The
first reading today speaks of the Hebrew people’s insistence on having it their
own way (as usual). They wanted a king to rule over them so that
they could appear to have equal status with the “other nations, kings and
kingdoms” who were their neighbors. And so God did appoint for them a king:
Abimelech – but from the very start – with the parable like story that follows
in the Book of Judges – he tells them
that this and any future king would not be the true type of a king who would
one day rule them: the spiritual King descended from the house of David: Jesus
Christ the King of the Universe. It would be good for them to keep this in
mind. It may be a kind of foreshadowing, but one that need not have happened.
What the people insist on, and what God actually designs are two different
things in this regard.
In
the gospel passage Jesus presents again a logic that is
unearthly: it goes against what lower human nature would expect. The ones who work in the vineyard for only
an hour will not only be paid the same as those who have worked all day; but
they will be paid first. For men this seems unfair; for God it is perfectly
reasonable: God can do whatever he wants: he’s God; those who “come lately” to
embracing Jesus as the Way, the Truth and
the Life – will get the same fullness of distribution of graces on payment
day, Judgment Day, as those who came along at any other time in the long
procession of salvation history. All will
be full; therefore, timing is nothing in this case: for in eternity there
will be no time anyway.
May
we cling to God’s living and effective word – Jesus – and
thus be able to discern as he does, judge as he does, love as he loves – both
when it seems reasonable and when it doesn’t!
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