Imagine that you have been working hard for a company for 30 years. You started with a reasonable pay, but now as you’ve done well, you have gained a great salary.
You are proud of your accomplishment. With your salary, you’ve been able to buy a nice home, raise a stable family, and accrue funds for your retirement. This is the “way it’s done,” and you mastered it.
One day, the company decides, it needs to hire a new round of employees to fill the gaps of those retiring. They hire young men and women, fresh out of college, with bright hopes but little experience and no amassed loyalty to the company. To your surprise and dismay, the company decides to pay them your current salary.
Would you celebrate that? Would you be genuinely happy for the young newbies?
Or would you indignantly stare in disbelief, feel suddenly disvalued, and mourn the company’s unappreciation of your long-term efforts?
If you honestly replied, “the latter,” you responded pretty much like most human beings would. As much as we hate to admit it, we draw invisible lines in the sand between us and our neighbors, and we measure our life in portions with an invisible yard stick. That’s the way we operate in our human-driven world.
Anything other than what we deem as “fair” treatment feels like a royal smack in the face of everything we’ve learned to believe in. Hard work. Success. Achievement. Long-term goals. Profit and gain. Winning.
Let’s face it. We are a people driven by challenge, not by gifts. And we measure our worth largely not by who we are and our relationships, but by what we have and what we’ve gained.
How does this square with this past weekend’s Gospel (Matthew 20:1-16) where Jesus tells us a Parable about how the owner pays everyone the same salary, no matter how long they worked? Do YOU think God is being fair here?
Thanks to Andrea Piacquadio for the photo.
GOD BESTOWS HIS BLESSINGS WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION!!
GOD SAYS: I WILL RESCUE THOSE WHO LOVE ME. I WILL PROTECT THOSE WHO TRUST ME!!
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