“Work from home,” once reserved for a relatively small group, became widespread during the Covid pandemic, when the entire population was effectively confined to their homes. Despite the many downsides of lockdowns, they helped many office workers realise how much time they used to spend commuting to work, and that they could be just as effective from their kitchen table, bedroom, or hastily arranged home office. The pandemic and associated restrictions are thankfully a distant memory, but their impact on our society and way of life left a long-lasting legacy. One is the “work from home” arrangement, now treated as standard, default or preferable by many employees and employers. At the same time, some companies try to limit or completely abandon the practice, and their workers return to the office. What started as a necessity forced by the turn of events has become a political, societal, and economic battleground, now involving British government officials and offering legislative solutions. The US President Ronald Reagan once famously said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” Experience teaches us that shortsighted, quick-gain political decisions always have long-lasting, impactful unintended consequences. However, to a great extent, the “work from home” battle is a political sideshow for those who cannot consider it an option because of the nature of their jobs, like the workers for hire in today’s gospel.
The parable is an immediate follow-up to Jesus’ exchange with a man who sought his answer to the question that troubled him: “Teacher, what good thing must I do to achieve eternal life?” In response, Jesus first raised his eyebrows: “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good”, and then instructed him to keep the commandments. In return, the man claimed he had been doing so and pressed further, “Is there anything more I must do?” Jesus, having realised the man’s possessive attitude, challenged it: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” As a result, the man “went away grieving, for he possessed great wealth.” Jesus’ comment on the outcome: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven” greatly disturbed his disciples: “Who then can be saved?” The parable we heard in today’s gospel was Jesus’ descriptive answer.
The conclusion of it was no less shocking than his earlier “camel and the eye of a needle” comment because it challenged his audience’s and also our own sense of fairness. It’s so deep that we tend to apply such a mercantile or plutocratic attitude to spiritual matters. A priest once told my friends that he would get a better “mansion” in heaven because of the sacrifices he had made by responding to and accepting his priestly vocation. Twisted thinking, laughable and scary in equal measure. The value of the kingdom of heaven isn’t quantifiable; there isn’t more or less of it. This is symbolised in the parable’s agreement between the landowner and the hired men as a daily, not hourly, rate. At the end of the day, the landowner honoured the agreement, while the firstcomers questioned it, feeling they were treated unfairly. In economic terms, we would understandably rather take their side. However, Jesus wasn’t presenting a model of employment for businesses to implement literally. This parable was another example of a different logic governing “the kingdom of heaven”: the logic of generosity of spirit, mind, and heart, a pattern Jesus repeated so many times in his words and deeds to embed it deeply in his disciples’ minds and subsequently affect the way they would carry out his mission. The ultimate expression of this logic came when the crucified Christ promised paradise to a repentant criminal dying beside him.
Isn’t such generosity corrupting? Every now and then, we might come across or hear of people who, having lived carefree lives filled with sinful pleasures we deny ourselves on moral grounds, turn to God and religion late in life, sometimes on a deathbed. Some Christians of “long and distinguished service to God and the Church”, confronted with such “latecomers”, consider it unfair. At the heart of this begrudging attitude is a misunderstanding of those latecomers’ views of their previous lives. The burden of grief, guilt, and regret over past misdeeds, mistreatment of others, and sins often weighs heavily on their conscience for the rest of their lives. They don’t see it as having their cake and eating it, but as a chunk of life wasted and impossible to recover. More worryingly, such a begrudging attitude suggests that in the hearts of those “good Christians” lies a desire to commit sins, held in check only by lack of opportunity or fear of unwanted consequences. If that’s the case, we must remember the warning spelt out by Jesus: “What comes out of the mouth originates in the heart, and this is what defiles a person.” (Matthew 15:18) Mercifully, we still have a chance to change our hearts, because, as we prayed in today’s psalm: “The Lord is kind and full of compassion, slow to anger, abounding in mercy. How good is the Lord to all, compassionate to all his creatures.”
Image by Rizwan Ullah from Pixabay
