Sunday, February 9, 2014

1st February Trinity 2014, Generous Reward

1st February Trinity
Matthew 20: 1-16
 
The kingdom of the heavens is like a man, the master of his house, who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. Agreeing to pay them one denarius a day, he sent them out into his vineyard.

At about 9 o’clock he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace, and he said to them, “Go also into my vineyard, and I will give you whatever is right.” So they went.

He went out again at about noon and at 3 o’clock and did the same. At 5 o’clock he went out and found others standing there, and he said to them, “Why do you stand here all day idle?” They said, “Because no one has hired us.” He said, “You, too, go into the vineyard.”

And when evening came, the master of the vineyard said to his steward, “Call the workers and give them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.”

Those who had been hired at 5 o’clock came forward, and each received one denarius. Therefore, when it was the turn of those who were hired first, they expected to receive more. However, they too also received one denarius each. They took it, but they began to grumble against the master of the house. “These men who were hired last only worked one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.”
 
However, he answered one of them, saying, “Friend, I am not being unjust to you. Did you not agree with me for one denarius? Take what you have earned and go. I wish to give to the man hired last the same as I give to you. Have I not the right to do as I wish with what is mine? Or do you give me an evil look because I am generous? Thus will the last be first and the first will one day be last. “



1st February Trinity
February 9, 2014
Matthew 20:1-16

This gospel reading about the workers in the vineyard has meaning on many levels. Commonly it is read as a lesson in social justice. This story is also a metaphor for our many lives on earth.

We are all wanting to work on the earth for the Kingdom of the Heavens. Some of us arrive early in the Earth-Day and have labored long. Some of us arrive later, and some barely in time. At the end of the aeon, the end of the Earth-Day, we all receive the same reward—the ‘one denarius’ of our completed selfhood. That is what we have agreed upon with the Master. We each receive the same unique one-ness. The mistake is in thinking that we deserve more than others.


We are all laboring together. Some must labor for selfhood long and hard, with suffering; others seem to acquire it with less effort; but they too have suffered; they have suffered the meaninglessness of not being engaged in the work.  But a selfhood that operates in love is the generous reward of the Master of the kingdom of the heavens; it is the reward for those who show up for the Great Work, no matter how early or late they come to it. The poet says:

A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me -- a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic -- or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.[1]






[1] Denise Levertov, “Variation On A Theme By Rilke (The Book of Hours, Book I, Poem 1, Stanza 1)” in Breathing the Water


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