“Equality” is a tricky concept. Therefore, the word,
“equality”, is a favorite buzz word is devil’s favorite to trap us to distance
ourselves from God.
The modernism of the secular world has been promulgating
“equality” even though we are not inherently equal but unique. As a result many
are fighting against one another for “equality” and “fairness” based on “equality”,
dividing themselves between those who are for “equality” and those who are not.
And this has been spilled over into the Church, and thus making it divided. So this
is one way how devil, which literally means “a divider”, has been destroying
the Church, making us falsely believe as if God were an enemy to “equality”.
The Greek root word for “devil”, διαβάλλω(diabalio), means “to divide by letting
accuse and slander each other”.
Now, as you read the Gospel Reading of the
Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, Matthew 20:1-16a, and if this
makes you upset, then, you diagnose yourself how much your mind has been infected
by devil’s campaign for a division under the banner of “equality”. And you may
be at risk of apostasy or slipping into false faith, because Jesus spoke a parable
that goes against the principle of “fairness” according to “equality”.
Jesus spoke this parable (Matthew 20:1-16) in response
to Peter’s question, “We have given up
everything and followed you. What will there be for us? (Matthew 19: 27), elaborating
his answer:
Everyone
who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children
or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will
inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be
first (Matthew 19:29-30).
And Jesus begins the parable with these words:
The
kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for
his vineyard (Matthew 20:1).
This suggests that what he speaks through the parable
teaches how the principle of the Kingdom of Heaven works, in contrast to the
norm of the worldly society. And the vineyard is a symbolic metaphor of the
Kingdom.
A prototypical vineyard metaphor is found in Isaiah
5:1-7, where the vineyard is symbolic to the house of Israel. In general, this
means that the vineyard represents the community of God’s people. Thus, we can
understand the Kingdom of Heaven as the outgrowth and reflection of the
community of God’s people, whether they are Israelites or Gentiles.
The landowner, who owns and manages the vineyard, goes
out and recruited the first batch of workers at dawn, and the workers agreed
with the landowner to be paid for a day’s wage (Matthew 20:1-2). Likewise, in
later hours, the landowner recruited those who were standing idly in the market
to let them work in his vineyard, with the agreement to pay for the day’s wage
(Matthew 20:3-7).
Then, in the evening, the landowner asked his foreman
to summon all the workers in his vineyard to give them the promised payment, beginning
with the last and ending with the first (Matthew 20:8). Seeing the workers who
came in later hours receiving the same amount of payment, those who started
working first in the morning grumbled against the landowner (Matthew 20:9-11),
saying, “These last ones worked only one
hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the
heat”(Matthew 20:12).
So, how did the landowner responded to this complaint?
Did he adjust the payments based on how long they worked?
No. Instead, the landowner said to the grumpy workers:
My
friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily
wage? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same
as you? Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious
because I am generous? (Matthew 20:13-15).
And Jesus concludes this parable with these words,
reiterating what he said in Matthew 19:30:
Thus,
the last will be first, and the first will be last
(Matthew 20:16).
The bottom-line of this parable of Jesus (Matthew
20:1-16) is the principle that the last be first, and the first will be last.
Therefore, in order to understand what Jesus means by the parable, we need to
understand what Jesus intends to say with this principle of the first- the last,
the last-the first.
Jesus speaks the principle of “the last-the first, the first-the last” against our ego-driven tendency to assume a greater reward for our harder and longer works. Perhaps, this is how it works on earth. But, Jesus makes it clear that it does not work in such a way in the Kingdom. And it is not the way to enter the Kingdom.
The work according to faith is absolutely necessary to
enter the Kingdom (i.e. James 2:14-26). However, the parable warns us not to
equate the quantity of our work, even it is rooted in faith, with the amount of
rewards from God.
First of all, the landowner did not cheat. He stood
with his promise to all the workers: paying them the daily wage. And every
worker received it, beginning with the last one to work.
Think this way.
Do you think you deserve to have a greater reward from
God because your donation is greater in its mount compared to these from other
parishioners? Because you give a larger amount of money to the parish for you
work harder and longer than others to earn more money? If you think so, then,
your mind may be tainted with the heresy of “prosperity gospel”. And this suggests that your faith is
misguided because it is directed to yourself, not to God.
Psychologically, the early hour workers complained to
the landowner for receiving the “equal” pay to the workers of later hours,
because of envy.
Remember, these later hour recruits did not have a
work to do. Unless the landowner reached out to hire them, they would have
wasted a whole day. The landowner showed his compassion for them to let them
work in his vineyard and reward them greatly. But, the “fairness” principle of their
minds’ “equality”, saw this as “unjust” or “unfair”, as they complained,
prompted by covetousness hidden in their minds.
So why did these early hour workers need to complain
against the landowner’s greater compassion toward those whose needs were
greater? It is jealously, feeling that the landowner’s greater compassion “violated”
their “fairness”-based dignity.
Did the landowner really treated the early hour
workers with disrespect?
The landowner paid all worker the exactly the same
amount for a day’s labor, regardless of when they started working and how many
hours they worked for the day. It was because that was how he promised to each
worker at the time of hiring. And they agreed with this condition. So, the landowner
was true to his words.
It is the generous God, whom Jesus symbolically
represents with the landowner, who hired and provided works to those who would
otherwise have wasted their lives. As God is compassionate, right and just
(i.e. Psalm 89:15; Zechariah 7:10; Acts
10:34; Hebrews 6:10), so is the landowner to all his workers in his vineyard.
The First Reading (Isaiah 55:6-9) humbly reminds us
that our human thoughts are not as high as God’s. And this also calls us to
seek God in order to narrow the gap between God’s mindset and ours so that our
thoughts can be more like God’s. This way, we can better understand Jesus’
intention and mindset for giving the parable of the vineyard worker to
reiterate the important salvific principle:
the last will be first, and the first will be last.
As reflected in the Second Reading (Philippians
1:20c-24, 27a), we shall long to depart a life driven by human mindset in order
to attain Christ’s, even while we remain on earth. This way, we can serve God
through our works of love and compassion to one another, without falling to the
“equality trap”, which triggers our envy, festering into jealousy.
Let us ask: Whose prerogative is it: God or your
ego-driven desire for yourself? Who is to determine your heavenly reward: God
or you?
Our human mind is vulnerable to devil’s influence, and
“equality trap” is one. By tapping into our egos, he sure makes us think that
we should be treated “equally” even by God, according to our own merits. Let us
not allow “equality trap” infect our mind so that our thoughts may not be
driven by our ego but let God’s prerogative be reflected.
In regard to how God loves us, His eminence, Francis
Cardinal George of Chicago, wrote with a provocative title, “Why doesn’t God love everyone equally?”:
A
saint lives in loving intimacy with God, who creates that love in the saint by
first loving him or her. Since there are great saints and little saints, God
doesn’t love everyone equally. It doesn’t matter that we don’t know why God
loves some people more than others, but recognizing this difference reinforces
our conviction that everyone is unique and challenges any assertion that
everyone is equal, except before the abstract principles of the law. Life,
however, is not a dialogue with legal principles. In life, differences abound
in our relations to God and to other people.
….
Even
if God loves each of us differently and unequally, he still loves us all.
Thinking of sanctity, we have to ask also about our love for God. Do we all
love God equally? Obviously not; but why not? I suppose there are as many
answers as there are human creatures, but two reasons not to love God or at
least not to love him as he wants to be loved come to mind.
First
of all, perhaps our intimacy with God is stymied by fear, especially by fear of
punishment. We tend to avoid those we fear; we ignore those who might ask us
embarrassing questions, even God. This has been the pattern of human
interaction with God ever since Adam and Eve hid from him after their
disobedience in the garden. Perhaps, secondly, we resist intimacy with God
because we resent losing our autonomy, our imagined self-sufficiency. To love
another means he or she has entry into one’s life. To love God means he directs
our life in ways we sometimes don’t care to go. Better to keep our distance,
loving enough to be safe but not given to considering what God wants in our
every thought and action. What makes great saints, however, is the desire to
please God in every detail of their lives. The Catholic New
World, February 27, 2011
Likewise, in the parable, Jesus presents how God in
the landowner, loved and cared all of the workers in his vineyard. And the way
he loved them was not as “equal” as the jealous first-hour workers’ mindset
regarded as “fair”. And that became displeasing to him, as his generous love
and care became displeasing to them. And this is how “equality trap” can set
divisions and distance us from God.
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