Fr. Thom's Homilies

If we’re honest with ourselves, I think the Gospel for this Sunday really tugs at our sense of fairness.  I don’t know about you, but when I hear those workers who started at the beginning of the day complaining that they were paid the same as those who only worked one hour, I think they have a case.  This isn’t fair.  It certainly seems to me that they are being cheated, even if what they received was what they agreed to at the beginning of the day.  Certainly, this wouldn’t fly in any work place today, at least not one that is doing things “above board” and following the law.  In fact, we would call this wage theft.           But to interpret this Gospel in this way would be a mistake and may distract us from the more important point that Jesus is trying to make.  How so?  Jesus isn’t commenting here on fair labor practices.  Rather, He’s telling a parable (a simple story meant to illustrate a deep...

          For the second week in a row there is a theme of forgiveness in the Sunday readings.  Last week we heard about the “power of the keys,” the power “to bind and to loose,” and I preached about how all of us share in that power by forgiving others, by seeking forgiveness ourselves and by gently and appropriately offering correction to our brother or sister when necessary.  But it would seem there is more for us to learn about this, as both the first reading and the Gospel that the Church proposes for today speak of forgiveness, and in a much more explicit way than last week. Just because we heard it first, let’s look first at the reading from Sirach.  There is an image there that I think is particularly instructive: “Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight .”  What a great image!  Being a bit of a fantasy literature nerd, I can’t help but think here of the character Gollum from...

           “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  This is not the first time we have heard this expression from Jesus.  In fact, we heard it only recently, two weeks ago, when (two chapters earlier in Matthew’s Gospel) after Peter had professed Jesus to be the Christ, Jesus said to him:  “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  In this exchange it is clear that our Lord was conferring upon Peter a special authority as head of the Apostles, the “rock” upon which He would build His Church.  But why does Jesus repeat this phrase here?           It notes at the ...

           “You duped me, O Lord [you tricked me], and you let myself be [tricked].” I have always loved this reading from the prophet Jeremiah that we had as our first reading this morning because of its candor.  It is just so honest.  I don’t believe that Jeremiah is any way blasphemous or that he means any disrespect as he pours out his heart to God in prayer.  Jeremiah, like all of the prophets, had a rough go of it.  The task of calling Israel back to faithfulness to the Lord is a difficult one.  To be a prophet of the Lord is actually less about “telling the future” and more about pointing out what is wrong in the present and calling people to reform, and this is never easy or popular.  As Jeremiah puts it, “The word of the Lord has brought be derision and reproach all the day.”  This could be said by any of the prophets. But what I think is so unique about Jeremiah is that, more than any of the other prophets,...