25th Sunday of Ordinary Time
We can't properly appreciate the gospels fully until we first understand the context in which they were originally written. Each one of the four gospels was written with a particular objective in mind, for a particular community. Each one of the four writers aimed to take his community beyond the comfort zone that his community had achieved in the faith. Each gospel was written with two general objectives in mind: firstly, to conserve what that community already had, to consolidate what they had already learned. But the second objective was more important still: to explore the possibilities opened up for this community by this gospel. In other words, does this gospel we have received impact upon our future and the future of this community?
One scholar expressed the situation in this way: "Christians are divided into two kinds. There are always those who will always ask 'Why?' But the early church was in many ways a free church, that moved through the surprise of grace and learned the mood of 'Why not?' The mood sprang from the sense that the movement was going where no one had ever gone before. Members were not yet custodians of an established morality, but rather explorers moving through new territory with a new message. Their guidance came from the Holy Spirit."
Nowhere is this unique Christian mood more clearly shown than in today's gospel story. It must be understood against the Jewish environment of Matthew's community. It appears only in this gospel because it wouldn't fit any other gospel community's movement of faith.
Among the four gospels, Matthew's church alone mirrors Christianity's earliest form. As practicing Jews, they're committed to follow the reform of Judaism Jesus of Nazareth lived and taught. No one in the earliest days could have imaged a non-Jew becoming a disciple of Jesus. When eventually some Gentiles began to show interest in the faith of Jesus, they were expected first to convert to Judaism and to commit themselves to keeping the 613 Mosaic laws. Only then were they welcomed into the church.
This practice had changed drastically by the time Matthew writes in the early 80s. The vast majority of the followers of Jesus' were now Gentiles, coming straight to Christianity without jumping through the hoops of Judaism. These Gentile Christians were no longer expected to follow the 613 regulations of the Sinai covenant. Very few of them would even have been aware of these regulations. But Jewish Christians were still expected to observe the Law.
Matthew encourages his Jewish/Christian readers to look at this unexpected development from a new perspective. Instead of concentrating on the unfairness of the landowner paying his early workers the same as the late-corners, Jesus points out his generosity in paying a wage he wasn't obliged to pay at all. God has done no injustice to Jewish/Christians who are still expected to follow the law. That's part of their Exodus agreement with Yahweh. It's simply a matter of God's generosity in giving Gentile/Christians the same benefits of their Jewish brothers and sisters without having the same obligations. Who could have anticipated such a change in divine plans? "Why be envious because I am generous" as Matthew puts it succinctly.
Paul is also about to experience something he'd originally not expected: his physical death. Like most first generation Christians, Paul believed Jesus would triumphantly return in his lifetime. But as his ministry progressed and the return seemed to be delayed, he is forced to consider options he'd never before considered. "I am caught between the two," he writes the Philippians, "I long to depart this life and be with Christ, for that is far better. Yet that I remain in the flesh is more necessary for your benefit." The best laid faith plans.
Five hundred years before Jesus, the prophet Isaiah laid the groundwork for these and many other unexpected transitions. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts," says Yahweh. "As high as the heavens are above the earth, as high are my ways above your ways, and my thought above your thoughts."
The 'Whys' and the Why nots' of today's readings bring to mind that very famous sentence from George Bernard Shaw, made famous by the Kennedy brothers in the States: "Some men see things as they are and say 'why'? I dream things that never were and day 'why not?'" Isaiah, Paul and Matthew had that vision thing in common: 'They dreamed things that never were and said, 'why not?' Such insights renew our lives, refresh our faith and they make the world a far more interesting place for everybody.