Is 55:6-9 | Ps 145 | Phil 1:20c-24, 27a | Mt 20:1-16a
Over the past few weeks, the Scriptures have reminded us of how enormous God’s love is—especially when we compare it to our own experiences of love. God’s love for us is so great, in fact, that we cannot take it all in. It’s like standing so close to a large building that all we see and experience is the brick wall before us. But when we step back for a new perspective, eventually we begin to take in more and more of the shape and design of the building.
This week we’re given another parable to help us step back, in an attempt to gain a better vantage point of the immensity of God’s love. We need this because God’s love is so vast that we might not recognize it, and we might even think it to be “unfair.” Having been treated unfairly is the complaint of the vineyard workers who had labored all day and received the same wage as those who had worked only one hour. It would seem unfair if looked at from a purely quantitative point of view, one in which the whole equals the sum of its parts. Isn’t that exactly what’s going on in the parable with the laborers? They complain that they had worked hard all day in the heat and so deserved more than the others.
To the small and calculating heart, Love’s generous and giving heart does seem unfair. Yet as the workers are shown, no one was treated unfairly, since all received the wage that they had been promised. The jarring and wonderful fact is that the gift God has promised us is not quantitative (it can’t be measured); it’s eternal. God’s love is eternal. Out of his love for us, God has promised us life without end. You can’t have more or less of something eternal—it’s just eternal.
We symbolize the eternal with a circle. A ring is used in the vowed life to show fidelity and love without end. The circle has no particular beginning and no particular end. What you might choose to be the starting point is at the same time (once you make your way around the circle) the end point as well. With the circle, we experience an example of the first being last and the last first.
Our Scriptures invite us to contemplate the infinite love of God. The problem is that, from our lower perspective, it’s difficult to see and to take in the immense eternal circle of God’s love.
In the Gospel, the workers gather to receive their day’s wage. We might envision them standing in a straight line. But if that line were big enough to stretch for 24,000 miles, that line would become a circle encompassing the whole earth!
The workers are surprised to learn that the wage promised them is not based on merit but is based on generosity and love. They are surprised to learn that they are not so much in a small and straight line but are part of a circle of God’s love that is his Kingdom.
We all know that the earth is round, but we understand why people thought it was flat. From our lower perspective, the horizon seems to be a straight, flat line. The reality is that one needs to be high above the earth to be able to see its curve—and higher still to see the full circle of the earth. Perhaps this is why Isaiah wrote, “how high are God’s ways, God’s thoughts when compared to our own.”
Perhaps, then, like the earth, to us God’s circular love looks flat and straight, even “unfair,” given how low we are when compared with God. Our Gospel invites us to reflect upon this truth: no matter what we might see or experience in life, the fact is that God’s kingdom isn’t about the straight line but about the circle that is God’s all-embracing and eternal love, where the first are last, the last are first, and love is a gift God freely gives us without exception and without end.