Fr Christopher Dillon OSB
What does justice look like in God’s eyes? And when is it fair? The prophet Isaiah tells us, today, that God is “rich in forgiving”. And then Jesus, who we are told is God in action, in this Gospel passage that we have just heard, poses the question, “Why be envious because I” – God, that is – “am generous?” Well how would you feel, after twelve hours work in the blazing sun, if the fellow next to you, after only one hour, gets the same wage as you? Is this God’s justice? Is it fair that God be so generous to him?
Every so often, we are faced with the enormous truth that God is different, so different. God is absolutely OTHER. Again, Isaiah has God say of himself, “As the heavens are high above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts, my ways above your ways”. For us, God is mystery, utterly beyond our comprehension, which is an essential part of God being God. It is true that Jesus represents God, speaks for God, acts for God. Indeed, in the Gospel of John, Jesus is quoted as saying, “to have seen me is to have seen the Father”; and we
think we have some grasp of what Jesus is about. Yet Jesus too is quite beyond us. Perhaps this is what we are to take from today’s scripture readings, this mysterious otherness of God.
So much of the time, when we think of God at all, we are tempted to think of God as a HIM, as some kind of magnificent chum, to whom we turn for help, when we need it. And so many Gospel stories seem to invite this view of Jesus and so of God. But, no; God is absolutely OTHER…absolutely good, absolutely just, absolutely kind, absolutely humble, absolutely generous, absolutely powerful, absolutely loving. At the same time, God is father to us and mother and sister and brother; and to a degree which is infinite.
It may help our understanding of the tone of this passage if we consider that St Matthew’s Gospel, from which this story is taken, was designed for an audience of Jewish Christians who thought of themselves as members of God’s Chosen People; and many of them will have regarded non-Jewish converts to Christianity as late-comers from the outside world of the un-chosen foreigners. This parable, then, would be explaining to them that all followers of Jesus Christ are on a par, no matter where we come from, no matter who we are; all are equally chosen and infinitely loved by the one God. That takes some
generosity of understanding and some careful consideration, if you are a Jew born and bred. And for us who have been adopted into the family of the Chosen there is a great deal to consider and to understand when you begin to realise that God expects us, chosen as we are now, to develop the same loving concern as God has for all those around us.
The plan is that you and I, taught by Jesus Christ and following him,
increasingly reach out to those around us, as though each of us is Christ. That, we are gradually to understand, is what following Christ, being Christian, actually involves. It is no picnic; in fact, it is very hard work. We heard, last Sunday, about the servant who was forgiven his enormous debt by his master and how we, as fellow servants, must do the same for one another. Today’s story is turning that screw just a bit. The whole point of our lives as Christians is to become increasingly like God in our thinking and behaviour, whatever about his thoughts and ways being above us. We are, in effect, to be the kindness of God to the person next to us. And this, Jesus is telling us, is how we are to set about it, by being increasingly forgiving of one another and increasingly generous to one another. So now you know. It is over to you and me to get on with it.