Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 20, 2020 – Isaiah 55:6-9; Philippians 1:20C-24,27A; Matthew 20:1-16A

The iconic movie, On the Waterfront, was all about corruption, especially mob-inspired correction, on the docks. It was a true story, based on the life of a Jesuit priest who worked for the betterment of the working conditions of people who worked on the docks. But we would be mistaken if we thought that today’s gospel has anything to do with social justice for workers. Why did Jesus tell this story? Why did Matthew include this story in his gospel?

It is almost the same story as a story with very different characters that we find in Luke’s gospel – the story of the Prodigal Son. In each story there is someone who obeys the rules and always does the right thing, and someone who seems to be messing up. Both of them are treated with the same kindness and generosity by the person who represents the authority figure. That’s the similarity between them, but one is found in one gospel, and one in the other.

We all know that Jesus was constantly running afoul of the religious authorities of his day - the Pharisees, the Scribes, the temple Priests - because He spent so much time with society’s moral outcasts – we used to call them the prostitutes and tax collectors - but that was a label for all the people on the underside of society that Jesus seemed almost to prefer in many ways. And this parable in Matthew’s gospel and the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke’s gospel are meant to respond to that accusation. That’s why Jesus told them. To point out, as Matthew calls it, the Kingdom of Heaven, God’s way of life, and that God is exceptionally generous, not nitpicking about where people stand on the moral ladder.

Why did Matthew tell this story? For almost the very same reason. Matthew’s congregation was a congregation largely of Jewish Christians. By the time that gospel was written, they were in a minority. They who had been the first to believe in Christ, they who had preserved all the teaching of the prophets and all the Old Testament stories, they who had hoped for a Messiah and finally found him in Jesus, suddenly found themselves as the minority group. They had a tremendous resentment for the gentile Christians which, of course, would be the ruin of the Lord’s Supper. That people who had profound dislike for each other would gather together for Eucharist. So Matthew tells the story to point out that God does not play favorites. God is equally generous to those who have always been faithful and to those who have found faith only later on in life.

So how do we apply this story for our own day, because this is not the problem for us? I want to tell you a little story. The parish of St. Stephen in Warwick was founded in 1865. What else happened in 1865? The Civil War ended. It marked the beginning of a new era of prosperity for the North. With it came the advance of the railroads. And so, the Archdiocese of New York, which at that time included all of New Jersey and all of Long Island, as well as all of upstate New York, began to move in from the Hudson River, which had been a main avenue of commerce, to the other places where the railroads reached. And so, Warwick was established in 1865 and given the area around Monroe, around Pine Island, halfway to Goshen, as the place for the care of its people. Eventually they founded a mission church in the village of Florida called St. Edward’s because, without cars back then, it would have been a several hour journey by buggy to go from Warwick to Florida, or Warwick to Greenwood Lake, or Warwick to Pine Island, so these little mission churches sprung up all over the place.

But, two other churches were founded in that area just at the turn of the century – St. Joseph’s in Florida and St. Stanislaus in Pine Island- because there were two waves of immigrants that came into the area. There were the Irish, who built the railroads, and they were there to receive this new parish. But in the intervening time, there was this tremendous influx of people from Europe. The first group was from Holland. And, of course, Catholic Dutch people are extremely rare. Most of Holland at that time was Protestant. That’s where we get the expression “Orangemen.” But a group of Catholic Dutch people moved into Warwick. Most of them, their trade was dairy farming. And, against great opposition from those who were there already, they began to prosper. At the same time, another group of immigrants from Eastern Europe, most of them Polish, moved in to the Black Dirt country. They did not find the same hospitality that eventually the Dutch Catholics found. And they wanted priests who spoke their own language. The archdiocese did not build the churches in Florida and Pine Island; the people built them. Then they went to the archdiocese and said, “We built a church. We want a priest.” And so they each got Polish speaking priests to care for the people around the farms. Then they began to prosper, be welcomed into the rest of the community.

But then another group of people arrived, those without whom the farmers could not run their businesses and succeed – the migrant workers. Most of the migrant workers came from Mexico. Most of them, if not all of them, were Catholic. But neither at St. Joseph’s Polish Catholic Church, or at St. Stanislaus Polish Catholic Church, were they welcomed to Sunday worship. The same people that did the hard work that made it possible for these businesses to flourish, who were also fellow Catholics, were not allowed to worship there. So finally priests from other places came into the fields every Sunday to celebrate Mass. Then two religious sisters came and founded something called The Alamo, to take care of the little children while their parents were out in the fields, to fight for their rights, to make sure they got medical care, start a little Sunday School for their children, all of those things. Now, St. Stanislaus in Pine Island is closed. St. Joseph’s serves the whole community. And not much is left of the missionary output into the area.

It’s a sobering tale, but it’s only a microcosm of what went on every place in the northeast during the last century-and-a-quarter. A new group would move in and be resented by the prevailing group, finally find their way. Before WWII, the big parishes in New York City that have an upper church and a lower church, it was the Italians who got the lower church. And after WWII, it was the Puerto Ricans who got the lower church. When Vatican II struck and we began to have a folk Mass, it was the kids and their damn folk Mass who got the lower church. That’s the way it was.

Now all of those ethnic groups have been involved in the church. As a matter of fact, now in the United States, the Catholic population is either 51% or 52% Hispanic. You don’t see many of them because most of the largest groups are in the South and especially the West. But, nonetheless, they are the majority of Catholics now, and they will find their place as well.

The question is, does it have to be that way all the time? With almost all these ethnic congregations resolved, there are still others on the margins who want to be part of the mainstream of Catholicism. Since he took over the See of Peter, Pope Francis has been talking about this over and over, trying to find ways to bring those on the margins in. There’s tremendous resistance that builds up all the time, to any kind of change like that. The change will come, but shall the change come the same way as it did all the other times, with rancor, and resentment, and resistance? Or shall we finally being to imitate the generosity of God, who pays everybody the same daily wage. The only daily wage there is in Catholicism, the wage of sanctifying grace