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	1st Reading
	Psalm
	2nd Reading
	Gospel
	Written Transcript of Homily
	Footnotes

I’m sure that I’ve told you the story about a friend of mine...

Who... is not Catholic, I think he was angelical-Protestant.

And he was visiting the rectory as St. Thomas.

And we were getting ready for confirmation, and I had to set things up at the church, so..

I said, come on over with me, and we spent some time talking..

And we hadn’t seen each other in a while..

And, of course, getting ready for confirmation, I had to put out bread and wine and water, of course. For Mass.

And I had to put out oil, the anointing oil for confirmation..

The bishop usually brings his own, but you have an emergency supply, so I put out the oil..

And I don’t know if you know this, but a really great way to clean oil off you hands is lemon juice and dry bread.

It really works.

And a lot of bishops still prefer that old method, so, I put out some lemon slices and dry bread..

And he looked at me with the bread, the wine, the water... the dry bread... the oil... the lemon wedges, and he said, “What are you doing? Making a ceaser salad?”

It doesn’t occur to us, because we’re so use to it, how much food is involved with our worship.

And, I mean, if you go to a Protestant service, usually.. Unless its their communion Sunday, you’re just no gonna find anything to eat until after the service.

We get that from the Jews... the Jew’s     used a lot of food in their worship, and... it was often like, I’m sure if you went into the temple, you’d think you were going to a barbeque.

So... there’s a lot, a lot of food... a lot of wine... wine is very important and still is, in Jewish rituals

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a Synagogue, the end of services outcomes the bread and wine, and I think that’s related to of course, what we do.

So, wine is very important to Jewish life.

It has a great religious significance.

And Chick and I were just in... at a bible seminar... tell me you’re impressed that a deacon and I went off to learn more about the bible.

But... a, it was pointed out to us, by a wonderful young teacher, that I hope to get here at some point.

He pointed out that there was always  kept in the holy place in the temple just before the holy of holies, there was bread and wine kept in there.

And he maintains this as of course, a foreshadowing of what Christ did.

But wine was apart of the temple worship.

And so when Jesus talks about this parable, He is talking, not simply about justice and injustice, He isn’t even talking simply about God’s mercy. He’s talking specifically about one area of God’s mercy.

Because, you see, workers go into the vineyard.

The bible says Israel is the vineyard of the Lord.

And there are those who came early, and those who came late.

We gentiles have come late to this service of the Lord.

That we are allowed to worship the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob..

We come late to this.

And God still is generous to us, and gives us the recompetion of our labor, which is His love

So, all that’s in there...

But what really occurs to me... what I really wanna talk about... in this, in this parable, is the line at the beginning.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner.”

Now... perhaps you’ve heard me say this also before, but...

The word kingdom... does not mean what we mean by Kingdom.

When we think of kingdom, we think of a political system, or a geographical territory.

It can mean that in the ancient world, but it didn’t mean that primarily.

It meant something more like royal-nature, royalness.

Basailna meant, that’s the word in Greek, Basalina and it meant royalness.

God’s Royal nature.

And so... it says the Kingdom of Heaven, the royal nature of Heaven... now... Jews still to this day, very frequently don’t even use the word “God”

When I get commutation from Rabbi ( ? ?? ) in a primate-communication, it will be “G”, capitol “G”, dash D.

He won’t put the O in.

So he hasn’t completely written it....

Even the English word “God” has such a reference for the name God, which I think ( ? ? ) and should be imitated in a certain sense by us...

We use the name of the Lord so commonly.

They have a great, a great reference, even for the concept of divinity.

So. Jews frequently ( ? ? ?) The word Heaven for God...

So... when you read in the scripture, usually, the Kingdom of Heaven, you can ( ? ? ) the Kingdom of God.       

so this Royal nature of God, is like a landowner.           

I mean...

When you think of it.. How can a political system or geographical territory be like a landowner?

So Jesus isn’t talking about a time and a place, He’s talking about a nature.

A type of humanity.

A royal nature of God.

And this is what the royal nature of God is like.

So... He’s saying, in fact, in his parable, you wanna know what God is like? This si what God is like. He’s like this landowner, who was more generous then He needed to be.

And that’s.. a really important idea.

Now, have you ever noticed in the ten commandments...

You’ve got some really great sins.

You’ve got adultery, idiolatry, you’ve got murder!

And you got coveting?

I mean...Coveting? Why?

Ever why covering is among the big ten?

Think about this..

I mean... murder, idolatry... those are...really awful things.. And adultery is nothing recommended..

I mean, it’s just, bad stuff.

But coveting?

Who doesn’t covet?

Oooh,, did you see that new car the neighbor got? Oh boy, would I like that..

I mean... why.. Is coveting one of the ten commandments..?

Because coveting is really a kind of idolatry.

All of the ten commandments flow from the first, “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no strange God’s before me.”

Idolatry is forbidden.... In the first commandment.

All of the other ten commandments, in a sense, are in the form of idolatry.

For instance, murder.

You and I do not have the right to take a life, because you and I did not give life.

Even when we are parents we only give what has been given to us.

This is not a matter of great effort...

Until you send them to college.

The giving of life belongs to God, and so the taking of life belongs to God.

To kill is a kind of idolatry.

To steal is a kind of idolatry.

Follow what I mean? They all flow from the first commandment. 

And so too to the last two.

To covert someone’s property, or to covert someone’s spouse... to covert someone’s relationships.

Have you ever... all of us, I don’t think anyone ever went to high school, who didn’t get mad at the popular kids..

I remember talking to one of the most popular people in my class....

when I was a young person, and I was amazed to find out that that person didn’t think he was popular at all.

And I thought, there’s a lesson there.

We’re jealous of people’s popularity, we are jealous of their relationships, we are jealous of their possessions.

And why is that an idolatry, because it is saying to God, “God, you have not been fair to me. How come, I go through all this stuff, and my neighbor... he doesn’t even go to Church, and he sails through life. Just sails through life. You haven’t been fair to me, after all I’ve one for you God...”

That’s an idolatry.

And the royal nature of God is generous.

And for me to say, as did these workers in the vineyard, you have not been fair with us.

Now... that’s a grievous sin.

Because you see, God knows who we are better than we do.

And His goal, His goal is
not simply, well, it isn’t simply to make our lives convenient.

We Americans love convenient, don’t we?

We Americans have gotten so soft in this twenty-first century, haven’t we?

Isn’t one fo the most awful things in your day.. To go into a store, and look at all the lines, and they’ve all got eight people in them.

Well, I’m the kind of guy who has his shopping cart, and I go this line, no this line, this line.

You know?

I’d probably save 10 minutes if I didn’t keep changing lines.

Good Lord, I’ve got to wait in this line, I should have just gone to the convenient store... I know it’s more expensive, it’s just...

Imagine... the places where people line up to get food... that is substandard, and limited in quantity, and limited in varitity, and limited in quality...and they’re grateful for the privilege to have a place in line, but oh no, we’ve gotta have it now.

You sit at your computer, right?

At least I do, maybe this.. This isn’t a sermon, this is more like confession.

You know, I sit at the computer, and I’m waiting for the thing to go on, and I can’t help it, I start getting so irritated, I start pushing buttons!

But of course, the computer does strange things...
   
I’m impatient!

I want what I want, and I want it now!
And I want it to be convenient!

That’s the goal of life       

My own convenience

Whereas... God... says the goal of life is not convenience , the goal of life is to be givenize.

His purpose is to adopt you, to make you His own child, isn’t it?

So His goal is to make His image, His royal imagine, in you.

And His Royal image Ultimately is the ability to love.

God’s very nature in this parable is shown in His generosity.

That’s what God’s wanted to do for the workers, that’s what He wants to do for you and me.

He wants to make us like him, that we might be His children.

And when I think about that...

I have to quit thinking about what about I can get.

Most of us in our life, and in our religious life, think about what we can get.

Our security, our prosperity, our possessions, our relationships.

But God has something in mind for us.

God wants us to look like Him.

He wants to make us like Him.

And that’s the goal...

And when we understand it, the goal in God in my life, is that I may be like Him.

And so I might be His son, His daughter, forever.

Then, well...

Maybe God has given me less of something, and more of something else.

Less money, more tribulation.

Because He knows that I need the tribulation more than I need the money.

I’ll never forget this young man, dear friend of mine, grew up in the same town, and he had to have a rough patch in his life..

He had some drug trouble and he went off to some group called “teen challenge” and he ws a religious  ( ? ? ?) Assembly of God, and he got clean... got rid of the drugs, and stayed working at teen challenge, but he realized that...working with these drug-addicts in Chicago’s
 inner city, he always knew where his next meal was coming...

So he decided to go to India and do a stint with Mother Theresa...

He came back after six months, because Mother Theresa was a tough lady, and her nuns were tough ladies, he said the only protein they got was the bugs that fell into the rice as they cooked it...

There were.. T here were plenty of bugs there, so it was probably a healthy diet...

So.. You know, the rice was grey...

Well... these women lived in great poverty.

So after six months he came home.

And he... was a carpenter and he did a lot of carpentry work, and he did some volunteer work for this drug rehab program, that he had been in years before, and he built a beautiful back porch.

And there was a Chicago-developer who was Christian, who loved to set up young Christians in business.

And he’s looking at this work, and said “This is beautiful work. Who did it?”

And they say, “Oh, well, Peter did it.”

So he came up to Peter, who was finishing the job, and he said “Come down to my office”, BIG developer, “come to my office on Monday, I’m gonna make you a millionaire.”

And he said “I bet your pardon?”

And he explained that he could make him a millionaire. Gonna set him up in business..

And I’ll never forget, I was mowing the lawn at my ma’s place, after I was ordained, and I was cuttin’ the lawn for my folks..

And this guy drove up in his old truck, he almost ran me over, he ran up on the lawn and he jumped out of the car, and he hugged me, saying “I’m gonna be a millionaire! I’m gonna be a millionaire! I got a run and go tell my wife!”

So...

Next day, he drove back by, and I was sitting out on the back porch, and he stopped the truck, and he was much more subdued, and he said... “I decided I’m gonna go tell this guy, no thanks. I don’t want to be a millionaire. I don’t think I can handle it.”

This is the only person I ever met declined becoming a millionaire, and believe me, he didn’t become a millionaire.

He had about 8 kids...
Well...
He was the only person who I think was authentically poor in spirit.   

And one of the only people I know who said “No, God is doing something in my life, for which money would be counter indicative. It would be against God’s purpose. I’m not like Him. I say God...” what’s the line from fiddler on the roof, “I know it’s not great shame being poor, but I know it’s no great honor either.”

You see, when I.. Covet I say to God, “God you have not been for to me.”

And God says “When you see my purpose in your life fully, you will understand I have given you what you need to become who you are suppose to be.”

The goal of my life is to stand before God’s throne and hear the words “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into your masters’ joy.”

And what do we say?
“Why did you give him what you didn’t give me?”

God’s royalty is such that He gives us what we need to arrive at the same reward.

So let us pray today that we are able to trust God and not to grieve Him by shaking our fist  at Heaven and saying “You have not been fair to me”

But enjoy the sorrow and the joy , the difficulty and the ease, that God gives us in our life are given to us that we might be conformed into the image of His son that Jesus might be the first of many brethren.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.