Reflection for the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

I came across this story in Stories for the Journey by William R. White and it seemed to explain to me the message of today’s Gospel;

In a small village, three friends — a Muslim, a Jew and a Christian — farmed adjoining plots of land. The Muslim observed Friday as the Sabbath, the Jew observed Saturday as the Sabbath, and the Christian observed Sunday as the Sabbath.

One autumn Friday, the Jew and the Christian finished ploughing their fields just before Noon. As he sat eating his lunch, the Christian noticed that the field of his Muslim friend was not yet ploughed. “If he doesn’t plough today,” the Christian thought, “it may rain tomorrow and he won’t be able to finish his autumn planting.” So the Christian ploughed a section of his field to make his friend’s work easier.

In his adjoining field, his Jewish neighbour had the same thought. So he began ploughing the Muslim’s field. Without consulting each other, the two completed their neighbour’s ploughing.

The next day, when the Muslim discovered that his field had been ploughed, he offered a joyful prayer of thanks: “Surely, God has sent his angels to plough my field while I observed his day of rest.”

When the harvest season arrived, the fields of the three friends flourished. One Sunday, the Muslim and Jew were harvesting their crop. The Jew noticed his Christian brother’s corn was ready to harvest. “If he doesn’t harvest today, he could lose his crop,” the Jew realized. So he picked his Christian friend’s corn until it grew dark.

Unknown to him, his Muslim neighbour realized the same thing. Between them, they harvested all of their friend’s corn.

On Monday, the Christian came out to his field and saw that his crop had been harvested. “It’s a miracle,” he thought. “While I rested, God’s angels harvested.”

When the threshing season came, the Muslim and Christian were working on a Saturday while their Jewish friend stayed home, keeping holy the Sabbath. Finishing threshing his own grain, the Muslin looked at the next field and thought, “If my Jewish neighbour doesn’t gather his grain today, the coming rain will wash it away.” So the Muslim threshed part of his friend’s crop that afternoon.

And, unknown to him, his Christian neighbour decided to do the same. Separately, the two men threshed, bound and covered their Jewish neighbour’s entire crop.

When the Sabbath was over, the Jewish farmer discovered that his grain had been threshed. He lifted his eyes to heaven and blessed “the Lord of the universe for sending your angels while I kept your Sabbath.”

Every religion has its practices and rituals, its prayers and symbols — but the value of such practices and rituals are not the acts themselves but their effectiveness in pointing to something greater than ourselves: the holiness of God within us, the love of God in our midst. In such signs, God calls us to be “angels” of generosity and peace. For the three farmers, God’s gift of the Sabbath, though each observed it on different days, still brought them together as a community of generosity and compassion. May we embrace the many practices and prayers of our faith as more than just cultural markers but as the starting points for creating the Kingdom of God in our own villages.