The Bookkeeper and Betty

Often when I read the  parable of the generous landowner I think about my late grandmother Betty.  From what I understand, my grandmother may have been  atheist  for most of her life. (An atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in God)

Now we didn’t talk an awful lot about my grandmother’s faith.  And From what I understand her parents never had her baptized  and I guess faith just wasn’t a part of her life growing up.   As an adult she would attend church on the occasional holiday  with my grandfather, but  was never the  weekly mass goer that my grandfather was. On several occasions after her death, my  grandfather the staunch Roman Catholic told me how he prayed from my grandmother every day for more than 50 years. His prayer was that  she would somehow find God.

In her mid seventies, smoking finally caught up with her and she was diagnosed with lung cancer- rather than face the difficult treatment  she ultimately she decided to allow nature to run it’s course.  At some point, toward the end of her life she ended up in the hospital and for some unknown reason during that hospital visit she told her my grandfather that she wanted to be baptized.  His fifty year prayer had been answered -- He quickly contacted his friend a  Roman Catholic deacon and there in her hospital bed in Falmouth after 70 some odd years of turning away from God—she turned toward him was baptized.

I don’t think there was an awful lot in her heavenly bank account—she had not spent years on her knees, she had not devoted her life to deepening her relationship with God.  But finally, when she was ready God was there with open arms to welcome her. 

One commentator, I read this week said that this parable reminds us that  God is “lousy bookkeeper.” And that salvation comes not by how hard we work or how long we work or how often we come to church or how much time we spend on our knees,  but that it comes through the gracious love and generosity of God.  

I don’t know what happened when she died, but I believe that she went onto a heavenly reward, not because she was baptized, not because she had made enough heavenly deposits in her life, not because of what she as a person did or didn’t do,  but because God is generous and gracious even though she came in the eleventh hour she received the same as those who went out first thing in the morning.  Some might think that that is not fair and maybe it is not, but this parable tells us that sometime grace trumps fair—that when push comes to shove God chooses grace and generosity over fair.

Now I don’t know all the ins and outs of my grandmother life-but I am guessing that for seventy some odd years she probably  missed out on the many gifts of the life of faith. 

She may have missed out on being connected to something greater than herself that faith give us.  She may have missed out on the wonderful gift that prayer is, the gift of peace that can surround us in those moment of quiet prayer-- the gift of letting go of burdens and saying to God this is yours you deal with it, the gift of knowing that we are not in this world alone.  She missed out on knowing the gift of forgiveness of hearing Christ say I know those awful things, but I love you anyway.   She may have missed out on knowing that she is loved unconditionally and without exception by the creator of the universe.

The gifts we get from working in the vineyard are all these things and so much more—because the gift of salvation isn’t just for us when our hearts stop breathing and we take that final breath, the gifts of the generous God I know are available to us now in this life—whether we’ve been laboring in the vineyard since sun up or  whether we just got to the vineyard now.  Thank God, that God is generous and has good gifts for us and  That God is such a lousy bookkeeper.

AMEN