Pots Calling Kettles Black 五十步笑百步

Twenty-Fifth Ordinary Sunday, Year A
Theme: Pots Calling Kettles Black 五十步笑百步

The Church is a community of the redeemed. Some members are recently converted while others are jaded Catholics. Some practise their faith regularly. For example, they never skip any Sunday mass, go to confessions, receive Holy Communion, study the Bible, say the Rosary, novenas and attend spirituality courses, retreats and go pilgrimages. They even spend their spare time helping different ministries in the parish, such as extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, lectors, choiristors, social service group and Legion of Mary etc. It is good of them.

However, some are less "fervent". They go to mass on Sundays to fulfil their obligation and leave almost immediately after mass. We like to nickname them "Sunday Catholics". It is hard to blame them because in a commercial society such as Hong Kong, working on Sundays is a norm. How do we help them stay longer to enrich their spiritual life becomes the concern of the clergy. Though the Lord teaches us not to judge the others (Matthew 7:1), we tend to tease those who don't attend church regularly as CEO which stands for "Christmas and Easter Only". Moreover, some parents baptize their children in order to enrol them in prestigious Catholic schools. Once they get the baptismal certificates they need, they vanish. According to diocesan figures, only 10% of the newly baptized continue to attend Church one year after baptism. How do we reach out to those who don't go to Church after baptism?

As a deacon, I do pre-nuptial enquiries for weddings and convalidations. Since Catholics occupy less than 10% of the total population, it is common in Hong Kong for a Catholic to marry a non-Catholic outside the Church, usually in a civil manner. Those couples need to do a convalidation to solemnize and to make their marriages valid according to the Canon Law. When the bride and the groom are both Catholics, they are supposed to celebrate their matrimony before a priest in a nuptial mass because their marriage symbolizes the loving bond between Christ and His Bride, the Church. The other day, I was taken aback when a Catholic couple came to do convalidation because they followed the fashion to get married before a lawyer in a hotel to entertain their friends! How much Catholics know their faith worries me! I care about their souls, not because I am a deacon. Are they not my neighbour? Are we not supposed to love our neighbour as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18)? I suppose every Christian should care about the well-being of the souls of the people they know, shouldn't he? Are we not "keepers of our brothers" (Genesis 4:9)? We should help each other to keep and grow our faith in this secularism-infested world.

We have been living in this commercial society for too long and tend to buy their utilitarian values without knowing it. For most people, fairness means equality in exchanges. You give me X amount of A. I give you back Y amount of B such that X*A = Y*B. That's fairness and easy to understand. In the parable we read today, the first batch of workers speak the mind of many, "These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us," (Matthew 20:12a). The landowner was unfair because 12 man-hours (first batch of workers) must be bigger than 1 man-hour (last batch of workers). Paying all workers the same amount of wage was obviously unfair, regardless of whatever previous agreements they had reached (20:2, 4)!

Here, I beg to disagree. First of all, it is clear that there are many things in the world which we cannot quantify. For example, the satisfaction two persons obtain from drinking the same bottle of red wine is different and we cannot quantify the satisfaction with some artificial index. Therefore, by simply counting the number of hours without considering the level of satisfaction or frustration, which is difficult to quantify, is an oversimplification and evasion of the real issue of job satisfaction and right wage.

Secondly, why should we take psychological factors into consideration? It is because human being is not simply a physical being. They have reasons and emotions. By counting the "bearing the day's burden and the heat" (20:12b) alone and ignoring the anxieties/frustrations is obviously incomplete and therefore unfair. Let's paraphrase the parable in modern terms. All people are uniquely gifted. Some have muscular talents while others have musical, numerical, spacial, verbal and visual talents etc. In ancient times, some talents were in great demand such as musical and verbal but not numerical. Composers and poets worked for courts and churches to glorify the patrons while tax-collectors were despised. In other words, during any era, not all talents are similarly marketable.

Now let's return to the parable. The first batch of workers represent those people whose talents are in great demand. They are the early birds who enjoy a secure and stable life very quickly. How would those people whose talents are less marketable feel? Of course they would be frustrated because their talents are not recognized and valued! Furthermore, their anxiety mounts as the day approaches the close! The time for them to contribute is running out! Therefore, the landowner was fair because he had taken both the physical and the psychological factors into consideration while the first batch of workers were not because they had not considered more comprehensively enough. They focus on what they are good at and disregard the situation of their neighbour! "But the hour is coming, and is now here" (John 4:23a), when poets go broke and programmers get rich. Those who are able to control number crunchers will also control the world!

Now, can we conclude that God does not count the amount of works? Does the landowner in this parable encourage laziness? Does God not count? Both yes and no! Yes the Bible tells us in different places that God holds us accountable for our iniquities and punishes us accordingly. Even if He is patient at the moment to allow us time to repent, He will definitely judge us on the Judgment Day. Therefore God counts. But things are not as simple as black and white.

From my observation, many people tend to oversimplify things by thinking along a dichotomized manner: male and female, white and black, good and evil, grace and sin etc. The parable today teaches us to think in a different manner. If we think of the first batch of workers as "the righteous" and the last batch of workers "the wicked", then there must be shades of righteousness represented by the workers employed at 9 am, noon and 3 pm. Just as we can talk about darkness as an absence of light, we can also talk about sin as an absence of grace. Therefore, we can spread people along a spectrum of righteousness. Like the parable we read last week, some people may owe 10,000 talents (Matthew 18:24), in other words less righteous, while others may owe 100 pences only (18:28), that is to say more righteous! Sarcastically, the more evil ones tend to persecute the more righteous ones probably to cover up their own evil! Reading in this light, probably the "first batch of workers" in today's parable are "righteous" in the sense of "self-righteousness". Therefore, when the fervent Catholics tease those CEO's, perhaps they are envious of God's generosity like the first batch of workers in the parable today (Matthew 20:15)! Shouldn't they approach their friends, relatives and colleagues and care about their situation instead of labelling them CEO's?

The first reading today sheds light on the issue. The prophet says, "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways, and sinners their thoughts; let them turn to the Lord to find mercy; to our God who is generous in forgiving" (Isaiah 55:6-7). Therefore, it is good to be an early bird because you enjoy the grace of mercy earlier and longer. God is generous in forgiving and does not count our iniquities. God also does not count our works because whether they are 12 man-hours or 1 man-hour, they are both insignificant and negligible.

Beloved brethren! Let's be humble and put aside our arrogance. When we look down on low-achievers, we are pots calling kettles black. Let us follow Paul's exemplar. As long as we remain in flesh, instead of congratulating ourselves of our own successes, let us work for the benefits of our brothers (Philippians 1:24). Amen.

---

2020 Reflecton
Picture Credit: joshweidmann.com