Third Sunday in the Season of Creation


Today is the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time and the 3rd Sunday in the Season of Creation. 

Today’s homily is adapted from Jubilee Time for the Earth: A Catholic Liturgical Guide.[1]  It calls us to listen to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor and acknowledges that God is near to all who call.

Isaiah’s urgent call to seek God while God is near and can be found, resonates deeply with the warnings of climate experts for these times.  We are invited to enter into contemplative reverence in the midst of creation before the greatness of God, the source of Earth and all the universe. Love of God’s creation in all its beauty, intricacy, and lavish goodness can spark love in our hearts and guide us in caring for creation as it needs to be cared for.  In what ways can we grow in consciousness of God’s gifts and presence in creation? Do we call upon God for forgiveness? For wisdom in living more sustainably, more justly, and more generously upon Earth?

In Pope Francis’ reflection for today, he says, “In today’s Gospel reading there is the parable of the day labourers in the vineyard, which Jesus recounts in order to explain two aspects of the Kingdom of God: the first is that God wants to call everyone to work for his Kingdom; the second is that, in the end, he wants to give everyone the same reward, that is, salvation, eternal life.”[2]

In today’s homily, I address the first aspect.  That is, that God wants to call everyone to work for the Kindom.  God’s ways are not our ways. In this Gospel parable, the owner of the vineyard gives a full day’s wage to everyone, regardless of how long they worked.  This often brings out complaints about fairness.  Those who worked the longest, the whole day, received what they had agreed was a just wage. The wages of day laborers are often all that their family has to survive on for a given day; and so, the generosity of the vineyard owner served to meet the people’s basic daily needs. This parable shows us a compensation system based on the agreed-upon value of certain work as well as care to meet the basic needs of all workers. It is not based upon comparative, competitive, unlimited accumulation.

God’s ways challenge us.  A central belief of the Catholic Social Tradition confesses that the Earth is God’s and everything in it. Creation is a gift of God to all people and all living creatures.  Creation is a gift to provide for the needs of all for survival, growth, and flourishing.

To accumulate and cling to more and more than one needs while others live in desperate poverty is a serious sin against creation and the Creator. It is the situation of human life on Earth today: a grave pattern of injustice that undermines peace and survival planet-wide. Climate change today is a result of the coming together of economic and social systems driven by greed and accumulation, governed to protect inequality, and built upon domination and destruction of Earth.

The biblical vision of Jubilee was chosen as the theme for this year’s celebration of the Season of Creation because, in the words of the international ecumenical steering committee, “Jubilee is a time to renounce overconsumption and economic systems based on constant economic growth at the cost of the Earth and those who are poor. “Jubilee is a time of rest for the land from constant exploitation, to restore ecosystems and people.”

“The theme of Jubilee affirms the need for equality, justice and sustainability, and a transition to sustainable economies.” How can we and our communities embrace God’s ways of Jubilee here, now? How can we do more to heal our relationships with God, with people, with Earth in ways that respond with love and care to the cry of the poor and the cry of Earth?

I’ll close with what I said in the introduction.  In this Season of Creation, we are being called to take up our prophetic responsibility in love to spread the word and to transform the ways we are living upon Earth. We must acknowledge our failures to care for creation and embrace God’s ways. 

 

Please share your thoughts.

 

 

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