We seem to develop very early in life a highly attuned ability to perceive fairness and equality. We are quick to notice even the slightest difference in the way we have been treated compared to others – and we’re particularly quick to complain when we feel we have been cheated.
“She got a bigger piece of cake than me! His curfew was later than mine! You never let me . . . well, fill in the blank.
And let’s be honest, we really don’t grow out of this tendency as we age. Even as adults, at work, in family life, and even in the life of faith, we’re constantly evaluating what others have been given and comparing ourselves to them.
I think that at the root of this sensitivity to fairness is the fact that we’re desperate to be loved and, because of the Fall, we make the mistake of defining our personal worth in comparison with others.
That you got more than me, or something different than me, must mean that I am not as special or as well loved as you are. Now parents know that this simply isn’t true: you love each of your children the same. And yet we don’t often apply that lesson to our relationship with God the Father.
And so, today’s Gospel definitely offends our sense of fairness.
At the end of the workday, when those who had barely even worked up a sweat are given a full day’s wage, we assume along with the other workers that they will receive more. They have, after-all, “borne the day’s burden and the heat.”
But then, their eager anticipation turns to quickly into grumbling when they see that they’re merely getting what they had agreed to work for. And sure enough it’s not only an economic complaint that they make; their sense of self has also been offended: “you have made them equal to us,” they complain.
The Landowner, who is clearly God the Father in this parable, makes the point that justice has been maintained. Even if it does not seem “fair” to give all the workers the same amount of pay, it is certainly just since the workers received exactly what they had been contracted for when the work began.
And it’s precisely within the context of justice that the true mercy and the generosity of the Landowner can be revealed. The workers’ sense of “fairness” only serves to limit the Landowner’s freedom and exclude the possibility of his generosity.
Since we are told that this is a parable about the Kingdom, and the workers in the story receive payment at the end of the day, we can be sure that we are meant to reflect on the end of time, and on the nature and character of God’s judgment.
When you and I think about God’s judgment we sometimes waffle between two different perceptions. On the one hand we believe in divine justice, which requires that the good be adequately rewarded and the evil appropriately punished. But on the other hand, we believe and trust in the mercy of God that we all know we need, and hope will be extended to us.
If we really thought enough about it, we’d find these two things difficult to reconcile. And indeed today’s parable reveals that “God’s judgment does not conform to the standards of human justice.” In the words of the prophet Isaiah from our first reading: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.”
This is not to say that God’s judgment is capricious, that God is like the Greek and Roman gods of old, rewarding and punishing humanity on a whim. Rather it is to say that God’s judgment is incomprehensible to us because it is a perfect justice tempered with a perfect mercy that we are simply incapable of on our own.
As the Psalmist proclaims: “Mercy and faithfulness have met; justice and peace have embraced” (Ps. 85). In God’s judgment, as in the Landowner’s payment, justice and generosity are both at work in a way that we, as weak humans, find difficult to understand, accept or emulate.
So if this is the best we can say about God’s judgment, justice and mercy – that we really can’t understand them all that well – where does that leave us? If mercy and justice meet, does this mean that it doesn’t matter how we live our lives? Can we sit around and enjoy ourselves, do what we please – get all of the world’s goods and pleasures and then settle accounts at the end?
No, it does not. In today’s first reading Isaiah says: “let the scoundrel forsake his way and the wicked his thoughts.” And in the second reading Paul exhorts us to “conduct ourselves in a way worthy of the Gospel of Christ.”
What today’s Gospel shows us is that our childish demands for “fairness” are not worthy of the Good News of Jesus Christ. “If we persist in our demand for fairness, for strict retribution, we only call judgment on ourselves. We become frustrated with God for being merciful with others, and become bitter toward those we think have received more than they deserve.”
Instead, we must allow Divine Mercy to work in us, to abolish our pettiness and replace it with generosity of heart. By examining our consciences daily, by going often to Sacramental Reconciliation, by apologizing to others when we are wrong, we can, little by little, learn to emulate the generosity and mercy that we ourselves have received from God.
Finally, we can conduct ourselves in a way worthy of the Gospel if we focus on the fact that the call to work in God’s vineyard is a privilege, not a burden. Whether we are invited at the start of the day, and are asked to sacrifice or suffer as part of our work; or if we are called late in the day and find the work joyful and easy; either way the generosity of God is manifest in that He invites us to work His vineyard in the first place!
We are invited to help Him sow, tend and reap His harvest of justice – and that itself is a gift more generous than any of us could ever have deserved.
If we really thought enough about it, we’d find these two things difficult to reconcile. And indeed today’s parable reveals that “God’s judgment does not conform to the standards of human justice.” In the words of the prophet Isaiah from our first reading: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.”
This is not to say that God’s judgment is capricious, that God is like the Greek and Roman gods of old, rewarding and punishing humanity on a whim. Rather it is to say that God’s judgment is incomprehensible to us because it is a perfect justice tempered with a perfect mercy that we are simply incapable of on our own.
As the Psalmist proclaims: “Mercy and faithfulness have met; justice and peace have embraced” (Ps. 85). In God’s judgment, as in the Landowner’s payment, justice and generosity are both at work in a way that we, as weak humans, find difficult to understand, accept or emulate.
So if this is the best we can say about God’s judgment, justice and mercy – that we really can’t understand them all that well – where does that leave us? If mercy and justice meet, does this mean that it doesn’t matter how we live our lives? Can we sit around and enjoy ourselves, do what we please – get all of the world’s goods and pleasures and then settle accounts at the end?
No, it does not. In today’s first reading Isaiah says: “let the scoundrel forsake his way and the wicked his thoughts.” And in the second reading Paul exhorts us to “conduct ourselves in a way worthy of the Gospel of Christ.”
What today’s Gospel shows us is that our childish demands for “fairness” are not worthy of the Good News of Jesus Christ. “If we persist in our demand for fairness, for strict retribution, we only call judgment on ourselves. We become frustrated with God for being merciful with others, and become bitter toward those we think have received more than they deserve.”
Instead, we must allow Divine Mercy to work in us, to abolish our pettiness and replace it with generosity of heart. By examining our consciences daily, by going often to Sacramental Reconciliation, by apologizing to others when we are wrong, we can, little by little, learn to emulate the generosity and mercy that we ourselves have received from God.
Finally, we can conduct ourselves in a way worthy of the Gospel if we focus on the fact that the call to work in God’s vineyard is a privilege, not a burden. Whether we are invited at the start of the day, and are asked to sacrifice or suffer as part of our work; or if we are called late in the day and find the work joyful and easy; either way the generosity of God is manifest in that He invites us to work His vineyard in the first place!
We are invited to help Him sow, tend and reap His harvest of justice – and that itself is a gift more generous than any of us could ever have deserved.
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