Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Day #264

September 21, 2014

The Gospel reading from today was the parable of Jesus and the workers in the vineyard. It is the one about the laborers who were hired for only a couple of hours receiving the same pay as those who toiled in the hot sun ALL DAY. It’s just NOT FAIR! Why does one receive more than, or at least equal to, another? Why does one sibling feel left out of the equality of a parent’s love and attention? Why do those who seem to just coast through life end up getting more stuff, more love, more recognition? It’s just NOT FAIR!

How do you talk about fairness with a group of children? It’s not like they don’t understand things not being fair, but it’s more trying to help them understand our sense of fairness isn’t the same as God’s. So what happened was when the one who came forward toward the last quickly sat down beside me I asked him to trade places with the one who had come quickly but sat far away. It wasn’t fair, after all, that the last child to come forward ended up sitting next to me. However, I wasn’t too surprised when I looked around to find the boy who had been asked to move sitting as far away as possible. With his arms crossed in defiance, he was without doubt an unhappy boy and you could almost hear his mind processing: this just isn’t fair!!

So I went on to remind them that the one thing that IS most certainly fair is the love God has for us. It is fair because it is equal. God loves all of us the same amount. Thanks be to God!!

Blessings.

1 comment:

  1. This post makes me smile... fairness; almost impossible to explain (and demonstrate!) to children, their sense of justice is black and white. We can learn so much from them, and from a God who is completely fair and equitable... if we would simply accept that unquestionably; not an easy thing for us to do.

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