How do we respond

      I was at a party once with several of the people at my table were reminiscing about their younger days when they would go out drinking, getting snockered and driving themselves home. I wholeheartedly advise against such irresponsible behaviour. It's just plain wrong on so many levels. The point is, they survived and apparently the ones at my table didn't kill anyone else either. Lucky bastards.

      There are others though, and we've heard about it in the news that got pulled over on nights like that and got arrested for drunk driving. Still a few others we know from the news survived only after they shockingly (sarcasm) got into an incredibly horrible wreck that took the lives of some poor innocent driving soberly on their own way home. Some of course simply wrap themselves around a roadside tree while driving drunk, killing themselves. Where is the justice here?  Some people drive drunk apparently without impugn while others pay a seemingly inordinately large price, perhaps even their own death for a that single 'miscalculation' to drive.

        Life isn't fair. It certainly doesn't follow a road map we might draw. We get wrapped up in our own quite worldly notions of what is fair and what isn't. In politics we argue over who gets what. "They" are getting more than me, "they" don't deserve it or even earn it. Everyone should be equal? Perhaps. The point is that we have rather strict self made and man made rules that we judge life and people by. We can easily judge one person a POS while giving great leeway to others for similar offenses.  I am constantly amazed at the hypocrisy in politics today. What the far right, "pro-life", "family value" politicians have embraced or dismiss in the President of the United States is mind numbingly amazing. 

No life is not fair at all.

       Perhaps we are using the wrong rule book. Perhaps we are using the wrong measuring device.  I always say that God loves the next chap at least as much as God loves me. I am certainly not here to judge anyone, save myself, and I am not sure God wants us to judge ourselves either so much as to do some serious self reflection and serious introspection.

     The point of today's passage for me is simply that we should not necessarily be judging by our own standards however logical or justified we think they are. Why is one person rich and one man poor? Is that fair? There is time to delve into all those kinds of issues if we wish. I think the bigger question is how we respond. Does the rich person use their wealth for good, to help their brothers ans sisters? Does the poor person use that as an excuse for not trying to love? We all have things in our lives that can be excuses for not loving or not moving forward and outward to others.

     Life is not necessarily fair. How do we respond? Do we have empathy? 

Matthew 20:1-16

‘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.’