Spiritual Corner -- Secular Fairness and God’s Generosity

More work more pay, less work less pay, no work no pay, this is a general principle in the community, people have the right to get remuneration equivalent to the effort they contribute, and this is fairness in human terms. However, this fairness principle is not applicable in God’s salvation, because God is kind and generous.

This week’s Gospel reading is a parable about the master of the vineyard and his labourers. He hired labourers at different times of the day and agreed to pay the usual daily wage. At the end of the day, every labourer received the same wage: a denarii. This was a fair wage according to market price, but it aroused discontentment among the labourers: people who worked less received the same remuneration as those who worked more, it was not fair!

God’s salvation is similarly “unfair”, because monetary reward in this world has to be gained by labour, but in the Heavenly Kingdom, salvation is granted free, simply out of God’s generosity, people do not have to do anything to gain it. Thus, a person who in the eyes of the others is good for nothing and valueless, but in God’s eyes, he/she is still a child who deserves to be generously treated.

As such, would it not be better for us to be “the labourer hired at the 11th hour”? Work less but not paid less. Truly, there are people who “reckon” God in this way, they think they can lead a carefree, leisurely and unfettered life, and it does not matter even if they sin so long as they repent and return to God before they die. However, the question is, who can envisage the ending of one’s life, when is God’s generosity overused and His patience depleted? Thus, shouldn’t everybody prepare his/her soul at all times? The labourers hired in the first hour had worked for the
whole day, but they had also stayed in the master’s vineyard for the whole day. We all are God’s labourers, staying in His vineyard, i.e. the Church. This indeed is God’s blessing, for “One day spent in your Temple, is better than a thousand anywhere else; I would rather stand at the gate of the house of my God than live in the homes of the wicked.” (Psalms 84:11) Moreover, what awaits us after our life’s labour is the estate of the Heaven Kingdom as promised and prepared for us by God.

Yours,
Fr. Matthew Wang CDD