SEPTEMBER 20, 2020
We often say that people don’t deserve welfare or food if they don’t work. We can be stingy in judging what others deserve and need.
Jesus has a new way. We deserve our rights even when we do the least. The denarius was a day’s wage, enough to live on. There are certain rights we all have – to have food and a job are two of them. These people wanted to work. We are rewarded by God for who we are, not for what we do.
Jesus’ vision is that everyone deserves to earn enough to live on.
To believe in a God who is an unconditional Friend, is to have the most liberating experience that one could imagine. On the contrary, to live in the presence of an avenging and threatening God could change us into the most dangerous and self-destructive neurotics. We need to learn not to confuse God with our own narrow and stingy plans. We sometimes wish to distort God’s unfathomable goodness.
That’s the way the kingdom of God grows. It grows within us in thanks and sharing. That’s what we do at every Mass. Success for Jesus is not the amount we do, but that we do things with a full heart.
Recall the picture of a dole queue or a provision centre and pray.
Lord, I ask – make my heart like yours.
