Gospel: Matthew 20: 1-16
Today's Gospel portion is a study in contrasts between God's interaction with human beings and that of our own. In today's parable, the image of God in the person of the vineyard owner goes out to human beings in need of work and their daily needs. The vineyard owner provides for everyone the full day's need regardless of how many hours worked. Human dignity is a value in itself; it is not dependent on what we do or any notions of merit we might have. God invites us at all times and places to provide for our needs.
By contrast, we human beings create all sorts of categories of merit and worth, setting a myriad of conditions for people to earn our help and support. Here, human dignity is not a value in itself; it is conditioned based on our own biases. We set conditions we ourselves could not possibly meet in order to restrict the circle of those who need our care. While God's love and concern is expansive and dilatory, ours is narrow and restrictive.
Today we have a choice to make. We can continue to pretend that Christianity consists in occupying a pew for an hour a week and feeling good about ourselves. Or, we can imitate the way of the Lord Jesus, going out continually to affirm the dignity of every human being, providing them opportunities to have their daily needs met, reaching out to heal, liberate, and nourish people - the way of authentic Christian discipleship.
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