Advent Advent III.iii

Where I ought to be. That's where I am tonight. The panic has eased, I can see. What was certain doom on Monday is now just life on Thursday. Hope won.

Again.

Tonight we read in Matthew a parable where I think Jesus is trying to say that God's generosity can feel shitty. And that the Kingdom of God is like that sometimes. Especially if you're the person who get hired first thing in the morning. If we're the one getting chosen first, looking most worthy for the work, being the most capable - if we're the successful ones at the beginning of the day, it's pretty likely we're going to feel screwed at the end of the day when all the losers gets paid just the same as us. 

Of course, sometimes we're the losers who have watched everyone else get picked. Even the other losers who we thought we were going to sit and comiserate with over drinks at the end of the day.  Gaw'dammit. Even *those* assholes got picked first and here we sit, unchosen and useless and unsure of how we'll buy breakfast tomorrow. But then at the 11th hour, we're picked. And we work. Or more like, "work". And then we're called by the boss and we're paid a day's wage and it is insane because we know we didn't earn it. But there it is - More Than Enough.

The Kingdom of God is like that.

Either way, when we don't remember that we're trying to make the earth more like the Kingdom of God and instead keep trying to make the Kingdom of God look more like earth, we end up so heartsick and sad and disappointed and broken. It just feels so shitty. But when we remember... then there is Life.

Matthew 20:1-16

New International Version (NIV)

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. ² He agreed to pay them a denarius^[a] for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

³ “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. ⁴ He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ ⁵ So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. ⁶ About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
⁷ “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
⁸ “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
⁹ “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. ¹⁰ So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. ¹¹ When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ¹² ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
¹³ “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴ Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. ¹⁵ Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
¹⁶ “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”