God's Generosity

“Why be envious because I am generous?”

The parable of the labourers in the vineyard in Matthew 20:1-16, today's gospel reading, is confounding. “Why be envious because I am generous?” The position of the landowner is illogical. But that is God precisely: that is grace, that is mercy itself. God breaks His own rules, and He is inconsistent. He is not predictable. He is beyond our understanding and rationality. God's ways are not our ways. His gratuitous generosity, who can beat?

So our talk of better Christians with a deeper faith, or old generation Christians, or new generation Christians, or early disciples, or later disciples, or better Church, or true religion, etc., have no sense or basis. All are equal in God's eyes.

It is also true that we as Christians often settle for quick, easy, and glib answers. We remain within our comfort zones, and tend to think we have God in our pockets. We even think that we understand God perfectly, and we become the know-all guys of God and religion, and we become the official spokespersons for God Himself. Isn't that too much?

We have even made the Eucharist into a worthiness contest and something that we could supposedly understand with our mind—both a terrible waste of time. Though we publicly say, “Lord, I am not worthy” in the Mass, but immediately then walk up as if we are “worthy”—and even claim that others are not worthy. (We even have extensive rules on who is worthy to receive communion, and who is not.) Isn't this a “performative contradiction” right in the heart of the liturgy?

All are equal in God's eyes. We are one, we are equal in dignity, we all eat of the same divine food, and Jesus is still and always “eating with sinners” (for which people hated him). But we his followers, we don't want to eat with sinners and the unworthy—because we have our rules! How strange and how comical is our attitude! We have even separated ourselves from our Master: Jesus can do all those things, but how can we? Let us remember Jesus wanted to introduce a new social order, a new world order. This new world order is based on the experience of a God who is experienced personally. This is based on God who is Love itself, who is Mercy itself. Jesus was not proclaiming the reform of the world; he was proclaiming the end of the world. He is not presenting a new programme for the same old human society. He refuses to accept society on its own terms; he refuses to offer it allegiance as it is.

Don't mistake me: we are not called to love God or the world. There is no “either / or.” Rather, we are called to love God in the world. We love God by loving the world. We love God through and with the world. But this turns out to be a kenotic, a sacrificial love. And this world turns out to be God's world, not ours! A new world order! A new world, re-created! We cannot love God unless we love God’s world.