Memorial of Saint Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church

Lectionary: 421

He said to one of them in reply,
'My friend, I am not cheating you.
Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?
Take what is yours and go.
What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?
Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?
Are you envious because I am generous?'
Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last."

This is one of my favorite passages about the generosity and mercy of God. The Lord's parable flies in the face of the American sense of justice and fairness; but, in the same few sentences, also validates our sense of entitlement to what we own: "Am I not free to do as I wish with my money?" Who can argue with that? 

I also notice that, in the face of an angry mob, the landowner explains his reasoning to only one of them. That is clearly Saint Luke's literary device to explain the parable. But it also reminds me that God owes me nothing. And certainly not an explanation for the ways of God. Who knows the mind of God? Who can advise him?

Saint Paul said it well: 

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord

or who has been his counselor?”

“Or who has given him anything

that he may be repaid?”

For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)

The teaching also reinforces Saint Paul's insistence on faith. Because no one can challenge God's right to do as he wills, and go where he pleases, and bless whom he chooses, when and where he wants to. It follows that we are left waiting on God's mercy. As the poet of Paradise Lost said of his blindness, "They also serve who only stand and wait." 

We have no more right to God's mercy than the birds of the air or the flowers in the field. But, as the same poet said, we owe Him praise nonetheless, for his Goodness, his Mercy, and his sovereign majesty: 

                                                       God doth not need

   Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best

   Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

   And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest...

Saint Francis, having abandoned the luxury and security of his wealthy family, having renounced every effort to provide for his own physical and personal needs, after walking away from 20,000 years of accumulated human infrastructure, lived among the wild animals. For food he did manual labor but would accept no money. He stored nothing for tomorrow. When he was desperate, he found shelter in caves and abandoned barns. 

When Francis looked at the birds, (as the Lord commanded us to do) he saw how the Lord provided for them. God gave him not only sufficient food, warmth, clothing, and shelter; he also provided cold in the winter, heat in the summer, and bug bites. Not to mention hunger, illness, and abandonment. He accepted everything in the Spirit of Jesus who also had no home or visible means of support. His willingness to suffer with Jesus all the trials, discomfort, and disappointment of any human being, gave him an intense understanding and sympathy for Jesus. He could say with Job, "We accept good things from the Lord; and should we not accept bad?" 

The challenge of the wealthy landowner refreshes our sense of God's infinite goodness, our reliance on God, and our faith in Him.