25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Published: September 19, 2020

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor preached the following homily at a Mass for the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2020.

Bishop Taylor

One of the professors I had in seminary in Rome was a Scripture scholar named Father Ugo Vanni. He believed that once you’re in graduate school, grades ought to be meaningless and so he made them meaningless. For several years he gave every student in his class a 10, which was the equivalent of a 100. The final exam was simply another opportunity to learn.

The student wasn’t being evaluated; he was going to get a 10 in any event. By the time I came along, the administration had clamped down on him for grade inflation. They forbade him to give more than half of the class a 10. So, in my year, half of the class got a 10 and half got a 9.8, which by the way was still an A+, just slightly lower.

But it was all arbitrary, every other name on the list, grades still had no relation to performance. Given the luck of the draw, some funny things happened. For instance, some of the best students got a 9.8 instead of a 10, an A+ that nevertheless arbitrarily put them in the bottom half of the class for that course.

On the other hand, for other students this would be the only 10 (or for that matter, 9.8) that they would get in their entire time in seminary, this was their lucky day. Grades had no relation to performance; the only requirement was to have tried. Some star students were uncomfortable with this leveling of the report card, which made them equal to the less promising students — yet they couldn’t complain because a 9.8 was by all accounts an excellent grade. If they were jealous, it was only because Father Vanni was generous.

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells a story about the owner of a vineyard who believed that once you’re in the Kingdom of God, payment ought to be meaningless, so he made it meaningless. In our story, he gives all the workers a full day’s pay, no matter how long they had worked. It was all arbitrary. The pay had no relation to performance.

The only requirement was to have tried. For those who worked less, this was their lucky day. Some of those hired first resented this leveling of paychecks, which made them equal to those who worked less. But the master reminds them that they’ve got no complaint — they got good money for their work, all that they had agreed on. They’re just jealous because the master is generous.

Here in the Diocese of Little Rock, we already have many workers in the vineyard — both in the Church and in general society, but there’s still a lot more to do — even in this time of COVID-19 restrictions, or looking to the future when these restrictions are lifted. So, if you’re still standing around, not doing anything for your parish or for your community, I invite you to sign up.

I am told that some of our parishes have what you could call an “Old Guard” of long-time volunteers, the 20 percent who do most of the work and contribute most of the money. Well, I don’t know about here, but if that is the case, believe it or not, unlike the long-time workers in our Gospel, I bet many of them won’t even be jealous.

Instead, they will no longer have any reason to gripe about the 80 percent who don’t pitch in, and instead leave them to do most of the work and pay most of the bills. It works both ways.

Our life in the Church and indeed also in the larger community, should in some measure be a foretaste of the fuller life that is waiting for us in the Kingdom of God, where everyone gets the same pay: eternal life, who could want more?

In God’s kingdom, service and generosity is its own reward: The greatest serve the rest, the last shall be first — our lives become full and meaningful. God will reward our faithfulness, but not because of our merit. Of course, we’ll get everything we ever earned, but God is more than just fair, he’s generous. And for that, we should all be grateful!