This document summarizes a pastor's reflection on a Gospel passage about workers in a vineyard receiving equal pay regardless of how long they worked. The pastor notes that as we age, we develop "seasoned minds" and see things through filters of our experiences, unlike children with "beginner's minds." Jesus used parables to challenge these seasoned minds. The parable illustrates that God's love is a gift, not something earned, and we should not judge who God loves. We often cry "unfair" when things don't go our way, but we need to let go of pain and judgments, and accept God's unconditional love and generosity.

1. 24 September 2017 25th
Sunday in Ordinary Time Princeton, NJ
This past week I had the opportunity to travel with both of my grandsons, 5 month old Julian, and 16
month old Bodhi and having such extended time with them reminds me how fast they grow up. At
those young ages, certainly both of them are at a different level of comprehension and
communication – but each carries this large capacity to absorb new information and stimuli – be it a
person’s face, a grand cathedral or a stunning sunset. The beauty of watching them grow in these
early months and years is how they look at everything with an open mind, or what is often called a
‘Beginner’s Mind.’ There is no judgment, there is no ego that has to be fed, and there is no persona
to create or to maintain. They see things for what they are, and they move on to gaze with wonder
at the next view, the next object, the next piece of life that comes before them – all the while knowing
that they are surrounded by an abundance of unconditional love.
We on the other hand have greatly lost most sense of a Beginner’s Mind. I guess you could say we
have ‘seasoned’ minds. Seasoned by how we were raised, and by our environment, our
preferences, and our own prejudices. Therefore any new input, new sights, new sounds, new words
are all processed through our own personal filters. And I would have to imagine that this had to be
one of the biggest obstacles that Jesus faced in trying to teach his disciples about God’s abundant
love.
Scripture scholars tell us that Jesus, as far as we know, never wrote any papers or letters. So the
early Church relied heavily on the oral tradition. For stories were told and retold and passed down
from generation to generation by word of mouth. That is why today, even having written Gospels,
storytelling and careful listening is still so important. It is one reason why we proclaim the readings –
so that the words will be heard…so that the words will teach…so that the words will transform.
Many Eastern religions, knowing that they were addressing ‘seasoned’ minds, knew that for the
words and the stories to transform - the teacher had to use literary devices that would somewhat
rock your personal foundation and shatter your rose colored glasses in order to get us to literally
think “outside the box’. And, so, like other teachers of his time, Jesus taught using parables, and
when asked why, Jesus responded, “because we look and do not see and hear but do not listen or
understand.
So throughout this summer we have heard to a number of parables, as told to us by Matthew, that
have challenged each of us to think differently: the sower and the seeds; the weed and the wheat;
the birds and the mustard plant; the yeast and the leavened bread. At times I think many of us
would have preferred scripture that was more black and white allowing us to skip these somewhat
confusing parables. But Christ knew that he was not speaking to those who have Beginner’s Minds,
rather his Gospel is heard by those of us rather set in our ways where we often lack the ability to
see, to listen, to understand. For parables force to be uncomfortable, to be challenged, to step out
of what we think…in order to begin to see, to understand and to be open to change.
This weekend the Gospel gives us one of the more rattling parables where Jesus describes the
Kingdom of Heaven. In short, what we just heard was a story that would be akin to: if this half of the
church began working early in the day and the other half began working late afternoon and come
evening we would all be paid the same full day’s wages. And with that, many on this side would
most likely scream out; Unfair! In our western culture since when is it fair that a person who works
all day and a person who has worked only an hour get paid the same wage!!
In discussing this Gospel with my niece, who works within the National Labor Relations Board, she
speaks of assisting people who certainly have been discriminated against by their employers based
on a number of factors. But she also meets many people whose complaints are solely based on the
1 Deacon Jim Knipper

2. fact that they are measuring their self-worth by what others have. For if someone has more, they feel
it belittles what they have…making their vision of life to be one that is unfair.
But this Gospel is all about Jesus describing what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. This parable has
nothing to do with union contracts or affirmative action or discrimination – rather it is a clear
message to us that God’s love is a gift from God and not something that we can earn! We need to
stop applying our judgement as to who God loves and doesn’t love…for the kingdom of God is not a
matter of reward, but a matter of rejoicing in the fact that we are all invited into the reign of God, the
first as well as the last, the faithful as well as the sinner, those with Beginner’s Minds as well as
seasoned minds.
For in the parable, the landlord was generous on several occasions with different people:
With the first group, he was just. With the second group, he was just and generous. With the third
group he was just more generous. In short – the Landlord gave freely his gift of generosity and the
issue is that the laborers focused so much of their energy on the perceived unfairness of how the
wages were paid that they missed the whole lesson of describing God’s love. For it is parables like
this one that resonate with our judgmental side and take us to those places where we want to cry out
– life is not fair!!
For since we were very young and moving away from our Beginner’s Mind, we would often get
wrapped up into the ‘fairness’ issue. In our early years we ask questions such as: Why do I have to
wear my seatbelt? Why do I have to take out the garbage? Why do I have to do my homework? As
we get older, the questions dig deeper into our souls with cries more like: Why do I have cancer?
Why do I wrestle with addiction? Why has my family abandoned me? Why do I not have a job? And
most recently: why did Harvey or why did Irma hit my home, my community? These deeper
questions have no answers - and so we often say to ourselves – life is not fair.
But many times when we feel we have a fairness issue I think we need to look within ourselves…for
I believe we will find a place where we are wounded, where we hurt…where we fell discounted from
ourselves, from others and from God. Often we cannot control the events that take place in our lives
– they just happen – but we can control how we will respond.
Versus running from the pain and our own personal accountability, crying: unfair!! - we need to go to
this place and be still. We need to go back to using a Beginner’s Mind, and remove our filters for
how we judgmentally process life events. We need to stop measuring what we have by pointing to
what others have. We need to stop playing the scapegoat and recognize none of us are perfectly
clean – and accept the deeper message in this Gospel that we are all loved by a generous God who
embraces the dirty. In doing so we just may find the grace and strength to let go of that pain and
hurt and allow us to follow the example – not of the vineyard workers who complained of the
generosity of the landlord – but rather of our God whose generosity is available to us at the
beginning of the day, at the top of the day, at quitting time and throughout the night. For God is
more generous, more loving and more forgiving than we will ever comprehend. God’s love can
never be earned…for it is an ever present and unconditional gift.
2 Deacon Jim Knipper