Let’s do an inventory of our accomplishments so far in life,

1. List how any years you have worked. (37 years since 13)

2. List how many cars, boats, motorcycles, bicycles you have owned. OR List how many

   toys you have. (7 cars, 5 motorcycles, 3 bicycles)

3. List how many houses/apartments/condos you have lived in. (over 10 plus one Big Navy Ship)

4. List how many years of studies in school you have completed. (26 years)

5. List how many years you have been married to the love of your life. (15 years ordained)

6. List the names of your children and how proud you are of them. (0 blood children,

   2900 families worth. I am proud of all of you).

7. List approximately how much time, talent, and funds you have given in charitable service. (Got to sit down and calculate that)

8. List how many of your dreams have come true. (at least 4 - Traveled to Ireland and Holy Land and Rome. God made me an instrument of his peace)

Let’s do it again, but let’s use God’s inventory questions. Are you ready?

1. List how many planets, stars and galaxies have you created.

2. List how many oceans you dug out and how many mountains you erected.

3. List how many species of plant and animal you dreamt up, designed all their

   biological processes, and then set evolution in motion to achieve them over millions

   of years. Name those plants and animals.

4. List how many people you created “ex nihilo” – out of nothing -- and then blew the

   Spirit of Life into their nostrils and gave them a human rational soul to animate them.

   Name them.

5. List how many prayers you have answered.

6. List how many tears you have cried when the people you created chose to hate

   instead of love. *

7. List how many times you died on the cross to save the whole world.

8. List how many souls you have saved and brought to everlasting peace.

Okay, so maybe we can understand the first reading from Isaiah:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.

God has a totally different perspective on life. He has been dreaming about our happiness since before the universe was created (14 billion years at least). He has dreamt about each person and has loved us since way before we ever existed.

God set all this in motion a long time ago, so that one day there would be humans. He designed us to have a mother and a father, and he would give us all an individual human soul at conception. So that we would be completely unique and one of a kind.

Why did he create us? To love and to be loved. Period. Everything else either helps with that or is insignificant compared to that purpose.

We learn from the Book of Genesis:

God created mankind in his image;
in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed us and gave us dominion over the earth and all his creatures, that we would take care of these gifts and enjoy them. *

Now one question I would ask God about his design of creation is this: “Why God, did you give us free will?” Because it seems that we can ignore our purpose to love and be loved. We can choose to not love.

I think I do know the answer to this question: Love must be a free gift. In other words, we cannot be forced to love. It must be our choice. A choice we make every day. To love or not to love.

The Ten commandments are basically some guidelines on how to love. The first 3 about loving God. The next 7 are about loving one another. Go ahead and study them and you will discover their purpose.

All this so far has been context to explain that God sees things from an entirely different perspective than we do. Nowhere is that clearer than the Parable of the Landowner that Jesus tells us in the Gospel today.

The Landowner hires people to work in his vineyard. Some are hired at 6am. Some are hired at 9am, more at noon, at three in the afternoon and then he even hired some guys at 5pm. At the end of the day 6pm or so, he brings them in and pays them all the same daily wage.

The ones who worked all day, think they should get more. It is unfair, they think. They grumbled against him. (This topic seems apropos: employees grumbling against management. I wonder if they contemplated going on strike to settle this grievance.)

The landowner merely explained:

'My friend, I am not cheating you. (I love that he calls them, my friend) Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?
Take what is yours and go.
What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?

Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?'

Ahh! The first workers are jealous of the others. They want more. They are not grateful, they are greedy. (We must take care to not let greed motivate us: employee or management.)

This parable is really a metaphor for God and us. God invites us to work in his vineyard. We “work in God’s vineyard” by being active members of his Church: we come together each Sunday to worship and thank him for the week’s blessings. We pray each day. We raise our families in the faith. We live out the Gospel and Commandments. We try to love one another as he loves us. We practice mercy and forgiveness. We share our gifts with others.

Some start working for God very early on in their life and work their whole life for God. Some start later in life. I guess, some also start early then get a bit lost in college, and then hopefully come back to work in God’s vineyard some years later. And some live their whole lives only for themselves, but then at the last moment, they experience a conversion and enter God’s vineyard, perhaps right at their last breath.

All are invited to the eternal kingdom of Heaven. All are saved by Christ’s blood on the cross. When we repent and ask for his mercy.

Instead of rejoicing, some may be jealous and say like the first workers, “We deserve more. We worked all our lives for you God, and this one has only served you for his last breath. And you make him equal to us. We want more.”

That is how we can think, “God’s way is not fair.” (Ezekiel 18:25)

But God’s mercy is radically generous. The gift of eternal life is an immeasurable treasure that we could never afford. We can’t buy our way to Heaven. We can’t buy our children’s way to Heaven. It is all dependent on God’s mercy.

God is not fair according to our perspective. God is infinitely merciful. He loves us so much that there is NOTHING we could do that he would stop loving us. *

He wants ALL the workers to receive the reward. He wants to save ALL his creation. As a good Father should desire. He doesn’t value one person more than another. We are all equally his children. He loves us all. He is just waiting for us to realize it, and to love him back, and share that love with others.

That is God’s perspective. Love everyone. Save everyone. Too bad our perspective can be so far from it.