God’s universal generosity

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early to hire labourers for his vineyard.” Jesus’parable continues. The householder repeatedly hired more workers until the last hour of the day. Then he paid all the workers the same wage.

The parable describes universal generosity of God (Matthew 20 1-16).

But that parable came from real life. Its backdrop was the harsh reality of employment or lack of work, of wages to feed a family, or if unemployed, no money nor food. The market place was their labour exchange, and there was no dole.

Ordinary workers were simply hemmed in by their uncompromising version of Universal Credit.

Work and you get paid, no work and you get nothing.

Standards have improved since Jesus wrought that parable from the harsh reality of the market place. But today the opportunities available to many people are strictly limited.

Ordinary people are still hemmed in. Young couples cannot get a foothold on the housing ladder. Many parents struggle to make ends meet.

They are caught in the social JAM,‘Just About Managing’.

They fear the school holidays when school meals will be unavailable. Children come to school ill-fed and badly dressed.

Teachers are buying for them with their own money.

The harsh conditions of delivery workers is totally unacceptable. Young people are contracted to gain work experience but without pay.

In John 6 we have the scene where the people came to Jesus wanting the same food they had received the previous day.

Jesus tried to explain to them about the real Bread of Life.

But the people may have insisted on Jesus simply providing bread for one simple reason. They may well have been hungry. They were crushed in a system that simply did not meet their immediate needs.

The worst contemporary shame in the UK is the need for, and the increasing appearance of foodbanks. This is a national disgrace. I do not have the answer to this scourge, but I do have a suggestion to tackle the problem.

A month ago the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland reported that it would require to sell many surplus buildings.

That money should be used as a national powerful fund to finance the foodbank enterprise.

For that matter , all the major denominations should co-operate to establish such a co-ordinated fund. Do you think this is mad? Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, was caught stealing the silver and gold plates donated to the church.

He explained that he was selling these precious items and with the money he was buying the freedom of slaves labouring in the mines.

“A freed soul is more precious that a silver plate,”he argued.

Christ came to set the people free from the prison houses of poverty and want, of hunger and need, of despair and loneliness.

When we neglect Christ’s people we imprison Christ himself in their poverty, illness, want, and suffering.

As Christians our concern must be for ordinary people.

Organisations like the Salvation Army and many other groups already engage in caring and helping God strengthen them and us all. It would be far better to stop worrying about our church establishments.

Let’s worry about people, ordinary men and women, growing children, and those elderly in years but long in memory and deep in wisdom.

Jesus wants his church to be struggling with the needs of people. Jesus told one devastatingly challenging parable.

When the King of kings will separate the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25.31-46). Those chosen for eternal blessing did not chant the proper rituals, attend the sufficient number of committee meetings, and follow the correct procedures of archaic church rules.

Rather,“I was hungry and you gave me food, naked and you clothed me, in prison and you visited me, sick and you healed me.” Those rejected did the opposite.

Both groups will cry out in amazement, one with the joy of eternity the other with the agony of condemnation,“When did we feed you, clothe you, heal you, visit you?”The profound answer for the here and now of our modern society.

“For as much as you did it unto one of these the least of my children you did it unto me” (Matthew 25.45).