Word to the Wise
Wednesday, August 18, 2010 - Wednesday in the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
[Ezekiel 34:1-11 and Matthew 20:1-6]The Kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard.........
This parable always elicits an interesting response that should alert us to our cultural biases! The gut reaction that I often perceive is: IT'S NOT FAIR! The guys who worked the longest should be paid the most, no matter what they agreed to at the beginning!!!!! Hmmmmm! Looks like God might be the subject of a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board! Are we saying that God should discriminate, or that God should treat everyone equally? Oh, the discussions could go on and on and would be shaped by our cultural notions of what is fair, and then we decide that God should obey those notions. The Kingdom of heaven is not a commodity to be earned or bought. It is a matter of each of us doing what he or she can do to share the good news. If we start talking about "brownie points" to be earned or rewards to be given, we make the mistake of "commodifying" a reality that simply cannot be treated that way! If we act like children who are supersensitive to any appearance of inequality, we turn God into a parent or school teacher. The challenge is to trust God and not compare ourselves with our neighbors. We can be sure of this: if our neighbor is being treated unfairly by our standards, the chances are that the culprit is not God. AMEN
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