God is a god of hope, love, grace, and generosity.  We each receive these things in abundance.  We are called, in turn, to share these gifts with others – to those we know and to the person we meet for the first time.

In the parable at the start of Matthew 20, Jesus is teaching us to offer these things to all.  The landowner pays all of the workers the same amount.  He begins by paying those who started late what he promised those who started early.  They grumble when they only receive what was promised.

We can relate to their complaint!  They think they deserved more.  We see this two ways.  We too often think that if we have been a follower of Christ for a long time we “deserve” more than one new to their faith.  Wrong.  God loves us all equally.  We all equally deserve God’s blessings.  The other way we see this is in judging who is worthy of our love, our time, our help…  This is equally wrong.  We are called to be like Christ.  He set the standard – He loved all, especially those who we think are hard to love.  This is our call – to love all as Christ loved and loves all.