It’s a great parable in the Gospel today. And it represents my worst instincts.
At the end of a long day in the vineyard, I come back to the Lord and expect my reward, I entertain the grand illusion that God owes me something. But I am not God’s creditor. No. He has given me everything I have. He has even given me “me.”
It’s like when I pray quietly as I place the gifts of bread and wine on the altar at Mass: “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you…” Even the gifts we offer him were first his gifts to us!
God owes us nothing, but has given us everything we have out of gratuitous love. And we, in turn, owe him everything. That is the origin of the radical humility to which Jesus calls his disciples.
It’s the opposite of the arrogance of the condescending, unforgiving and self-righteous Pharisees. It is a call, rather to be understanding, forgiving, humble and without complaint.
It’s like what Saint Paul said:
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus…”
Perhaps, the the most stark representation of this radical humility is heard from Jesus’s own lips as he looks down from the Cross at those who have nailed him up there and says “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Now, if Jesus can say that to those who nailed him to a Cross, we can say the same to those who have spoken a cruel word, sent a mean text message or gossiped behind our backs.
And yet we cling to our grudges and resentments. Did you ever hear about Irish Alzheimers? It’s where you forget everything but the grudges!
But grudges are a deadly spiritual poison, that rot our souls from the inside out and enslave us to the devil. Saint John Vianney used to say “Refusing to forgive someone who has wronged you, is like taking rat poison and hoping the rat dies.”
Take the young Saint Ignatius of Loyola as an example. He had almost no money when he went to Paris to study except for a small sack of coins which his friends had given him to pay for the room he shared with two of his classmates. One day the sack of coins disappeared, as did one of his classmates who with his ill-gotten fortune went for a joyride. So, Ignatius was forced to go live at the hospital, the only place he could stay for free.
A few months later Ignatius got a letter from the young thief, who wrote that he had become sick in a town about 100 miles away and had run out of Ignatius’ money and did not know what to do.
So what did Ignatius do? He walked barefoot for days, stopping at each Church along the way to pray that God would forgive his poor classmate. Then he spent the rest of the semester nursing him back to health and then made sure he got back home.
Perhaps that’s why the founder of the Jesuits later wrote to his brothers: “Occupy yourself in beholding and bewailing your own imperfections rather than contemplating the imperfections of others.”
And maybe that’s why we pray the Lord’s Prayer so many times each day, asking God to forgive us our sins, only as much as we forgive those who sin against us.
For, at the end of the day, that is what we owe to Christ. To humbly and unconditionally love others just, as he first loved us.
