25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2011
Isaiah 55: 6-9
Psalm 145
Philippians 1:20-24
Matthew 10:1-16
A wonderful Internet story tells of a woman who celebrated her 100th birthday. Her three sons wished to make the occasion special and the gifts extravagant. The first son bought his mother a 15-bedroom mansion. The second son gave his mother a Rolls Royce limousine complete with a fully compensated chauffeur. The third son wanted to present his mother with something very different. Knowing that his mother was very religious, he bought her a special parrot. The highly expensive parrot had been trained by a monk over a period of 15 years to recite the entire Bible. Anyone could name a chapter and verse and the parrot would respond with the correct quotation.
The mother sent thank-you notes to each of her sons for their gifts, but she wrote something a little more special for her third son. She wrote that she was grateful for the mansion given to her by her first son, but that she only really lived in one room. She was also grateful for the Rolls Royce and the chauffeur, but at her age she rarely went anywhere. Continuing her note to her third son she said, “You always know how to give the most practical and useful kind of gifts. That was the most delicious chicken I’ve ever eaten!”
Jesus tells a story that was common for first-century Palestinian employers, like the man in today’s story, to go to the marketplace to hire workers. It was where jobseekers always gathered. Nevertheless, the employer in Jesus’ story breaks the mold in a few key ways. On the same day he repeatedly visits the marketplace to hire workers, instead of just once. He goes there at 6 a.m., 9 a.m., 12 noon, 3 p.m., and again at 5 p.m. The workers all agreed on their pay for the day. When he paid the workers at the end of the day, those who worked the longest expected more pay. But the man said, “I paid you what we agreed. If I want to be generous, I can.”
Of all the stories of Jesus, today’s is the most unusual and the most uncomfortable. From our human point of view, there appears to be an injustice in paying workers who had worked only one hour the same amount as workers who had worked an entire day. From a certain point of view, especially in Jesus’ day, it was unjust to compensate workers differently. In our country the law demands equal pay for equal work. If all the workers in the story received the same amount, those who worked only one hour were paid a vastly higher hourly wage than those who had worked all day.
The pay for the first workers is an example of retributive justice, meaning that a person is paid according to the work done. Since the first workers had done more work than the late arrivals, by their reckoning they had a right to expect more pay. God’s justice, however, is very different. It works in an entirely different way, a way that makes us uncomfortable.
According to our sense of retributive justice, we believe not only that pay should be equal to the work performed, but that in our judicial system punishment should be equal to the crime. For us, “retributive” does not mean that the punishment should fit the crime. What we think of is “retribution,” punishment that carries a sense of revenge. We not only want to “get even,” we also want something more: we want revenge. With this attitude, unfortunately, it becomes almost impossible to grasp the meaning of God’s love.
We are concerned with our rights far more than with our generosity. We are concerned far more with our rights than with our opportunities to serve. We prefer punishment to rehabilitation. We are happier with having a criminal be severely punished rather than with doing something to help prevent that criminal from offending again. We prefer not speaking to a person again rather than attempting reconciliation. We prefer movies where the star forgets the law and gets his or her own revenge.
The man hanging on the cross next to Jesus was a real criminal. By his own admission, the criminal deserved his fate. He had lived his life in such a way that even he recognized that being put to death was just. With his recognition of Jesus as Lord at the last minute, his reward in heaven became the same as the greatest saint that ever lived. Are we prepared to experience this in heaven? Are we prepared to see our worst enemy standing next to us before the throne of God when we have tried hard for a longer time to live good lives?
If an lawyer or any of us reads the fine print in the hiring of the various workers in today’s Bible story, we will find that the first-hired and longest-laboring workers agreed to work for the usual daily wage. Yet, rather than accepting what was agreed upon, they expected more.
What does it mean to be fair? God is much more fair to us than we can imagine. In family life, there are times when children may think parents are unfair. Parents have many hard decisions to make, and children learn when they are included as much as possible in the
decision making.
God is not like human beings who persist in holding a grudge against those who wrong them. Rather, God always remains near to those who call upon him. What God offers each and every one of us is glory in His Kingdom. Will this be enough for us? Will we be satisfied? Is the usual daily wage acceptable to us? God is generous in all things, even in offering forgiveness. Will this bother us, or do we take comfort knowing God’s generosity and mercy? Jesus said “The last shall
be first.” We are all workers, working our way into heaven at the end of our life.
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