Please join to celebrate and give thanks
at the Mortimer, MWE & Padworth
Parish Eucharist
on Sunday 20th September 2020
at 10.00 am
at St John’s Church, Mortimer,
& online at ZOOM https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6931233940
If you have
zoom difficulties please contact the tech. team at 01189333136
For
a rap version of the parable of the workers in the vineyard
see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLouA3KytUQ
The Red Vineyard at Arles
Vincent van Gogh
God’s Generous Goodness and the
Workers in the Vineyard - My Ways are Not Your Ways cf Isaiah 55:8.
Prayer Thought: The parable we hear this Sunday teaches us that, whilst we may persist
in judging by worldly standards, God’s ways are not the ways of this world. And
if we want our judgements to be right by God we must learn to pray for guidance
and grace to see people as he sees them and to judge others as generously as he
judges. Ultimately, God always rewards according to his judgement and not ours.
We can never fully understand the ‘mind’ of God who sees goodness where we may
see none and who showers blessings where we may see none deserved. Yet, even
with our limited vision, we can be sure that he is near and that he will hear
every one of us whenever we call to him for guidance and grace to see the truth
and to be generous.
The Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard
Rembrandt van Rijn
Rembrandt’s painting of Jesus’ parable - found only in St
Matthew’s Gospel - shows the landowner paying his workers at the end of the
day. The weak evening light illuminates the table where the landowner’s wife
sits with the account book open. Two workers question the landowner whilst the
others to the right talk among themselves. The landowner has hired workers
throughout the day and paid them all the same wage, whether they worked all day
or only an hour. The workers who worked all day are angry. The focus of
Rembrandt’s painting is the two workers questioning their pay. Perhaps the
small scale of this painting - 12 x 16 inches? - helps to make us feel as if we
are peering into their darkened room. Rembrandt was, of course, a master of
using darkness to draw the viewer into the narrative and here he uses his
masterful technique to draw us into Jesus’ teaching about generosity.
