Matthew 20:1-16
Dear Friends, Each Sunday, in the readings of the Mass, we encounter the values of Jesus. We are told that the last shall be first, the leader is to be the servant of all, and we need to be the one who washes our neighbors’ feet. The response to violence is not revenge but to turn the other cheek. These are just a few of the of the truly demanding perspectives Jesus has for us.In the parables, Jesus hopes to crumble our clear and confident grasp our daily reality. Our commonsense mentality of how we think that things really are, cannot stand up to the power and wisdom of Jesus’ parables.
We're invited to the wonder of God's mercy in today's gospel and in the first reading from Deuteron Isaiah. Without this quality of God's mercy, our situation would be helpless and hopeless. God's mercy is without condition or limit. The main message for us in our confusion about the all-day workers is this. I will never earn God's mercy.
The key to understanding this parable and our deep feelings of injustice is this: a message is about the Kingdom of heaven telling us that we can begin early or we can begin late. It makes no difference. We can never enter into the Kingdom by ourselves. It is a total gift of God's mercy. Generous mercy on God's part is the only pathway into the Kingdom of heaven.
It is obvious that today’s parable is a shocker. Our immediate response is, “No way!” How can the “dawn to dusk” workers not complain about the inequality of the “one hour crew” for getting equal pay?
In all the parables, Jesus is setting us up for change. He is inviting us into a new world of God’s generosity. When it comes to justice and mercy, we use the teaspoon to work at the right measurement. Jesus is teaching us that God’s mercy and justice are more truly portrayed like a torrential downpour where there is neither instrument of measurement nor limits on the outpouring of love.
No doubt, Matthew understood our extraordinarily strong tendency to measure God by our limited standards. We are naturally inclined to have God see things as we see them. God, in fact, has a different mode of operation. God reaches out to all, deserving and undeserving. For us, it is just a person butting in at the front of the line. God sees if this individual is one who is late for “happy hour” leading to a night of self- indulgence or a husband rushing his wife to the delivery room or a thousand other variations on the motive.
Isaiah (55:7-9) tells us: “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 thoughts above your thoughts.”
The entire gospel message of Jesus is one relentless attack on our deeply rooted self-centered approach to reality. The parable of the Generous Landlord is just one more invitation for us to see and embrace the new world that Jesus offers to us.
A few years back I had a singular encounter with the reality of Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard.
I was asked to visit a young man who was paralyzed from the shoulders down. He was the innocent victim of a drive-by shooting. Naturally, I felt quite apprehensive because I had little in my arsenal of pastoral advice that made any sense in this situation.
Immediately, the young man put me at ease. He shared the story of how some of the other, more veteran victims of a similar condition had ministered to him to cast away despair and call him to embrace life. He shared how grateful he was to be alive, to be able to see his daughter, even to enjoy the Lakers championship! His cousin was killed at the same time of his tragedy, and he shared his sorrow for the family.
If ever there was a “dawn to dusk” worker in the circumstances of life, I was in the presence of it in the paralyzed young man. There was no pity party for the injustice of life though the whole rehabilitation hospital was filled with victims of life’s arbitrariness.
Our encounter with Jesus’ parable invites us to appreciate the giftedness of life that finds most of us in the “one hour crew” even though we imagine we have been in the vineyard of life for many long hours. Jesus wants to provoke us to count our blessings with new eyes and an open heart. The merger of God’s justice and mercy is always in our midst. Our task is to grow in an awareness of God’s overwhelming goodness and not be blinded by the passing burdens of our daily life.
