Reflection:
Forgive like the first vineyard workers.
Today I would like to begin with the story I shared with Immanuel’s children this week via a YouTube video. It is a story about God’s love and the way God loves us.
Recently, I visited one of our Immanuel families. I called ahead to tell them I was coming and the youngest ones in the family were waiting for me, watching through the window as I parked my car.
I received an exceptional welcome from the family. Their generosity made me really happy. Not only that, when I sat with them, the youngest ones, Aria, Sophia and Grayson, hugged me and welcomed me as their guest. Not just once but several times. Three minutes later they came to me again to hug and say “hi”, “welcome.” Again 5 minutes later, they came and hugged me and showed me their little gifts like toys and books. They really wanted me to know that I was welcome.
God’s love is like that. To God, it doesn’t matter when you come to help. God loves you at 9 a.m. God loves you at 11 a.m. God loves you at 1 p.m. God loves you at 3 p.m., 5 p.m, 7 p.m, 9 p.m. and all through the night while you sleep, as well.
In today’s story about the Vineyard Workers, Jesus says that God is generous. That God loves us generously.
I write this reflection holding in my heart the gifts of Aria, Sophia and Grayson and their siblings who showed me a generous welcome. Every 5 minutes, no matter what time I came.
Especially when children shine, they are reminders of who and what God is like and what God would like to do. Lorraine Kakegamic’s 6 great grand children showed me God’s generous welcome.
In today’s Gospel story, the day has turned to evening. The owner of the vineyard said to his manger, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. When the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”
There are many ways to understand this story, but today I wish to reflect on my recent personal experience related to forgiveness and healing/growth in light of Jesus’ parable of the vineyard workers. Sometimes it is true that, as we get older, we become more generous in our understanding, especially in terms of how we bring the other’s situations into the picture and accept them, both of the joys they bring to our lives and the mistakes they make. We try to be kinder, approach more gently, and extend compassion. We have learned and experienced how such practice based on caring can help us and bring positive changes and outcomes.
Thinking about today’s Gospel story in the reflection of my recent experience, I find an analogy between the first workers in today’s story who came early and started their work at 9 o’clock in the morning and our own life experience with“getting older”, or becoming mature with age.
In the story the first workers have a hard time accepting the landowner’s call, “Be generous”, when the other workers who worked for just an hour receive the same daily wages as they did. The first workers grumble against the call because it hurts their long-held belief, their identity and sense of entitlement. More directly, it hurts them themselves. The first workers came before anyone else. They stayed longer than anyone else. They worked harder than anyone else. It is not easy to be a faithful vineyard worker and work on the ground for so many hours in the scorching heat, but they did it. Working under the scorching heat for hours could be a traumatic experience. An experience that shows life can be marked not only with joy but also with pain in the struggle to get to the envisioned destination of a life hoped for and claimed. The struggle includes convictions, brokenness, frustration, defeat, success, and all of that. Along the way as we build our lives our identity is shaped and reshaped, including the sense of who we are. When our vision, and the sense of who we are are challenged, criticized, and/or face the demand from others to rethink what we believe is right, it is not fun. It might cause feelings of hurt, bitterness and resentment. Our heart might become rigid, unwilling to move into the direction of forgiving those who have hurt us. I use the word “forgiving” not because I assume that the others could have actually “sinned” against us, but because forgiving is primarily a status of the heart’s. It is an action or movement that opens us to considering or “giving” us a new way of thinking of ourselves and others.
When we become rigid, it could mean that we might have forgotten the quality of welcome, love, acceptance of life that Aria, Sophia, Grayson and their older siblings showed me at my visit. The children offered me welcome several times within a very short visit. They showed me the same welcome each time, no matter what time I came. The children’s flexibility, creativity and uninterrupted joy resemble that of our Creator’s.
In a recent dream, I was praying in English. (I have lived in Canada too long not to pray in English! What, 14 years? In comparison with some of my friends who migrated to Canada some 4 or 5 years ago, or even 2 or 3 years ago, I find myself relating to the first vineyard workers.)
In my prayer, I called God “God of rain, God of water”. Then, I remembered the loving memories I had with childhood friends. I was probably similar in age to Aria, Sophia and Grayson’s, and we were watching as rain dropped on and flowed down the window. Small rain drops were formed on the glass surface of the window and got bigger and got heavier. Then, they let go of the tension to stay where they first landed and flowed down. A lot of them, all the same. The raindrops flow and they are erased. The window glass shines reflecting the light in the prisms of water flowing on it. The rain drops knows no first, no last.
In the closing part of the prayer in my dream God asked me to make a room “literally and figuratively” outside of myself and also inside of myself, so that I am protected in a cocoon. The reason for making a cocoon rather than prematurely expressing anything outwards and therefore possibly hurting myself and others, was to make room for “much thinking.” Thinking outside the box, thinking flexibly, thinking creatively. After all, in the case of forgiving it is not always about whether the other has actually “trespassed” against me, or “sinned” against me, but more about moving from self-pity to extending compassion “for giving” a new understanding of ourselves and others.
Jesus’ words and teaching “Whoever wants to be first must be last, and servant of all” are profound and can move us to a space of grace for both the other and ourselves.
Then, my dream moved to a woman wearing a bright yellow dress. The dress flew like yellow pansy flower petals, or a California poppy. She was dancing a ballet, freely making a sophisticated choreography of joy and forgiveness, as if telling me that forgiveness is a way towards liberation.
Another thing the dream taught me was that such forgiveness happens when not only our broken spirit is mended but also our body is healed of its hurt. When hurting happens mentally, we might not notice it immediately but it is also hurting our body too, as shown through the symptoms of aches and imbalance. The dance of the woman with the yellow pansy dress exposed her aspiration to be free, not only spiritually but also physically, from her bruises. Forgiving was happening within her because she took time to heal and thereby became physically healthier. Healing can happen through the caring from our relationships, but I also believe we all have a God-given inner ability to heal, which generates healing energy from within, especially in the process by which we move to forgive and are forgiven.
The vineyard workers who came first to help God at 9 am in the morning would need cocoon time until they can reach the understanding that we all need flexibility, creativity and joy of children no matter what time we have arrived in the vineyard. In my experience, children are more apt to forgive their friends or to ask for forgiveness because they very quickly find reasons to play together, to enjoy the present moment, and to discover new experiences with their friends. In the eyes of children, the rain drops flowing on the window are the beautiful marbles at which to wonder. Their words often form a cheerful poem. Somehow, children can maintain their healthy curiosity. Children do not really care much about the time of day. They know they like to welcome their guests, and they express their joy as they find satisfaction in sharing God’s love with others. So, may we Forgive, like children. And may we Forgive, as the first vineyard workers are able to, after their cocoon time.
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