The word of God is something alive and active:
it can judge secret emotions and thoughts. HEB 4:12
JUDGES 9:6-15 ©
My Soul's Beloved,
Today's reading reminds us that it is far better to be useful in service than to lord it over others. It is the crass fool unwise in the ways of the Lord and the Word of God who fritters away the precious and limited time granted to us.
The olive tree, the fig tree, and the vine are symbols of men and women of substance who image You, the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and Your life and light radiate in and through them. We are called to be salt and light in an increasingly darkening world and it is getting ever more dangerous to do so for the world hates those who are called by Your Name, those who keep Your commandments, and who insist that all Christians worthy of the Name must do so as well.
Crass fools are leading the world today. Bufoons are in power. Feral wolves clothed in sheep's clothing are misleading the ignorant through blind alleys into the bottomless pit. We pray O Lord that You will intervene quickly and put an end to the demonic activity that threatens to obliterate the world. Have mercy O Lord, have mercy on Your people and in Your mercy and loving kindness save us once more.
MATTHEW 20:1-16 ©
My Soul's Beloved,
The workers who grumbled at receiving the same wage as those who came at the eleventh hour even though they had toiled hard in the heat all day. They assumed that those who joined them in the vineyard at various interval in the day would receive a smaller wage or that their wage would be more substantial. These workers behave just like the older son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Their toil was joyless. Their focus was on the reward and not on the work that was entrusted to them.
Too many busy Christians have a joyless faith, they have a sense of entitlement mistakenly believing that it is their right to demand and expect more than others, and they have a sense of superiority as they look down on those whom they perceive as not doing as much as they do and hence should not be given an equal status with them.
The father in the parable of the Prodigal Son is an icon of our Heavenly Father. He points out to his older son that everything that he possesses belongs to him since he is his heir but it is also right and fitting that he receives and restores to his younger son all that he had in his folly so wantonly turned his back on, because he returned home with a humble and contrite heart.
Lord, You have no patience with those who are small-minded, have a narrow vision of God's salvific love for the whole world, and have a stingy and ungenerous view of those they consider inferior to them. A proud and haughty spirit You spurn.
Thank You, Lord, that You love both the sinner and the saint with the same love. You have no favorites. While our response to Your love may differ, Beloved, Your love for each of us is eternal, unfathomable, and immeasurable.
You will always, always look sternly and speak gravely to those who believe they can dictate to God. what He ought or ought not to do.
Thank You, Beloved, for coming to seek and save the lost. For leaving the ninety-nine in order to search for the one who wandered from the fold. Thank You and praise You now and forever.
When the first came, they expected to get more, but they too received one denarius each. They took it, but grumbled at the landowner. “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.” He answered one of them and said, “My friend, I am not being unjust to you; did we not agree on one denarius? Take your earnings and go. I choose to pay the last comer as much as I pay you. Have I no right to do what I like with my own? Why be envious because I am generous?” Thus the last will be first, and the first, last.’
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