25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
I Get To!
Rev. James A. Wickersham

When someone asks me about doing something, I look at my calendar, realize I’ve already got an obligation, and then say something like: “I’m sorry, I can’t do that with you. I’ve got something else.”

Recently it hit me that this response doesn’t sound very good. It sounds like I wish I didn’t have to do whatever is already on my calendar.

I’ve since realized how much of the way we talk is about the things we have to do, as if someone is forcing us to do them. So I’ve tried to retrain myself. Instead of saying, “I have to do this,” I try to say, “I get to do this.”

“Have to” and “get to” change the context completely. Saying “I get to” means there is some part of me that recognizes a gift in what is coming up.

Today’s Gospel is getting at this and asking us a question: Do we look at our faith, and the things faith asks of us, as “have to” moments or “get to” moments?

Well, I still find myself saying, “I have to go pray Vespers now,” so I’m still working on this too!

It is so easy to look at our faith as a legal contract. I do these things for God, and in return he does these things for me.

The first workers in the vineyard today have a contract. The landowner goes out early in the morning, finds workers, and tells them he will pay them the usual daily wage. A few hours later he goes out again to find workers. Each of those times he says, come work for me and I will pay you what is just.

Notice the difference.

The first workers have a number. The later workers have only the landowner’s word.

The first workers know exactly what they are going to receive. The later workers have to trust that the landowner is good and that he will treat them justly.

The first workers don’t do anything wrong by agreeing to a wage. The problem is that by the end of the day they trust the contract more than they trust the goodness of the landowner.

When it’s time to pay the workers, we see how quickly the first workers begin keeping score. The last employed are paid a full day’s wage. Surely, they think, we should get even more!

But when the landowner comes to them, they are all paid the same wage. The first workers are angry. They compare the time worked with the wages paid. They are so focused on what they are owed that they can no longer rejoice in the landowner’s generosity.

And I think this is where the Gospel gets very interesting.

The vineyard is a gift in itself.

The vineyard is the work we do in this world in which Christ and his sacramental grace inspire us: our prayer, our relationship with Christ, a marriage becoming more mature, friendships deepening, learning patience, forgiving when pride would rather keep score, growing into a person capable of mercy.

These are not merely duties required before God pays us.

They are already signs that the kingdom is taking root in us.

To work in the Lord’s vineyard in this life means that we are being formed by the grace we receive and by the experience of living with him. This is true for those born into the faith and baptized as infants. It is also true for those who come to the faith later in life.

The wage held out to us is eternal life.

The workers thought the reward came when the work was over. Jesus is teaching us to recognize that the vineyard itself is already gift. The kingdom is not only something waiting for us after death. It has already begun among us.

It all comes down to trust, trust in the landowner.

And it comes down to our response: our “I have to” or our “I get to.”

I get to serve as your pastor.

I get to pray for you all.

I get to visit you in the hospital and bring you the Lord sacramentally.

I have been blessed in 11 years here to baptize your children, give them their First Holy Communion, and be a witness to Archbishop Coakley confirming them.

That’s an amazing “I get to.”

What do you get to do in your life of working in the Lord’s vineyard?