From the Deacon’s Desk 9/20/2020

Dear Friends:

Today we hear from the Gospel of Matthew 20:1-16a. It’s one of those challenging Gospels where Jesus turns everything upside down. It’s the story of workers who gather in the center of the town hoping to get a day’s work. It was common practice at the time of Jesus for workers without regular jobs to procure temporary employment. The practice continues today.

The landowner (God) goes out every few hours and hires whoever is waiting for work (us) in his vineyard. Toward the end of the day when there is only an hour left, the landowner still hires everyone who wants to work. Those who worked one hour still gets the same pay as those who worked in the hot sun all day. Needless to say, the ones who worked all day were a little disgruntled. They felt they should get more.  So he asks them “are you envious because I am generous? Thus, the last will be first and the first will be last.”

I guess all of us at one time or another may have a problem with what happened in the story today. It doesn’t seem fair does it? On the other hand, if we agreed to a specific reward why would we be envious if someone else did better than we did? We certainly wouldn’t be envious if someone didn’t do as well as we did, would we? Ah! That’s the question isn’t it?

I think we all know by now that many of the stories in the Gospels and throughout the Bible are exaggerations. Perhaps this was not as bad a scenario as it says. But the point is: if we truly want to be charitable, we should be happy that all got some kind of the wage that day. Isn’t that what’s important?

Peace and All Good!

Deacon Jim

Please pray every day for the financial well-being of our Country and our world. The virus is taking it’s toll on the many things beyond the norms. Pray that we will not experience a recession or depression at any time in the future.