The Landowner

"Jesus told His disciples this parable:
' The Kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about nine o'clock, the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, 'You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.'
And he went out again around noon and three o'clock and did likewise. .  Going out about five o'clock, the landowner found others standing around and said to them, 'You too go into my vineyard.'
When it was evening, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.'  When those who had started about five o'clock came, each received the usual daily wage. So when the first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage. And on receiving it, they grumbled.
He said to them in reply, 'My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go. Am I not free to give this last one the same as you? Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money' " --[Matthew 20: 1-16A].

This Scripture is just about as infuriating as the Parable of the Prodigal Son, in which the profligate son spends his inheritance in squander, but returns home begging forgiveness, and ends up with a lavish feast.

If a landowner today ran his business the way this one does in Matthew 20, he would be out of business in a very short time. You cannot run a business in this world by paying lots of people for very little work. But, as it says in Isaiah 55: 6-9, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord."

But this parable is not literally about a business owner in this Life. This parable is about the Next Life.

Growing up, I received poor-to-no-parenting. I was putting myself down for naps and finding food at age five. . .  and blamed by my parents for doing those things to help myself survive. I went to school with black eyes. I was called ugly every day, then blamed for being too sensitive about it.

It has taken me a lifetime to pull myself up, and out of the abyss. Just trusting another human being has taken a huge amount of strength and courage.

I have had to build my emotional landscape back up from nothing.  I got to a point by age 18 that I was barely eating, barely sleeping, barely feeling anything, rarely speaking. I was a ghost. I had no time and no energy for anger, I was just trying to parent myself and to survive.

About ten years ago, my world went upside down at the sudden death of my father. Then the awful memories began flooding back. I realized that he was a man with huge faults and character flaws, a man who should never have become a father. He was angry and bitter and he took his anger out on me.

The first emotions to come back for me were deep pain like a cancer; and depression like a yawing black hole.

It was only after years of work on myself that I was able to feel any other emotions. One day, I felt a tiny spark of Joy. I said to myself, "THIS must be what it must feel like to be Happy."

I see-sawed between Happy and Sad for years. I still have trouble distinguishing irritated from frustrated, curious from wary, scared from angry.

Finally, one day I started to ask WHY -- WHY did my parents treat me that way? And, there are really no answers to that. Since my parents are both deceased, I will never know.

I began to realize that I need every ounce of energy to rebuild myself, to get through the day, to be a good wife, a loving mother. I cannot figure out the Whys or the Judgments, by myself. What my family did to me is too big, too HUGE for me to ever understand.

I was talking to a Christian friend about this. I said, "No child wants parents who are hateful and evil. No child wants to get parents who burn in Hell for how they treated you." Call it a fantasy but I wanted to either be rescued early on; OR, I wanted a different family.

I got neither.  I told my friend, 'I wanted loving parents. I don't want to wonder for the rest of my days, whether they are burning in Hell now. I am kinda haunted by that. No matter what they did, it does not comfort me to envision them screaming in agony in an unquenchable fire. I never wanted parents like that.'

What my friend said astonished me. She said, in Matthew 20, God gives the same generous amount to the laborers, whether they were industrious since dawn or whether they showed up at almost sundown. As long as a person comes to God with a contrite heart, even at the very last minute of Life, he receives God's generosity.

Okay, I admit, now THAT made me furious! WHY would my father get the reward of Heaven for what he did?  THAT is NOT FAIR!

But, I didn't want to spend the rest of my Life imagining him screaming in agony, either. WHAT if he DID beg God for forgiveness in his last moments? I can never know that. Do I even need to know that?

I have decided to let God judge. I need to get on with my Life and enjoy the happy years that I have left.  I cannot worry about what someone else gets in this Life or in the next. I need to keep rebuilding my Life, finding those moments of Joy, healing from the scars.  If my father received God's
last- minute forgiveness, that takes nothing from me.

God has been very generous to me. His Blessings are new to me, every day.

[Related Postings: "The First Shall be Last", 8/21/17; "The Vineyard", 9/22/14; "Putting the Last First", 8/25/13; "The Evil Seed", 5/24/13.]

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