder today. Why do you think, sisters and brothers, that the workers who were hired first, in the gospel, protested so strongly when they saw the latecomers receiving the same pay as they did?

The reason is found in the words they use. You have treated them the same as us, though we have done a heavy day’s work in all the heat. A heavy day’s work in all the heat. What do these words indicate to us, sisters and brothers, if not that those hired first saw their work as nothing more than a job? And a burdensome job at that. They found no joy in what they did. They had done it only for the pay. Which should be fine. Many of us do that. We need to. Except that this parable isn’t really about any ordinary employment situation. In telling it, Jesus is trying to show us what the kingdom of heaven is like. And it would appear that, in the kingdom of heaven, God expects people to work not just for pay. Not just to do a job. But to pursue a passion. To do what St. Paul is doing in the second reading.

Scripture scholars tell us that the letter to the Philippians was probably written from prison. Paul knew he might soon be executed. And yet, even in such dire straits, Paul has only one concern. Notice how, in five short verses, the word Christ appears no less than four times. And, quite amazingly, Paul can’t decide whether he wants to live or to die. Because, he says, Christ will be glorified in my body, whether by my life or by my death. Clearly, in everything that he does, both in life and in death, Paul seeks only one thing. To glorify Christ. What a contrast. What a great distance there is between Paul and the workers in the gospel!

Is this not unlike the distance mentioned in the first reading, which tells us that the heavens are as high above earth as God’s ways are above our ways? For, unlike us, God does things more for passion than for pay. Notice how, in the gospel, the landowner keeps going out to the market place to recruit more workers. And he insists on doing it himself. Instead of sending his foreman. He even goes out at the eleventh hour. Why? What difference could that last hour make to the profitability of his vineyard? Unless, of course, his concern is less with making more profits than with finding work for the unemployed. With caring for those who are standing idle in the market place. Isn’t this his passion? To seek out and to recruit all those who have yet to find a meaningful occupation. All those still lost and aimless. Lacking direction. So that it is not so much the salary that is the reward. The main attraction is the work itself. The joyful opportunity to labour in the Vineyard of Life.

Isn’t this what Jesus is sent into the world to do? To offer all of us a meaningful occupation. The joyful task of experiencing for ourselves, and of sharing with others, the Good News of God’s love for us all. A love that’s willing even to lay down its own life so that others might live. The same love that we celebrate at this Eucharist. And yet, isn’t it also true that, all too often, we see this work, of living and spreading the Good News, as a burden? If we even think of it at all. Perhaps because, in our minds, doing this work means having to spend more time in church. Joining this or that ministry. But could we be wrong? Could it be that the vineyard of the Lord is not just here in church? But out there in the world? In our workplaces and in our schools. In our homes and on the streets. Could it be that doing this work requires only that we have a passion for sharing God’s love with others? At times in words, and always in deeds?

But that’s the trouble, isn’t it, sisters and brothers? What is needed is a joyful passion. But what we experience is often only an oppressive burden. We are conditioned to think of the spiritual life only in terms of obligations and merits. Instead of generosity and joy. Even if we do pray the Prayer of Generosity every Sunday. Like the workers in the gospel, we tend to keep a careful count of every second we spend on the things of God. Every little prayer we say. Every Mass we attend. Every good deed we perform. And we expect to be rewarded for it all.

But if all this is true, then how can we change? How can we move away from seeing our faith as an oppressive job to letting it become our one energising passion? How do we bridge that great distance between our own calculative ways and God’s generous love? As the first reading tells us, in everything we do, we need to seek the Lord while he is still to be found. To call to him while he is still near. And we find the motivation to keep doing this when we remember that, like that landowner in the gospel, God is always already passionately searching for us. For you and for me...

Sisters and brothers, in the ordinary situations of your life, how passionately are you searching for God today?