Francine
Francine
Cardman
Cardman
“What is the kingdom of heaven like,” Jesus asks in today’s gospel. It is the question at the heart of his preaching: What is the kingdom of God like? What, that is to say, is God like? What happens when God reigns?
In Matthew’s gospel, the parable of the workers in the vineyard is
preceded and followed by stories of the disciples’ obtuseness in their
expectations of greatness and honor. Jesus meets their desires with two jolting
rejoinders: “many who are first will be last, and the last will be first”;
“whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant.” The disciples can
imagine a kingdom, but only one along the lines of empire and exclusion, power
and prestige. Today’s gospel calls us instead to look and listen beyond the
pattern of “this world’s” limitations of heart and imagination. It calls us,
not to leave the world and be free of its cares and needs, but to live here
and now in the image of God’s reign.
To live in that image, to embody its presence, we must listen to
today’s gospel in a new way and learn to look at the world with the eye of our
heart, letting it draw us into the compassion of God. To live in the image of
God’s reign is not to deny the very real demands of justice for workers, both
those who labor in the heat of
the day and those who are deemed idle, who stand on the street corner, not
because they want to, but because no one has hired them. Nor can we overlook
those who labor with little recompense and less recognition – who so often are
women, children, the disenfranchised many.
What is the kingdom of heaven like? asks Jesus. It is like
the landowner who calls workers to his vineyard, who keeps his word, pays a
just wage, and confounds some of the workers with his generosity. God’s reign
is just and generous – embracing all who call upon God in the truth of
their lives, in their deepest needs and hidden hopes. Yet, as Isaiah reminds us, God’s ways
and thoughts are so far above our own that we falter before God’s gratuitous
love. Like the workers hired at
the first hour, we tend to view the world through a lens of self-interest that
has little depth of field, that does not look much beyond ourselves and those
closest to us, that does not take in the multiplicity of others who surround
us, or the complexities of their lives. Like those working from the beginning
of the day, we expect to be paid more than those who worked only the last hour.
The workers who had been hired first were aggrieved, having expected
to receive more in return for their long labor, resentful that the owner had
treated them and the last group of workers alike, “mak[ing] them equal to us.”
Like them, we are captive to metrics and a stingy notion of merit. But, as
Jesus declares, and the landowner demonstrates, “the last will be first, and
the first last.” God’s hands are not tied to our narrow calculus of justice,
God’s mercy is not bounded by the limitations of our compassion. In God’s reign,
everyone works as their circumstances allow and everyone receives what they
need. All are welcomed and cared for, all live equally from the
generosity of God. And all deserve to share in God’s goodness now,
in the world that is the work of God’s hands, in the community of life that
encompasses and supports us all.
It is only through God’s mercy that it is possible for us to live
in the image of love. It is through that love that we forgive and are forgiven;
through that love that we act mercifully and mercy is shown us. It is through
that mercy that we work to restore community and mend creation. We are invited
today, by Isaiah and the Psalmist, to live and act in the ways and works of
God: to make justice and generosity tangible, to embrace the outcast, welcome
the stranger, open our hearts to the refugees at our gates. Like Paul, we can
magnify Christ in our bodies, with our work, for the good of all. We can seek
to conduct [our]selves, as he urges,
in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ. Through God’s generosity to the world,
we can do the work that love demands for our sisters and brothers, for those
who suffer from the meanness and terrors of our times, from the insularity of
our personal and political worlds, from the selfishness and hardness of our
collective hearts.
What is the kingdom of heaven like? What is God like? And what are we
like? What happens when we live in the image of God’s reign? How will we
answer the question and call of today’s readings? Let us pray that we open our
hearts and imaginations to the generosity of God and the wideness of God’s
merciful kingdom – as in heaven, so now on earth; and as it will yet be,
forever, in the fullness of God’s love
Francine Cardman
Francine Cardman
Francine Cardman is Associate Professor of Historical theology and Church Historyat Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. She writes and lectures on early Christian ethics and spirituality, ministry and leadership in the early church, and questions of gender and justice in contemporary church practice. Whether addressing contemporary or ancient issues, what is common to her work is an historical approach that grounds theology, ethics, and ministry in their historical and social contexts. She has published a translation of Augustine’s homilies on the Sermon on the Mount as well as essays on Augustine, women’s ministries and ordination in early Christianity, structures of governance and accountability in the church past and present, the development of early Christian ethics, and Vatican II and ecumenism. She also edited and contributed to Partners in the Conversation The Role of Ecumenical Divinity Schools in Catholic Theological Education, a study conducted by the Catholic Task Force at Yale Divinity School, and was a co-investigator and contributor to a pilot study on A Profile of Spiritual Resilience in Persons Who Live Well with Lifelong Disabilities.
She has taught at Wesley Theological Seminary, Weston Jesuit School of Theology, and Boston College. She is a past president of the North American Academy of Ecumenists, has served on the Eastern Orthodox/roman Catholic Consultation of the USCCB, and has been a board member and vice-president of NETWORK.
October 17 at 7pm ET: Join Catholic Women Preach, FutureChurch, contributors to the Year C book, and co-editors Elizabeth Donnelly and Russ Petrus as we celebrate the release of the third and final volume of this ground-breaking, award winning series.
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