Justice and Mercy

Wednesday,
August 21, 2019
20th Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Jdg 9: 6-15
Gospel: Mt 20:1-16
Jesus said to his disciples, “This story throws light on the kingdom of heaven. A landowner went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay the workers a salary of a silver coin for the day, and sent them to his vineyard.
“He went out again at about nine in the morning, and seeing others idle in the square, he said to them: ‘You, too, go to my vineyard and I will pay you what is just.’ So they went.
“The owner went out at midday and again at three in the afternoon, and he did the same. Finally he went out at the last working hour – it was the eleventh – and he saw others standing there. So he said to them: ‘Why do you stay idle the whole day?’ They answered: ‘Because no one has hired us.’ The master said: ‘Go and work in my vine yard.’
“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager: ‘Call the workers and pay them their wage, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ Those who had come to work at the eleventh hour turned up and were given a denarius each (a silver coin). When it was the turn of the first, they thought they would receive more. But they, too, received a denarius each. So, on receiving it, they began to grumble against the landowner.
“They said: ‘These last hardly worked an hour, yet you have treated them the same as us who have endured the day’s burden and heat.’ The owner said to one of them: ‘Friend, I have not been unjust to you. Did we not agree on a denarius a day? So take what is yours and go. I want to give to the last the same as I give to you. Don’t I have the right to do as I please with my money? Why are you envious when I am kind?’
“So will it be: the last will be first, the first will be last.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated LifeExperience)
God keeps a happy balance between justice and mercy. He is willing to tilt the balance in favor of mercy to those who ask for it. But while unjust people are happy about the merciful chances they can always avail of even at the last minute, our hearts go out to those who are constant in faith. Can God be so permissive to the spiritual latecomers without doing injustice to those faithful to the spiritual race from the dawn of their youth to the portal of death?
This question invites a revisit of the nature of salvation. Hard-earned spirituality cannot vest on a believer any demandable right to salvation because salvation is totally within God’s discretion. The good news is that he is not capricious. When he balances justice with so much mercy it is to give the sinner a chance. Don’t be envious because that sinner could be you! – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.