16th Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 20A(Ex. 16.2-15; Ps. 105.1-6, 37-45; Phil. 1.21-30; Mt. 20.1-16)6/27/2018 Often, very often, we use these two words interchangeably, jealousy and envy, when some kind of covetous feeling arises. In fact, there’s a difference between jealousy and envy. Psychologically speaking, jealousy is when we worry that something or someone we think we possess will be taken away. I bet we all have experienced this feeling when someone becomes a threat, that he or she will take what we have. On the other hand, envy is wanting what someone else has. I want to take away what the other person has.
Jealousy is more about protecting yourself from having something taken away from you, whereas envy is taking away what the other person has. Both jealousy and envy can be harmful. In order to protect what we have from the other or to take away what the other has, we might even use violence. The parable of the laborers in the vineyard which we heard today might provoke feelings of envy and jealousy. There’s something deeply unfair about this. I don’t know about you, but as I’m reflecting on today’s gospel reading, I discover my own feelings of envy, jealousy, and anger as well as a sense of unfairness in regard to the landowner’s absurd generosity. I resonate so much more with those who came early and worked all day long. How about you? This is a matter of justice. Those laborers who got picked early in the morning do have a legitimate reason to protest against the landowner’s decision to pay everyone equally. We can easily imagine how these early comers would feel about the landowner. There’s anger at the landowner who is being unjust, unfair, and ridiculously generous and also anger at those who came late and got paid the same as they did. There’s jealousy of those who came late and took away a part of the amount that the early comers were supposed to get paid. And there’s envy that these early comers deserve to take away a portion of the pay that the latecomers received. It is not too difficult to be in their boat of anger, jealousy, and envy. We know all these emotions are judged as negative that we don’t want to feel. In a way, it causes a kind of emotional pain that reminds us we’re lacking something. For now, let’s not try to get rid of these feelings. Let’s not judge ourselves that we shouldn’t have these negative feelings, but consider them as helpful information that tells us something deeper about ourselves, particularly about how we understand God’s grace. As much as this parable of the laborers provokes a feeling of anger, envy, and jealousy, it also questions and challenges our understanding of God’s grace. How do we perceive God’s grace? Do we think that receiving God’s grace is the same as earning our wages? Is God’s grace something that we have to work hard to gain? Do we believe that we should get more of it if we do more? To all these questions I raise about God’s grace, the local religious authorities such as the Pharisees, scribes, rabbis, and chief priests would say “Yes” without any doubt. They’re like the laborers who bore “the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” If today’s parable is about how everyone should be paid and how a corporation should pay their employees, it is a great failure. From our perspective, the landowner is not a good business person. The vineyard won’t last long. Sooner or later it will go out of business if he keeps doing that. Rather, this parable is about God’s grace abundantly, equally, and unconditionally given to all. It shocks and disturbs us to reflect on how we think of God’s grace. Like the local religious leaders in Jesus’s time, we might unconsciously believe that if we pray harder, we should become wealthier, stay out of trouble, never get sick. If we come to church and participate more in church missions and volunteer services, nothing bad should happen to us. We might believe that doing more religious or pious things can earn us more of God’s grace than those heathens or slackers! Well, Jesus tells us a completely different message. We don’t and can't earn God’s grace on our own. God gives everyone God’s grace freely, unconditionally, and equally. This is God’s work initiated by God alone. We never took part of it. We didn't do anything to gain it but are invited to receive. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying doing something righteous is useless. It just becomes useless when you think that's the way to earn God’s grace. I speculate that one of the reasons why we, or speaking for myself, I can so easily, without any difficulty, join the early comers’ feelings of anger, jealousy, envy, and resentment is because I somehow believe I can earn more of God’s grace and as a priest I might deserve to receive more. Also, there’s this sin of mutual exclusion. My gain is your loss. Your gain is my loss. There’s a German word for this, “schadenfreude,” meaning that we experience pleasure or enjoyment from the failures, troubles, or humiliation of others. If I hold on to this belief that I have to work hard to get God’s grace, I shall be the last! And God’s unconditional grace comes to a person like me as God’s judgment, as God’s unfair verdict. The image of the disgruntled laborers in the parable of the laborers overlaps the image of the older son in the parable of the prodigal son. There’s this feast of God’s grace pouring out on the world, yet I cannot joyfully celebrate it with others. Can you celebrate this feast of God’s grace with others without resentment, envy, and jealousy? Although we may be able to understand intellectually what God’s grace is, we might have some hard time to accept it if our hearts don't feel it. Without the help of the Holy Spirit, we cannot accept God's grace with gratitude. Let’s not forget that God’s grace is nothing but the divine love shown in Jesus Christ. We are socially adapted and culturally educated to try so hard to be accepted, recognized, and loved by others. What God’s grace does to us, however, is that we are simply loved by God, not because of what we have achieved, not based on our looks, incomes, or pious activities. God loves you for who you are as a human being created in his image. However and how much you feel broken and insecure about yourself, God’s grace embraces you and assures you over and over again that you matter to God. Imagine what would’ve happened to the landowner in the parable. I have this wild ending that the laborers who worked all day long would’ve captured the landowner and murdered him. That's what happened to Jesus who embodied God’s grace. God’s grace led him to the cross. It shows us how the world that only serves itself could not accept God’s love as shown in Jesus. And God’s grace raised him from the dead to tell us that God’s love never dies. God’s grace is always available to us, and God desires us to desire and accept that grace. Every Sunday at the Eucharist, we kneel and open our palms. As we are on our knees, we let go of our power, but solely depend on the power of God. As we open our palms, we humbly receive God’s grace. We don’t pick and choose the host. We receive the love incarnate in our open palms. Because God loves us, God gives his whole being to us in Jesus Christ. We don’t try to work so hard to gain more. God’s grace is already given to us abundantly in the body and blood of Christ. How do we respond to this love of God? We respond to God’s love by loving and desiring Christ and others more and more. It’s like “I also want others to experience God’s love that transforms me!” I’d like to share the prayer of St. Aelred of Rievaulx, the 12th century English monk. He expresses his way of responding to God’s grace as follows: “I pray you, Lord, let but a drop of your surpassing sweetness fall upon my soul, that by it the bread of my bitterness may become sweet. In experiencing a drop of this, may I have a foretaste of what to desire, what to long for, what to sigh for here on my pilgrimage. In my hunger let me have a foretaste, in my thirst let me drink. For those who eat you will still hunger, and those who drink you will still thirst. Yet they shall be filled when your glory appears and when will be manifest the abundance of your sweetness, which you reserve for those who fear you, and disclose only to those who love you.” (Aelred of Rievaulx, The Way of Friendship, ed. M. Basil Pennington, p. 17) Our desire to love Christ deepens as we start seeing others, especially those who we think came late for work in the vineyard in the eyes of the landowner, in the eyes of God who looks at them and us all with the long loving look. May God fill all of us here gathered at St. Bartholomew’s with God’s grace that is poured upon the world unconditionally and equally. May God’s grace flow through us to our neighborhoods. May we also humbly receive God’s grace flowing through our neighbors. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
|