Matthew 20: 1 -
16
Jesus
said, “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the
morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. When he had agreed with the laborers
for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out
about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; and to
those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will
give you.’ And so they went. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth
hour, and did the same thing. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found
others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here
idle all day long?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to
them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ When evening came, the owner of the
vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages,
beginning with the last group to the first.’ When those hired about the
eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius. When those hired first came,
they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a
denarius. When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, saying, ‘These
last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have
borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’ But he answered and said
to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for
a denarius? Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the
same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own?
Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ So the last shall be first, and the first last.”
*
If
God really loves us unconditionally, then Hell should be an empty place. But if
God is truly just, then everyone should ultimately get what’s coming to him or
her. So which is it?
God’s
love and forgiveness for us has no limits — it’s unconditional. He loves us
when we do good, and when we do ‘not so good’. He loves the kind and the mean,
the generous and the stingy, the saint and the bigot. Jesus calls us to love
and forgive others as God loves us — without strings.
The
above Gospel is a parable about God’s generosity and how much he really does
love us; how he never shuts off that love, never gives up on us; how he
patiently stands in the wings as we go through the hours of our life journey,
waiting for the moment when we realize he’s out there — the moment that we turn
to him and love him in return; how, with God, it’s never too late. But this
Gospel is one of those tough Gospels, like the one about the prodigal son, or
about forgiving your neighbor 70 times seven times.
If
we tend to be self righteous, it can offend our sense of fairness and justice.
How does the worker who punched in five minutes before closing get the same pay
as the one who labored all day long? How does the son who squandered away his
father’s money merit a welcome home party while the son who added to his
father’s wealth is out working and sweating in the field? How does the thief who
was crucified next to Jesus get promised a one-way ticket to paradise after
living a life of crime?
The
underlying question here is: how can God be both the just God revealed by Moses
in the Old Testament, and at the same time the unconditionally loving and
forgiving God revealed by Jesus in these parables? This dichotomy is the
mystery of redemption.
Jesus
is telling us that God’s justice is not our justice. He is using these parables
to teach us a great lesson: that God accepts us back from wherever we’ve been;
that he never gives up on us; that with God, it’s never too late to go home.
If
there really is a geographical place called Hell, I think it must be hard to
get there. A person would have to know and feel in the depths of his or her
being how very much they were loved by God, and then choose to turn their back
and walk away from that love for all eternity. I can’t imagine too many people
doing that.
God
passionately pursues us through the hours of our lives. He waits and waits for
the moment that we recognize his love and choose to love him in return.
Maybe
if we don’t get it right during the work day (the time that we are alive), God
meets us at the moment of our death — five minutes before closing, so to speak
— and makes us one more offer to still turn to him — an offer we can’t refuse.
Maybe
heaven is filled with the kinds of people with whom we wouldn’t want to
associate. Perhaps when we sit down to our first meal in heaven, we will be
stunned to see who else is around the table.
Perhaps
God’s mercy and generosity extends even beyond the tax collectors and the
prostitutes, to the bigots, the drug dealers and the worse villains in history.
Wouldn’t that be a shocker! It
would even be worse than seeing those last minute workers in the vineyard
getting a full day’s pay. But even God couldn’t possibly be that loving, that
forgiving, that merciful — or could he? And could he really expect you and me
to be?
There
is a movie I saw several years ago that deals with this mystery, the mystery of
redemption, in a powerful way. It’s called The
Bad Lieutenant and it stars Harvey Keitel in the title role. Though the
message of this film is forgiveness and redemption, it contains language and
scenes that could be offensive. So, I caution the reader that both the edited R
version and the uncut NC-17 version must be viewed with discretion.
Harvey
Keitel plays this depraved New York City police Lieutenant. He’s on the take;
uses and sells the drugs he confiscates on the street; cheats on his wife; and
abuses the teenage girls he stops for traffic violations — all in all, a
thoroughly corrupt and decadent person. He’s a heavy gambler, and into the loan
sharks for $120,000 for bets he lost on the World Series. The first hour of the
film is used to develop his character as a truly unredeemable human being.
Eventually
he is called in to investigate a brutal crime: a young nun is viciously beaten
and raped by two teenage hoodlums while she prays alone in church. He presses
the nun to reveal the identity of the teenagers, but she will not do so. She
knows them well from the local high school, but has only compassion for them,
for the poverty and hopelessness in which they were raised. She unconditionally
forgives and prays for them, and refuses to assist in their arrest.
It
is through this horrible crime that the bad lieutenant finds redemption. Moved by the unconditional love and
forgiveness exhibited by the nun, and facing death himself at the hands of the
loan sharks whom he has no money to pay, he drinks himself into a stupor and
passes out alone in the church.
When
he awakes, and reality sets in, he breaks down weeping on the floor in front of
the altar. It is here that he encounters Christ, and begs for forgiveness for
the bad things he’s done in his life. He is comforted by Jesus, and
unconditionally forgiven. He is redeemed; and through his redemption he is able
to understand and to forgive the teenagers.
Redemption,
like so much of the reality of God, is a mystery. But it’s God’s mystery, not
ours.
How
can God be both loving and just? The answer is that he doesn’t have to be. Love
is of God; justice is of the world. If we loved each other the way God calls us
to, there would be no need for justice. And if we could feel in the depths of
our being, how totally and unconditionally God loves us, there would be no need
for anyone to ask for our forgiveness.
In
the above Gospel, Jesus gives us some really good news — with God, it’s never
too late to go home.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
Readers
of this blog might enjoy these books by Deacon Lex. Both are available on
Amazon.com:
Just
to Follow My Friend: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life
Synchronicity
as the Work of the Holy Spirit: Jungian Insights for Spiritual Direction and
Pastoral Ministry
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