As I think you know, I spent most of my adult years in school as a teacher and principal. As I look back, I can say that kids were quick to assert “This isn’t fair!!!” They were advocates of everyone being treated the same and no one being treated as a favorite. And God forbid if you ever gave one kid a break!!! Every other student knew about it in a matter of minutes and would ask for the same treatment when they were in some kind of trouble. In this weekend’s passage of the Holy Gospel, we hear a familiar story about a man being so generous with his workers that he gave all his workers the same pay, no matter how many hours they worked. What? The workers revolted and said that the boss was unfair. Was he? Let’s think about this in the context of how God loves us. This story of the landlord's love and generosity represents God’s love and generosity. It illustrates the difference between God's perspective and ours. God's gifts to us will never run out, and when we share these gifts with others, we tap into God’s inexhaustible love! This story tells us how God looks at us, sees our needs and meets those needs generously and mercifully. This is hard for us to comprehend, I think mainly because we put limits on our love and compassion. With God, there are NO limits. To God, we are more than just numbers on a payroll. Our gifts from God are free gifts from God for which we can never be sufficiently thankful. All our talents and blessings are freely given to us by God. So…how can we thank God for this generous outpouring of love? Simply, we can do this by offering loving service to others, by sharing our blessings with the needy and by sincere prayer. God’s generosity will never be matched! There was a man who faced sudden surgery several years ago. He didn’t have time to prepare emotionally for the surgery. He went to the doctor who sent him directly to the hospital and, in hours, he had open-heart surgery. This man was grateful for his surgery, his successful life, the extra years that had been given to him. But he also said that he was sad that he had not been able to express his love to his children before that critical moment of surgery. He had wanted to tell his children but he didn’t. There wasn’t time. Months passed; years passed; a decade passed. One day, he was at his doctor’s office only to discover that he needed surgery again. Only, this time, he had two days to prepare. He had each child, now all adults, come into his hospital room and talk privately with him. He wanted each to know that he felt this past ten years of life were extra years that had been given to him by God. Not only the past ten years, but his whole life had been a gift of God, and they, his children, had been a total gift of God. He wanted them to know that God had given him his children, his wife, his family, his work, his faith in Christ, that God had given him an abundant life and that God would give him eternal life as well. He wanted his kids to know how he felt. He had wanted to tell his children these things ten years ago, and now he had a second chance to do it. And so he told them, each of them, one by one. It was very emotional, and his wife left the room because she couldn’t handle it. This man expressed what God wants. Deep down inside, all people have this attitude that life is a gift. Life itself, the abundant life, eternal life, it is all a gift. It is not that God owes us anything. That is what Jesus explains through the parable of equal wages. GOSPEL QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Do you recognize how generous God has been with you?