Matthew 20:1-16
The Judgements that we are make are quite enormous. The judgements we make are quite arrogant, simple minded, biased, sweeping, unloving, unwarranted, petty and certainly not of God.
- even if we proclaim that they are. I can look at today or look back in history for any array of proclamations, wars and social constrictions that proclaim ( in the name of God ) that we are saved and you are not.
Today there is a a battle between good and evil as we see it. The rabid and judgemental ( in their own right ) who are fundamentalist, hateful Muslims. Their goal is to cleanse the earth of infidels and proclaim and install an ancient, slanted and myopic view of their religion. Their judgement is that they are God's chosen ones and their view is supreme.
In the United States there are similar religious fundamentalists ( Christian ) who judge and proclaim that theirs is a Christian country and that everyone else is not saved, going to hell in a hand basket and risking the fires of hell.
The Roman church quite ironically viewed indigenous Americans and Africans as less than human and lacking souls. That was the judgement and view. In fairness, not all Christians or Catholics believed that but it was the hierarchical view and judgement, the view that dictates policy and official beliefs. The saved were those in the Church that were of a white, European and of a male persuasion. What is terribly ironic in that alone is that Jesus himself would more resemble a Arab that anyone else. Jesus would be short, olive skinned and dark not the blue eye blond hunk Jesus become in Hollywood.
Back in the good old US of A, the current struggle is for marriage equality. The judgement of some is that the Bible tells them so, marriage equality just ain't so. Not unlike the Muslim fanatic using the Koran, the Bible is used out of context, misread, misinterpreted, selectively read and used to support a narrow minded vision of marriage. In fact, it would be revisionist history, perhaps not at it's worst but revisionist none the less. The judgements are legion and certainly has little to to do with Godliness and the love we are called to witness to.
This seems like a tirade I suppose. What kind of reaction did some of the workers in today's passage have when the landowner ( How appropriate, God is the landowner ) gave equal wages to everyone?
It seems like an incredibly perfect metaphor for life. We are all made in God's image and asked to be the best we can be. We are called to do the most with what we have been given. We are to use our opportunities to love the best we can. Then and only then, GOD will make the judgements about who is worthy and who is not. Perhaps some of those vineyard workers worked lazily even for the few hours they were asked to work. That would be reason for the workers to rant, wouldn't it? Except that even in that scenario the workers are deciding who put out the 'right' amount of effort. GOD is the only one to judge. When we judge, we look at life with a jaundiced eye and can never rise on our best loving day to the love, compassion and healing of God our father. Nope, we simply cannot judge.
So are we to be mindless zombies, working and not judging? No, certainly not. The work we 'toil' at is not a job. The work we toil at is love. If we love as best we can, I am confident that we we be paid in full. Never mind about anyone else, you will be paid in full.
‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same.And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’
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