Gospel for September 24, 2023

“And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner,  saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ” (Matthew 20:11-12, World English Bible)

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 20:1-16
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

One of the central themes of the teaching of Jesus is the Kingdom of Heaven.  He examines this concept of the reign of God from various perspectives — as a present reality and as a future hope.  The Kingdom is both a now and a not yet in terms of its consummation.

In the parable he tells in Matthew 20:1-16, the Kingdom of Heaven is described in agricultural terms during the time of harvest when the owner of the vineyard needs extra workers to complete the ingathering.  There is work to be done, to be sure — but the emphasis here is the master’s sovereignty over his own household, and the theme of grace.

Jesus knows the economic and agricultural context of his time very well.  This was a time when day-labor was a common practice.  Men would wait early in the morning near a city gate or in the marketplace of a village hoping to be hired for the day.  They would work all day, and would receive their day’s wages at the end of the day — a denarius was a day’s wage at that time. For men with families and mouths to feed, this was an important “employment bureau.”

The master of the household himself goes out to recruit workers, early in the morning.  Time in the ancient world was reckoned a little differently, since there was no standardized Coordinated Universal Time established by highly precise atomic clocks, as there is today.  The Jews had adapted to the Roman method of telling time. The day was divided into twelve hours of daylight and four watches in the night — the first hour was the first hour after sunrise, beginning roughly at 6 a.m. by our reckoning.  The third hour would have been about 9 a.m.; the sixth hour about noon; the ninth hour about 3 p.m.; and the eleventh hour about 5 p.m.

[Of course, the change of seasons would have altered this somewhat, but they still measured the first hour from sunrise.  An interesting side note — when monasteries developed later in the history of Christianity, they used a similar measure of time: e.g., Prime was six a.m., Terce was 9 a.m., Sext was 12 p.m., None was 3 p.m.  These were the Latin names for “first, third, sixth, and ninth.”  Six p.m. was Vespers, Compline at 9 p.m., ending with Midnight prayers.  This was important because the monastic community paused every three hours for prayer, based on Psalm 119:164 — Seven times a day, I praise you, because of your righteous ordinances.]

In the scenario of the parable, there was more than enough work to be done.  The harvest was plentiful.  So the master returns to the marketplace to hire additional workers after his initial hires four more times, at 9 a.m., 12 noon, 3 p.m., and 5 p.m.

One little interesting detail — when the master asks at 5 p.m. why the men are standing around idle, they answer:

Because no one has hired us.

We can only speculate about this.  Were they not hired because they had a bad work record and no employer wanted them?  Here we see the first hint of the master’s grace — he hires them, though the day is nearly gone:

You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is right.

At five o’clock during harvest time (which is some time between August and October in the Northern hemisphere, based on how ripened the grapes were), there couldn’t have been much daylight left.  But they go to work and join the other workers in the vineyards.

When the sun sets, the work for the day is done.  It is time to settle accounts with the workers, so the master orders his manager:

Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.

This is interesting, because he pays the last workers first.  We can imagine that there was a high sense of anticipation for all the workers.  Getting paid for one’s hard work is usually a very welcome event. And when the workers who had been harvesting all day long began to hear that the workers who just recently showed up were all getting paid a full denarius, that must have heightened their excitement!  Surely they would get paid far more for about twelve hours of work, compared to those who only worked about an hour.  But their expectations weren’t met:

When the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise each received a denarius. When they received it, they murmured against the master of the household, saying, ‘These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’

They see the master’s wages as an injustice.  They receive no more than those who just showed up.  But the master reminds them that he has not broken his contract with them.  They agreed to work for a denarius, and that’s what he gave them!  What irked them is the comparison between themselves and the “five o’clockers” who came late.

The master’s point is that he is in control of his treasury.  And he kept his promise to the workers who had worked all day:

But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius?  Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you.  Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’

The point is that the resentment of the workers is unfair.  They received what they were promised.  The master showed his generosity by giving the same wages to those who came late.  Instead of seeing him as unjust, they needed to adjust their perception — he hadn’t broken his agreement to them, he had actually been extra-generous to the late comers!

Jesus concludes with a somewhat cryptic interpretation of his message:

 So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen.

These sentences deserve their own commentary.  Jesus teaches that conventional expectations are turned on their head in the Kingdom of God — those who have little are given much, and those who have much find it taken away; the tax collectors and sinners will get into the Kingdom of God before the “righteous” Pharisees.

Jesus has used this phrase about the first and last prior to this parable.  A rich young man came to Jesus and asked what he must do to be saved.  Jesus tells him to sell everything, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus.  When the rich man turns away sadly, Jesus tells the disciples how difficult it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven — it is so difficult for them to leave the security of their possessions for the high adventure and uncertainty of the life of faith.  When the disciples express astonishment at this, and Peter points out that they have forsaken their businesses and their families for Jesus, he promises that they will receive much, much more than they have sacrificed (Matthew 19:16-29).  And then Jesus says for the first time:

 But many will be last who are first; and first who are last (Matthew 19:30).

In today’s lectionary reading, Jesus may certainly have been thinking about the Pharisees, who are comfortable in their religious security blanket of the law; and also about the rich man who finds his security in his wealth.  When compared with this parable of the workers in the vineyard, we are reminded that the first are those who had established their seniority — “we were here first!”  But God’s grace begins with those who were last, who were left out in the initial hiring, and gives them the same opportunity as those who were there at the beginning.

And then there is the difficult saying:

For many are called, but few are chosen.

Does this sentence support the notion of God’s election that only a few are elect by God to salvation?  If so, why are many called?  Again, I return to the story of the rich young man.  Jesus calls him to sell, give, and follow him.  But the choice rests with the rich young man.  He isn’t chosen because he doesn’t choose to follow Jesus — even though Jesus is inviting him to the greatest adventure in the world, worth more than any fortune!

How many more did Jesus choose who refused him? For example, Jesus expresses his dismay when his call is refused by his beloved Jerusalem:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! (Matthew 22:37).

The analogy should be clear — Jesus wished to choose Jerusalem (to gather her children together), but Jerusalem refused his invitation.  They are not chosen because they have refused to be gathered under his wings.

APPLY:  

Aren’t we more like the murmuring workers than we care to admit?  We tend to focus more on our “rights” and “entitlement” rather than God’s gracious generosity and our opportunity to serve him.  We wonder why others who have come after us get the same benefits that we get, when we’ve worked longer hours.

How shallow we can be!  When we begin to question why someone else has received as much grace and mercy as we, we should be thankful for the abundant generosity of God, instead of grumbling that we deserve more.  After all, the fact that we were chosen at the beginning of the day is in itself a kind of grace that exceeds what we deserve!

We shouldn’t compare ourselves to others, but instead should give thanks that God has chosen us at all.

RESPOND: 

I have learned that one of the chief causes of discontent is comparison.  In fact, comparison is what leads to covetousness, jealousy, envy, and, of course, grumbling and resentment.

We see an example of this with the workers who grumble about those “johnny come latelys” that receive the same wages.  But the point is that all of us who receive “wages” from God are receiving grace.  How much grace we receive is up to the giver, not the recipient.  We are to be grateful in any event.

There is also another spiritual lesson here — our expectations set us up for disappointment.  If we begin with gratitude for what we have received and give thanks for what we are to receive, then all is a gift.

As someone once said to me in passing:

Every day is a holiday; every meal is a feast.

I didn’t find out until later that this is a cliche from the Marine Corps — a group of people who know what it is like to work hard, and leave no one behind.  And no one needs to be left behind, unless they choose to be.

Lord, thank you for your grace, that none of us deserve.  Remove any resentment or sense of superiority that I may have toward others, and may I be supremely grateful that I can work for you at the first hour or at the last. Amen.

PHOTOS:
"It's Not Fair"

Gospel for September 20, 2020

“And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner,  saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ” (Matthew 20:11-12, World English Bible)

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 20:1-16
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

One of the central themes of the teaching of Jesus is the Kingdom of Heaven.  He examines this concept of the reign of God from various perspectives — as a present reality and as a future hope.  The Kingdom is both a now and a not yet in terms of its consummation.

In the parable he tells in Matthew 20:1-16, the Kingdom of Heaven is described in agricultural terms during the time of harvest when the owner of the vineyard needs extra workers to complete the ingathering.  There is work to be done, to be sure — but the emphasis here is the master’s sovereignty over his own household, and the theme of grace.

Jesus knows the economic and agricultural context of his time very well.  This was a time when day-labor was a common practice.  Men would wait early in the morning near a city gate or in the marketplace of a village hoping to be hired for the day.  They would work all day, and would receive their day’s wages at the end of the day — a denarius was a day’s wage at that time. For men with families and mouths to feed, this was an important “employment bureau.”

The master of the household himself goes out to recruit workers, early in the morning.  Time in the ancient world was reckoned a little differently, since there was no standardized Coordinated Universal Time established by highly precise atomic clocks, as there is today.  The Jews had adapted to the Roman method of telling time. The day was divided into twelve hours of daylight and four watches in the night — the first hour was the first hour after sunrise, beginning roughly at 6 a.m. by our reckoning.  The third hour would have been about 9 a.m.; the sixth hour about noon; the  ninth hour about 3 p.m.; and the eleventh hour about 5 p.m.

[Of course, the change of seasons would have altered this somewhat, but they still measured the first hour from sunrise.  An interesting side note — when monasteries developed later in the history of Christianity, they used a similar measure of time: e.g., Prime was six a.m., Terce was 9 a.m., Sext was 12 p.m., None was 3 p.m.  These were the Latin names for “first, third, sixth,  and ninth.”  Six p.m. was Vespers, Compline at 9 p.m., ending with Midnight prayers.  This was important because the monastic community paused every three hours for prayer, based on Psalm 119: 164 — Seven times a day, I praise you, because of your righteous ordinances.]

In the scenario of the parable, there was more than enough work to be done.  The harvest was plentiful.  So the master returns to the marketplace to hire additional workers after his initial hires four more times, at 9 a.m., 12 noon, 3 p.m., and 5 p.m.

One little interesting detail — when the master asks at 5 p.m. why the men are standing around idle, they answer:

Because no one has hired us.

We can only speculate about this.  Were they not hired because they had a bad work record and no employer wanted them?  Here we see the first hint of the master’s grace — he hires them, though the day is nearly gone:

You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is right.

At five o’clock during harvest time (which is some time between August and October in the Northern hemisphere, based on how ripened the grapes were), there couldn’t have been much daylight left.  But they go to work and join the other workers in the vineyards.

When the sun sets, the work for the day is done.  It is time to settle accounts with the workers, so the master orders his manager:

Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.

This is interesting, because he pays the last workers  first.  We can imagine that there was a high sense of anticipation for all the workers.  Getting paid for one’s hard work is usually a very welcome event. And when the workers who had been harvesting all day long began to hear that the workers who just recently showed up were all getting paid a full denarius, that must have heightened their excitement!  Surely they would get paid far more for about twelve hours of work, compared to those who only worked about an hour.  But their expectations weren’t met:

When the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise each received a denarius. When they received it, they murmured against the master of the household, saying, ‘These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’

They see the master’s wages as an injustice.  They receive no more than those who just showed up.  But the master reminds them that he has not broken his contract with them.  They agreed to work for a denarius, and that’s what he gave them!  What irked them is the comparison between themselves and the “five o’clockers” who came late.

The master’s point is that he is in control of his treasury.  And he kept his promise to the workers who had worked all day:

But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius?  Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you.  Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’

The point is that the resentment of the workers is unfair.  They received what they were promised.  The master showed his generosity by giving the same wages to those who came late.  Instead of seeing him as unjust, they needed to adjust their perception — he hadn’t broken his agreement to them, he had actually been extra-generous to the late comers!

Jesus concludes with a somewhat cryptic interpretation of his message:

 So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen.

These sentences deserve their own commentary.  Jesus teaches that conventional expectations are turned on their head in the Kingdom of God — those who have little are given much, and those who have much find it taken away; the tax collectors and sinners will get into the Kingdom of God before the “righteous” Pharisees.

Jesus has used this phrase about the first and last prior to this parable.  A rich young man came to Jesus and asked what he must do to be saved.  Jesus tells him to sell everything, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus.  When the rich man turns away sadly, Jesus tells the disciples how difficult it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven — it is so difficult for them to leave the security of their possessions for the high adventure and uncertainty of the life of faith.  When the disciples express astonishment at this, and Peter points out that they have forsaken their businesses and their families for Jesus, he promises that they will receive much, much more than they have sacrificed (Matthew 19:16-29).  And then Jesus says for the first time:

 But many will be last who are first; and first who are last (Matthew 19:30).

In today’s lectionary reading, Jesus may certainly have been thinking about the Pharisees, who are comfortable in their religious security blanket of the law; and also about the rich man who finds his security in his wealth.  When compared with this parable of the workers in the vineyard, we are reminded that the first are those who had established their seniority — “we were here first!”  But God’s grace begins with those who were last, who were left out in the initial hiring, and gives them the same opportunity as those who were there at the beginning.

And then there is the difficult saying:

For many are called, but few are chosen.

Does this sentence support the notion of God’s election that only a few are elect by God to salvation?  If so, why are many called?  Again, I return to the story of the rich young man.  Jesus calls him to sell, give, and follow him.  But the choice rests with the rich young man.  He isn’t chosen because he doesn’t choose to follow Jesus — even though Jesus is inviting him to the greatest adventure in the world, worth more than any fortune!

How many more did Jesus choose who refused him? For example,  Jesus expresses his dismay when his call is refused by his beloved Jerusalem:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! (Matthew 22:37).

The analogy should be clear — Jesus wished to choose Jerusalem (to gather her children together),  but Jerusalem refused his invitation.  They are not chosen because they have refused to be gathered under his wings.

APPLY:  

Aren’t we more like the murmuring workers than we care to admit?  We tend to focus more on our “rights” and “entitlement” rather than God’s gracious generosity and our opportunity to serve him.  We wonder why others who have come after us get the same benefits that we get, when we’ve worked longer hours.

How shallow we can be!  When we begin to question why someone else has received as much grace and mercy as we, we should be thankful for the abundant generosity of God, instead of grumbling that we deserve more.  After all, the fact that we were chosen at the beginning of the day is in itself a kind of grace that exceeds what we deserve!

We shouldn’t compare ourselves to others, but instead should give thanks that God has chosen us at all.

RESPOND: 

I have learned that one of the chief causes of discontent is comparison.  In fact, comparison is what leads to covetousness, jealousy, envy, and, of course, grumbling and resentment.

We see an example of this with the workers who grumble about those “johnny come latelys” that receive the same wages.  But the point is that all of us who receive “wages” from God are receiving grace.  How much grace we receive is up to the giver, not the recipient.  We are to be grateful in any event.

There is also another spiritual lesson here — our expectations set us up for disappointment.  If we begin with gratitude for what we have received and give thanks for what we are to receive, then all is a gift.

As someone once said to me in passing:

Every day is a holiday; every meal is a feast.

I didn’t find out until later that this is a cliche from the Marine Corps — a group of people who know what it is like to work hard, and leave no one behind.  And no one needs to be left behind, unless they choose to be.

Lord, thank you for your grace, that none of us deserve.  Remove any resentment or sense of superiority that I may have toward others, and may I  be supremely grateful that I can work for you at the first hour or at the last. Amen.

PHOTOS:
"It's Not Fair"

Gospel for September 24, 2017

“And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner,  saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ” (Matthew 20:11-12, World English Bible)

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

Matthew 20:1-16

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

One of the central themes of the teaching of Jesus is the Kingdom of Heaven.  He examines this concept of the reign of God from various perspectives — as a present reality and as a future hope.  The Kingdom is both a now and a not yet in terms of its consummation.

In the parable he tells in Matthew 20:1-16, the Kingdom of Heaven is described in agricultural terms during the time of harvest when the owner of the vineyard needs extra workers to complete the ingathering.  There is work to be done, to be sure — but the emphasis here is the master’s sovereignty over his own household, and the theme of grace.

Jesus knows the economic and agricultural context of his time very well.  This was a time when day-labor was a common practice.  Men would wait early in the morning near a city gate or in the marketplace of a village hoping to be hired for the day.  They would work all day, and would receive their day’s wages at the end of the day — a denarius was a day’s wage at that time. For men with families and mouths to feed, this was an important “employment bureau.”

The master of the household himself goes out to recruit workers, early in the morning.  Time in the ancient world was reckoned a little differently, since there was no standardized Coordinated Universal Time established by highly precise atomic clocks, as there is today.  The Jews had adapted to the Roman method of telling time. The day was divided into twelve hours of daylight and four watches in the night — the first hour was the first hour after sunrise, beginning roughly at 6 a.m. by our reckoning.  The third hour would have been about 9 a.m.; the sixth hour about noon; the  ninth hour about 3 p.m.; and the eleventh hour about 5 p.m.

[Of course, the change of seasons would have altered this somewhat, but they still measured the first hour from sunrise.  An interesting side note — when monasteries developed later in the history of Christianity, they used a similar measure of time: e.g., Prime was six a.m., Terce was 9 a.m., Sext was 12 p.m., None was 3 p.m.  These were the Latin names for “first, third, sixth,  and ninth.”  Six p.m. was Vespers, Compline at 9 p.m., ending with Midnight prayers.  This was important because the monastic community paused every three hours for prayer, based on Psalm 119: 164 — Seven times a day, I praise you, because of your righteous ordinances.]

In the scenario of the parable, there was more than enough work to be done.  The harvest was plentiful.  So the master returns to the marketplace to hire additional workers after his initial hires four more times, at 9 a.m., 12 noon, 3 p.m., and 5 p.m.

One little interesting detail — when the master asks at 5 p.m. why the men are standing around idle, they answer:

Because no one has hired us.

We can only speculate about this.  Were they not hired because they had a bad work record and no employer wanted them?  Here we see the first hint of the master’s grace — he hires them, though the day is nearly gone:

You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is right.

At five o’clock during harvest time (which is some time between August and October in the Northern hemisphere, based on how ripened the grapes were), there couldn’t have been much daylight left.  But they go to work and join the other workers in the vineyards.

When the sun sets, the work for the day is done.  It is time to settle accounts with the workers, so the master orders his manager:

Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.

This is interesting, because he pays the last workers  first.  We can imagine that there was a high sense of anticipation for all the workers.  Getting paid for one’s hard work is usually a very welcome event. And when the workers who had been harvesting all day long began to hear that the workers who just recently showed up were all getting paid a full denarius, that must have heightened their excitement!  Surely they would get paid far more for about twelve hours of work, compared to those who only worked about an hour.  But their expectations weren’t met:

When the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise each received a denarius. When they received it, they murmured against the master of the household, saying, ‘These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’

They see the master’s wages as an injustice.  They receive no more than those who just showed up.  But the master reminds them that he has not broken his contract with them.  They agreed to work for a denarius, and that’s what he gave them!  What irked them is the comparison between themselves and the “five o’clockers” who came late.

The master’s point is that he is in control of his treasury.  And he kept his promise to the workers who had worked all day:

But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius?  Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you.  Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’

The point is that the resentment of the workers is unfair.  They received what they were promised.  The master showed his generosity by giving the same wages to those who came late.  Instead of seeing him as unjust, they needed to adjust their perception — he hadn’t broken his agreement to them, he had actually been extra-generous to the late comers!

Jesus concludes with a somewhat cryptic interpretation of his message:

 So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen.

These sentences deserve their own commentary.  Jesus teaches that conventional expectations are turned on their head in the Kingdom of God — those who have little are given much, and those who have much find it taken away; the tax collectors and sinners will get into the Kingdom of God before the “righteous” Pharisees.

Jesus has used this phrase about the first and last prior to this parable.  A rich young man came to Jesus and asked what he must do to be saved.  Jesus tells him to sell everything, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus.  When the rich man turns away sadly, Jesus tells the disciples how difficult it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven — it is so difficult for them to leave the security of their possessions for the high adventure and uncertainty of the life of faith.  When the disciples express astonishment at this, and Peter points out that they have forsaken their businesses and their families for Jesus, he promises that they will receive much, much more than they have sacrificed (Matthew 19:16-29).  And then Jesus says for the first time:

 But many will be last who are first; and first who are last (Matthew 19:30).

In today’s lectionary reading, Jesus may certainly have been thinking about the Pharisees, who are comfortable in their religious security blanket of the law; and also about the rich man who finds his security in his wealth.  When compared with this parable of the workers in the vineyard, we are reminded that the first are those who had established their seniority — “we were here first!”  But God’s grace begins with those who were last, who were left out in the initial hiring, and gives them the same opportunity as those who were there at the beginning.

And then there is the difficult saying:

For many are called, but few are chosen.

Does this sentence support the notion of God’s election that only a few are elect by God to salvation?  If so, why are many called?  Again, I return to the story of the rich young man.  Jesus calls him to sell, give, and follow him.  But the choice rests with the rich young man.  He isn’t chosen because he doesn’t choose to follow Jesus — even though Jesus is inviting him to the greatest adventure in the world, worth more than any fortune!

How many more did Jesus choose who refused him? For example,  Jesus expresses his dismay when his call is refused by his beloved Jerusalem:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! (Matthew 22:37).

The analogy should be clear — Jesus wished to choose Jerusalem (to gather her children together),  but Jerusalem refused his invitation.  They are not chosen because they have refused to be gathered under his wings.

APPLY:  

Aren’t we more like the murmuring workers than we care to admit?  We tend to focus more on our “rights” and “entitlement” rather than God’s gracious generosity and our opportunity to serve him.  We wonder why others who have come after us get the same benefits that we get, when we’ve worked longer hours.

How shallow we can be!  When we begin to question why someone else has received as much grace and mercy as we, we should be thankful for the abundant generosity of God, instead of grumbling that we deserve more.  After all, the fact that we were chosen at the beginning of the day is in itself a kind of grace that exceeds what we deserve!

We shouldn’t compare ourselves to others, but instead should give thanks that God has chosen us at all.

RESPOND: 

I have learned that one of the chief causes of discontent is comparison.  In fact, comparison is what leads to covetousness, jealousy, envy, and, of course, grumbling and resentment.

We see an example of this with the workers who grumble about those “johnny come latelys” that receive the same wages.  But the point is that all of us who receive “wages” from God are receiving grace.  How much grace we receive is up to the giver, not the recipient.  We are to be grateful in any event.

There is also another spiritual lesson here — our expectations set us up for disappointment.  If we begin with gratitude for what we have received and give thanks for what we are to receive, then all is a gift.

As someone once said to me in passing:

Every day is a holiday; every meal is a feast.

I didn’t find out until later that this is a cliche from the Marine Corps — a group of people who know what it is like to work hard, and leave no one behind.  And no one needs be left behind, unless they choose to be.

Lord, thank you for your grace, that none of us deserve.  Remove any resentment or sense of superiority that I may have toward others, and may I  be supremely grateful that I can work for you at the first hour or at the last. Amen.

PHOTOS:
"It's Not Fair" uses this photo:
"angry mob!" by amy.kay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.