Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the landowner who hires people at various times of the day and then pays everyone the same. Now consider the fact that these workers represent us and the landowner God. From our perspective, there is plenty of injustice, plenty of inexplicable inequity, plenty of infuriating unfairness.
But God is that Being who knows everything about everything. Our knowledge is comparatively miniscule in both depth and breadth. What we can see of God’s canvas is laughably small. And yet we make bold to declare certain things just or unjust.
Recall the story of the gangster who called for a priest as he lay dying on the street in New York. The priest declared him forgiven, and there was a flood of protest: How could this be fair to all of those who had been good and devout Christians all of their lives?
My ways are not your ways, says the Lord. Let us have the humility to allow God to distribute his graces as he sees fit. And let us ask “why” not in a spirit of rebellion but in a spirit of awe and expectation.