A Personal Reflection on Matthew 20:1-16
When I immigrated to the United States, I went to a small town on the East Coast from one of the biggest, busiest cities in the Philippines. Life in my city of over a million people was not easy. It demanded a considerable amount of hard work and personal ingenuity for my family to even barely survive. I met many kind and generous people over the years of growing up in poverty. But when I moved to Windsor, North Carolina, a town of only about 4,000 people, I encountered generosity that offended me.
My roommate and I met people from this town who gave us food, lent us beds, gifted us pieces of furniture we needed, drove us around, took the time to know who we were, lent us vacation homes, and welcomed us to family Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. They took care of us as though we were their daughters. This sort of generosity is unheard of in my city. I didn’t understand it. I was baffled. I was uneasy. I was upset. How could a people be this generous? At one point, I even asked my roommate: Is there a catch to all of this? Are we expected to do something in return?
Years passed, and the generosity of the people around us never faded; it only increased. It also never expected anything in return. They opened their hearts and homes to us. We were strangers—immigrants to a land that welcomed us like we were their own. To this day, now about 19 years since I moved to the US, these same people from this tiny East Coast town still support my husband and me financially and in prayers to do ministry here in Thailand. They exemplify what true generosity looks like—the kind of generosity that breaks barriers to display the heart of God. The kind of generosity that brought me to tears and to my knees.
The parable is a picture of the heart of the Father and what His Kingdom is like—unexpected liberality and openhandedness.
Reading the parable from Matthew 20:1-16 activated a habit of thinking that I have not carefully processed in the past. I will be candid: It bothered me that the landowner gave the same amount to those who worked an hour as those who worked all day. I felt their complaints were justified because they bore the heat of the day yet were paid equally as those who hardly worked. Once again, I was as upset as I was with generosity that I did not comprehend. I resented the landowner’s generosity. So I questioned myself, “Why?” “Why am I aggrieved? Why do I resent the landowner’s act of generosity?” The answer to my questions is not easy to admit: I resented his generosity because I am selfish. I resented his generosity because I would not act as he did due to my propensity for self-preservation and my norm of giving the least possible amount or dispensing the least feasible effort I could while still being seen as just and generous. My default response to any situation is either giving the least or working the least but getting the most in each case. It is ugly to confront this truth about me and embarrassing to write about it. But I have to challenge this belief and bring it to light as a first step to my path of transformation.
The parable reminded me of my days in that small East Coast town where people shared with me so freely what they worked so hard for. No questions asked. No conditions. No strings attached. They gave and shared what they had. They were like the landowner in the parable. He chose to give what he had, regardless of who he hired to work in his vineyard, what they had done, or how much work they had put in. He invited them to share in His resources. The parable is a picture of the heart of the Father and what His Kingdom is like—unexpected liberality and openhandedness. His generosity is so outrageous, so against every thread of what we call acceptable, and so beyond our usual me-centered way of living, it offends. But as I dwell in it and allow it to break my standard, my attention shifts to how it accounts for how favored and blessed I am. This awareness positions me to a place of repentance and gratitude. How can I ever be displeased by this brand of generosity when I am a direct recipient of it? How can I ever begrudge the God of the universe in showing His favor to those who don’t deserve it when I am chief of the least deserving to be given it and have received it? Oh Lord, forgive my wicked and self-righteous heart!
There is still much I need to learn about true generosity. Every day, God is teaching me. Every day, God is showing me. Every day, God is inviting me to participate in His generosity. While I still live in this tension between the old habit of being and the Kingdom-kind of being, I am thankful for His gentleness in prompting me towards a deeper, fuller understanding of His heart.
Father, thank you for sharing Your life and resources with me even though I don’t deserve it. Thank you for inviting me to take part in Your generosity to others. Amen.
January 25,2024 @5:29pm, Ao Nang, Krabi, Thailand
{abba's girl. fearless & fiercely loved.} by kezia lewis 