I’m
willing to bet that today’s gospel parable is not your favorite. It’s
certainly not mine. For me, it conjures up a long litany of life’s
injustices. I think, for instance, of the physical fitness zealot who
might miss a meal but never a workout, and whose daily regimen would
rival that of an Olympics athlete. He turns out to be the one who gets
diagnosed with coronary artery disease while his beer drinking, burger
eating, overweight couch potato friend gets a clean bill of health.
Where’s the justice!
Or I think back to school days, to the
classmate who seldom studied, was invariably late turning in
assignments, did nothing more than glance casually over the material the
night before finals, and then aced the exam, ruining the curve for the
rest. Again, where’s the justice!
Then there’s the classic case of the one who
all his life long manages to drink deeply and liberally of all life’s
pleasures – including the forbidden ones – and then has this marvelous
photo-finish, deathbed conversion right at the end, complete with
candles, holy oils, solemn anointing and final absolution. Where’s
the justice!
That’s the question raised by today’s parable.
Where’s the justice? Most of us, I think it’s fair to say, find
ourselves in sympathy with those poor laborers of the parable who bore
the burden of the day’s sweltering heat, working their fingers to the
bone from dawn to dusk. Our sense of justice and right order is
seriously violated when those late comers, who probably whiled away
their day in the shade, snoozing or maybe even boozing, are paid as if
they, too, had worked all day long. Where’s the justice?
And, you know, I think Jesus wanted us to react
this way. I think he told this parable for precisely that reason
-- to shake us up and offend our sensibilities. I think he told
this parable to wake us up to the message we heard in today’s first
reading from Isaiah – that “God’s ways are not our ways, nor are God’s
thoughts our thoughts.” The parable of the eleventh hour laborers is a
perfect illustration of that difficult yet essential bit of biblical
wisdom.
God’s ways can be described by one word, one
deceptively simple word which we’re quite good at misunderstanding. The
word is grace. With God, all is grace. With God, there is really
no such thing as earning. Or put it this way: earning is itself God’s
gift. The generosity of God – the mysterious and almost scandalous
generosity of God – that’s what this parable is about. There is nothing
we have that is not God’s generous gift – beginning with life itself,
and including everything we have: our talents, our personalities, our
family and friends; our job, our possessions, the clothes we wear, the
food we eat, the flowers in our garden, the sun and moon and stars in
the sky. And, of course, our faith, too, and the good works we do, and
even our desire to do them. Everything is God’s gift!
And so, while we busy ourselves with careful
calculations down to the last decimal point about what we have coming to
us because of all we’ve done (the Masses we’ve attended, the homilies
we’ve endured, the sacrifices we’ve made, the donations we’ve made, God
is having a wonderful time of doing what God does best: giving freely –
almost recklessly – whenever, and wherever, and to whomever He wills.
God, it seems, doesn’t pay a lot of attention to our mathematics or to
our carefully calculated balance sheets.
Now, I don’t know about you, but something in
me likes the merit system better. It seems so much more dependable, more
predictable, more just. But when I remember my own sins and shortcomings
– and recall that I really have no way of knowing what’s going on in the
lives of others – then it’s probably best to let God and God’s grace
have the last word, after all!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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