One of the great inventions of modern Western society is the trade union. For too long and sadly still in parts of the world those with money, land and privilege shamelessly exploited those who had none. When after a long struggle, workers with no power except their own labour managed to stand together and force the issue with the rich and strong, it was a great day for freedom and justice. On Sunday in our Church we heard the reading of the workers in the Vineyard from Matthew 20:1-16. In this parable the landowner hires workers for the day and pays them a just wage. However, there is upset when the landowner hires workers for one hour and pays them the same as the workers who have been toiling all day. It is easy to view the landowner as being unjust in paying all the workers the same, instead maybe we should view the landowner as being just and generous!
We find ourselves returning to university in very different circumstances that we would normally expect, or we are coming to university for the first time and feel that we are missing out on some of all of the expected university experience. It is easy to feel unfairly treated or hard done by. This time of pandemic, of the COVID-19 virus is not your fault, nor is it the university’s. We are where we are and do need to make the best of it. It has changed what we expected but it has also given us the possibility of new opportunities.
In our situation no one is cheated, we are just trying to cope with what we have been given. In the reading no one was cheated but a few workers receive abundantly from the landowner just as we receive from God more than what is merely justifiable or due. God, like the landowner, is radically just and abundantly generous.
The reading reminds us that although God owes us nothing, God offers abundantly and equally. We are occasionally tempted to think that our own actions deserve more reward, more of God's abundant mercy, than the actions of others. But God's generosity cannot be quantified or partitioned into different amounts for different people. When we think that way, we are trying to relate to God on our terms rather than to accept God's radically different ways. God is with us, ‘in all things’, as we begin this new academic year maybe we can think more of what gifts we have been given rather than the changes we face and trust that merciful God will provide.
Sr Dr Una Coogan, IBVM, Catholic Chaplain.