“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways not your ways – it is the Lord who speaks.”

These words from the Prophet Isaiah are both comforting and confronting.  God’s ways are utterly different from human thinking.  In many ways it is comforting to think that God is not like us.  One of the reasons we cling to God is because we want to be liberated from our self-centredness and frustrations that surround and penetrate us and be brought into God’s marvellous light, living a life free from all that is weighing us down.

At the same time, it is confronting to think that our thoughts are different to God’s.  Is there something wrong with the way we think and act?  Or are our thoughts and God’s thoughts; our ways and God’s ways simply different, and they have nothing to do with each other?  It is typical of the language of the scriptures to shock us and to make us think.  These words from the Prophet Isaiah are meant to make us stop and reflect.  Does the way I think and act reflect the way of God or does it come out of my own egocentric nature?

Of course there are traces of the divine nature in human beings.  We can love, be kind to others, show compassion for the poor and the disadvantage, give a helping hand to those in need.  These are the way of God.  And yet, there is something in our human nature which tends to want to go our way as well.  We want the best for ourselves but disregard the affairs of others.  We can be a little bit annoyed and jealous when others are better off than us.  There is something about our human nature that wants to put ourselves at the centre of the universe.

In the Gospel this week, Jesus shows us God is overly generous and overly concerned for others.  God is the generous landowner who concerns for the affair of others.  He goes out and finds those who have no work, calls them in and gives them a job.  He then pays them a full days wage even though they haven’t done a full days work.  Extremely generous landowner.  This parable, according to biblical commentators, would have originally served to defend Jesus’ association with those tax collectors and sinners.  Those who consider themselves to be righteous and faithful observers of the law were jealous of those who came so late (tax collectors and sinners) but still enjoyed God’s full saving power in Jesus.

The purpose of the parable is to show that God is extremely generous to the point of being a bit “unfair” and we human beings can’t stand it.  God’s ways are utterly different to human standards.  “The men who came last” they said “have done only one hour, and you have treated them the same as us, though we have done a heavy day’s work in all the heat.”  What these men felt about the situation is legitimate.  They made a valid point.  The only problem is that they got in the way of the landowner’s generosity with the others.  They cannot stand the fact that others got paid the same amount as them but did less work.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways not your ways – it is the Lord who speaks.”  These words ring true once again for this week’s parable.  Our way of seeing, thinking, and behaving are not always aligned with the gospel values.  If this week’s readings should do anything to us, it should perhaps challenge us to reflect about the way we think and make decisions.  What is my attitude towards refugees and immigrants?  What would seeing and thinking through God’s lens help me in discerning my position toward the Voice Referendum?  As human beings, we tend to rationalise everything we do and the decisions we make, as we should.  But sometimes what we see as “unjust” can stand in the generosity of God to which we are all recipients.  In other words, can God’s generosity call us to be generous in spirit and in heart as well?

By Deacon Tien Tran

Published: 22 September 2023