In today’s Gospel, we see how challenging it is not to compare ourselves to others, and, secondly, how hard it is not to determine our worth from money. How much pain happens in our lives because we try to find our worth in others and not in God. Look at how we pick on ourselves day and night because we are not like others – as beautiful, as rich, as healthy, as good at sports or singing or speaking, as good at dancing, have such a nice house or vehicle. What a terrible distraction. What a hit do we take to our identity when we do this. We really do this to our own peril because as we are looking at what others are doing and how we are not like them we miss out on what we are and how we are created. It is sad but most of us spend a great deal of our lives wishing we were someone else. Why do we do this? I think it has to do with love. We believe that they are loved more than us and if we had those things we would have the same love, which we are in need of.
It is funny but I grew up in a family of five children and, though parents try their best, it does often feel like there is only so much love to go around, and only so much attention, and so you compete for it in various ways. If you are not skilled at the usual things that make parents proud, you may start excelling at things that get negative attention. We all need love, not to have it means to die and that is proven. We have often grown up thinking that we had to earn attention and affection, and that pretty much sets us up to be taken advantage of by others. They can use us in our hunger to belong, to have relationships. It is like a magic they have over us. People keep wondering why people go back to abuse, to drugs, to negative relationships and friends. It is because we are desperate. We feel we need what they can give, perhaps only in small quantities, but we think it is better than nothing. If your whole world is a poor well, you sit around hoping for water and are afraid to walk away to look for something better. We become more and more desperate and fearful as we are becoming further from God. Until, that is, we discover the one thing that will set us free.
What is that one thing? That we don’t need to earn love and love earned is not love, it is a wage. Love is a free gift and anyone who wants you to earn it is using you and exploiting your weaknesses for their own gain. Respect can be earned but not love. When we know God, we know there is an abundant source, that there is more than enough to go around and we have wasted our time looking for crumbs when a large feast is set if we would just move to the table. We are like an eagle that was raised as a chicken. We go around trying to be a chicken, trying to be most chicken-like thinking, “If only I could be better at eating scraps,” comparing our skills to other chickens and our looks to other chickens and thinking, “If only I was like them,” and yet always unsatisfied. The day will come, hopefully, when we wonder, “Why am I trying to be a chicken? I am an eagle,” and we will fly away. You see, why are we trying to be something that we are not? We were made specifically and uniquely with gifts that no one else has. We have a mission no one else can fulfill and we are robbing ourselves and the world and God when we are trying to be anything but ourselves. Why am I fighting for crumbs under that table, the crumbs of human glory? Why am I looking at what others have when I have something they do not? Maybe people have said to you that you do not have anything special about yourself. I say rubbish. Are you declaring that God ran out of creative genius and had to make two alike when He has never made even two rocks or animals or plants or planets the same?
This is a good reason for why we spend time with God. If you don’t know what something is and what it is supposed to do, you talk to the creator and see what they say. Ask yourselves this question: is your life exalting God right now? If it is not, then you and I are not experiencing God’s plan for us. We spend time with God to know His image and likeness, to know what the plan is so our lives take on the unique significance they are made to. One of the prayers I like to remind myself of is the prayer Mary said after her cousin Elizabeth said, “Blessed are you among woman and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” Mary said, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,” and I ask myself, “Does my soul proclaim the great works of God? Can people see that I have embraced God’s calling for me?” If not, I pray for that grace. Can people see that I am baptized, that I choose to use the grace offered me to be someone different? If not, then I must pray for the grace to be different.
Looking around at others to find your value will leave you impoverished and angry, just as the workers in the vineyard. Look at the cross and the price that was paid for you and it will set you free and allow you to see your true value. One person described prayer as wasting time with God, yet in this wasted time we will find our dignity, the love and mercy we need to be whom we are created to be. We will start glorifying God and finding peace. St Athanasius was threatened with banishment by the empress who took exception to his preaching. He was not afraid to point out people’s imperfections and disgraceful ways of living. St Athanasius told her that she didn’t scare him because she couldn’t banish him to any place that God is not present. My dear brothers and sisters, does our soul glorify God? Does our soul rejoice in God our Saviour? Do you feel like you do not have enough? Or are not good enough? Do you think you are not special or unique? Then start wasting more time with God. Then you will see that God has been generous with you, the real you.