Wednesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

Many times, when people hear this parable, they say it is not fair. But part of the point of the parable is to tell us that it is fair—that we are the ones who are not fair. No, it may not be good business advice, and living it out probably will not make you many friends in the world.

But it is a description of how the Kingdom of God works, and it is fundamentally fair. One of the challenges for us as Christians is to conform our minds to this image. The gift that God wishes to give others is not portioned out according to what we deserve, what we think we deserve, or any rules of this world. It is his to give freely, however he wishes.

It is not for us to judge how much of that gift another person should receive. Our task is to go out and do the work of bringing all people into his Kingdom. If we encounter someone who has lived a truly sinful and awful life, and perhaps has even benefited greatly from it, we are not to look at that person and say, “You do not deserve as much of heaven as I do, because I have worked at this my whole life and tried to be good.” We are simply to seek that person’s conversion and salvation.

The same is true of someone on their deathbed who has never lived the life they should have lived, but then receives the opportunity to convert. God desires that soul just as much as he desires any other soul, and all stand to inherit exactly the same reward.

This is fundamentally fair because the gift God wishes to give us is infinite. Their gain is not our loss, as we often imagine it to be. There is only gain.

So we go out and strive to bring every soul into the Kingdom without judgment, without considering what they do or do not deserve. We simply seek what is good for them. That is the heart of the Christian life.

It is hard to enter into that mindset. It truly is. But it is important for us to see things in that way: to look at every person and see someone whom God loves with an infinite love, someone I therefore should love as well. To love them in the same way is to desire their salvation as God does and to work for it, no matter what their life has looked like up to this point. I should keep seeking it, no matter what.

That is our task in this life: to keep building up the Kingdom of God. Yes, we may all share the same reward; but, as many of the saints have told us, on that day we will not care. It all makes sense on that day. The moment we behold God, it all makes perfect sense, and no one in heaven is jealous of another.

Jesus does not give this parable to the people in heaven to help them understand that this is fair. It is for us—for our own sinfulness, our own failures, and our inability to see it. But this is the Kingdom of God.

When we meet others, let us make sure we are not listening to that little part of ourselves that tries to judge: Do I want to love this person? Do I want to offer the Gospel to this person? Do I want their salvation? Let us simply go out and do it. That little part will slowly fade away. We will gradually conform ourselves more and more to Christ so that we do not even have to think about it; we will simply love others as we should.

This is what we are called to as Christians. Let us put behind us that judgment, that search for fairness by the standards of this world, and simply seek the Kingdom of God, helping to draw all people into it.