Called to be faithful, not successful

The Gospel lesson for Sunday is the parable of the unjust landowner. The landowner hires workers for his vineyard at different times of the day, but he pays them all the same wage no matter how many hours they worked. Those who worked all day and bore "the burden of the day and the scorching heat" are jealous of those who worked only a few hours in the evening and got paid the same amount.

This passage is one of a series that follows the disciples' question to Jesus, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" (Matthew 18:1) Jesus is trying to tell the disciples that favoritism or elitism has no part in God's working. God will be God, and we're called to be faithful without the expectation that we're going to be rewarded or given a special place for our faithfulness.

In other words, we're called to be faithful, not to be successful.

We live in a culture that rewards success with money, privilege, and esteem. It's not surprising that many preachers today preach a "success Gospel", namely that being a good Christian will make you prosperous and wealthy.

But that is exactly contrary to what Jesus says in this parable. As workers in God's vineyard (the world) we're called to work for God's purposes. Maybe we'll be rewarded for that; maybe not. God's ways are not always our ways.

This doesn't mean we should give anything less than our best effort. We strive for success, but we don't expect that success will somehow get us into heaven alone.

The opposite is also true. When we experience failure and defeat, we know that we're not going to be judged for that. As long as we're faithful to our calling, we can be at peace.
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