YOU EARNED IT! -- OR NOT?

Earlier this week we heard at mass the parable of the vinedressers (Mt 20:1-16). You  may remember the story: The owner hires workers for his vineyard; some start early in the morning and work all day, while others are hire at various later time during the day, so that some work only an hour or so. The problem, you remember comes when the workers who were hired first for the agreed-upon wage of one denarius, see that the men who had worked only one hour were being paid one denarius and so they, who had worked all day, expected to receive a lot more. But they are upset when they are paid the denarius that they had agreed upon. 

Our sense of justice finds this parable a little difficult to understand. It doesn't seem fair that the master should pay all the workers the same wage at the end of the day. One takeaway from this story is that God's ways are mysterious, and that lots of times it seems that God is being unfair The only counter to this accusation is the belief that "God's ways are  not our ways, nor are our ways his." We have to walk by faith and not by human sight.

But as I meditated on this parable the other day, I found myself pushing back against the idea of thinking of myself as a laborer working for a "negotiated wage" (the original word in Greek is "misthos," "the amount offered for services or paid for work done.")  in order to "earn my salvation." My faith tells me that I have been saved by grace, by God's gratuitous gift. I have to use  my free will to accept and cooperate with the Gift, but in the end it's all gift.

Earlier in this same gospel there is a story where the idea of earning a payment comes up:

When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. (Matt 6:5-6)

What seems revealing is that in this passage, when Jesus says three times that the hypocrites have "already received their reward/payment" the gospel writer uses the word "misthos" that we saw above in the story of the vinedressers who are paid their just misthos.

But, interestingly, what Jesus promises to those who pray in secret and give alms or do works of charity in secret, is not that the Father will pay them a misthos, but that the Father will "reward" them -- but now it's a new verb, based on the word "to give." What the latter will receive is a gift from the Lord, not something they've "earned."

It may be that I'm making too much of this difference between the two Greek verbs: between the hypocrites' "earning a wage" and the virtuous ones' "being given a gift," but Matthew must have had a reason for making that distinction all three times. In any case, it made for a good meditation, so I'm sharing it with you.

Lord, we ask that we may always cooperate with your grace so that one day we may share fully in your divine Presence. Amen.