The parable, of course, isn't teaching about the economics of employment. It is quite clearly focussed on the grace of God that reaches those lost in sin, the marginalised and excluded, and makes them, from the start, full members of the kingdom of God, fully accepted children in his family - loved, cherished, honoured.
We rejoice with those who rejoice in the salvation that God has lavished upon them. We glory in the One whose presence and blessing transforms them, with increasing likeness, into the image of his Son.
Yet the response in the parable of those who had worked all day raises an important challenge for us: when they grumble, the Master asks them a question that goes straight to our hearts, too: "Are you envious because I am generous?"
We are not immune to such a spirit. It's a question that can be asked of churches and ministries that see other congregations thriving, perhaps having only recently begun. The temptation is to explain away the growth as somehow fake and founded on dubious methods. It's a question that faces us when we see others blessed in the very things we ourselves lack and have longed for. Why them and not us? Where have we gone wrong? What have they done right?
The challenge is real and it has repercussions that go to the very heart of how we relate to the Lord. When we struggle over the joy of others, it can lead to our view of God becoming tainted and the basis of our relationship with him distorted. In the parable, envy is wedded to expectation on the grounds of merit and the generosity of the Master is deemed incongruous.
The pain and distress of trials, as well as our desire for vindication that affirms our worth before others, can lead us to demand we be treated according to what we feel we deserve from God. Others have received, why haven't we? Haven't we, after all, "borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day"? Haven't we suffered long enough to have earned a reprieve and a reward? Such thoughts disclose a spirit of slavery, not sonship.
Discarding grace for merit is the road to disappointment, frustration and bitterness. However hard we might sometimes find it to rejoice in others' blessings, we need to ask God for his help to do so. Because the alternative is grievous; the arid joylessness of demanding we be paid our 'wages' will never lift. Life - eternal life, in all its expansive fulness - is entirely and truly the gift of God.
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Lord of the cross of shame,
set my cold heart aflame
with love for you, my Saviour and my Master;
who on that lonely day
bore all my sins away,
and saved me from the judgement and disaster.
Lord of the empty tomb,
born of a virgin's womb,
triumphant over death, its power defeated;
how gladly now I sing
your praise, my risen King,
and worship you, in heaven's splendour seated.
Lord of my life today,
teach me to live and pray
as one who knows the joy of sins forgiven;
so may I ever be,
now and eternally,
one with my fellow-citizens in heaven.
(Michael Saward, 1932-2015)
