is your eye evil? - 25th Sunday 2017

Last Thursday, I had a good lunch with some daily mass goers in this church who happen to be also our volunteer catechists in the parish.    Over lunch they shared with me some of their experiences in teaching catechism to elementary grade students.  In particular, they shared one difficult discussion involving, what else, our gospel today.  What is the meaning of our gospel today?  One volunteer catechist ventured to ask her grade four students: In your opinion – is the master fair or unfair?  Without any hesitation everyone in the group responded in unison, “unfair.”   He is unfair.

Luckily, our catechists never turned to ask me how to explain this gospel to kids and, God bless the waiter, he arrived in time for coffee and suddenly the topic was changed.  Today however, we meet this difficult topic head-on.

Frankly, the gospel is not difficult to understand, but it is one gospel difficult to explain.  We all understand the story. It is not that complicated - they agreed on the daily wage and they were all given their daily wage – no one was given less than what was agreed and what was lawful.  But how do we explain this seeming unfairness and inequality, this seeming disparity of amount of pay vis a vis the amount of work?  How do we explain the unfairness of the landowner or the seeming unfairness of God?

In the gospel the landowner asked a question, “Are you envious because I am generous?”  The original Greek used by Jesus however is literally translated as, “Is your eye evil because I am generous?”  Eye – is your eye evil, do you have the evil eye.  Jesus also said “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy (if you have the evil eye), your whole body will be full of darkness.”  Healthy eyes, evil eyes – how do we acquire them?  Training.  Our eyes do not just see what is.  Our eyes can be trained to see what we want to see.  We put lenses in our eyes like glasses and we see through these lenses.  One day a person who had a long-standing dispute with his neighbor said while peering through the window of their house – “look, look our neighbor could not even wash the clothes of their children properly. Look at those clothes hanging on their clothesline, it’s all dirty.”  Then the wife went closer, wiped the window and said, “no dear, their laundry is clean, it’s our window that’s dirty.”  It’s how our eyes are trained to see – evil eyes – that is why the gospel is difficult to explain.

Two things that makes for evil eyes.

First, it’s how we have trained our eyes to see things since we were small, even a grade four student can already recognize it.  And what is that – comparison?

Are you good? Are you accomplished?  Are you rich?  Do you notice, when we are asked to answer these questions we look for external reference? 

Am I rich?  Then you peer through the window and begin counting the neighbor’s cars. Are you beautiful - and we think of comparisons.  We are content with our grades until we hear that the other has higher grades.  Or we feel good about our grades because there are those who have grades lower than ours.

Comparison, if you notice does not make you happy.  It is the first evil eye.  The workers were happy with what they got until they compared it with what others got.  Comparison has an even nastier companion.  And it is called competition.

Second evil eye.  Early in life we were already trained that the good I do will always be repaid.  In the parish where I formerly worked we have a kinder school and every after class the children will show off their stars– look, look three stars – wow.  Two stars wow. Why are they happy?  Because with 3 stars, 2 stars, come reward.  But when there is no star they go straight home, with bowed heads  and sad.  Quid pro quo – this for that, something for something, we learned that early in life.  But God is different -  I am generous not because you have done something good, no.  I am generous because I am generous period. 

We expect rewards assuming that we did something to deserve God’s generosity.  The 2^nd evil eye will always exact payment for the good one does.  Jesus wants to correct this. Be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect, Jesus sia and the Father is perfect because “he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”

When we were young we always complain, It’s unfair, it’s unfair, we become angry and frustrated.  Now that we are older we know better.  The world will always be an unfair world.  We can work hard to lessen it but just the same it will always be one.  That is why we value the virtues not just of justice but also of forgiveness, of patience, we value generosity, hope and love.

So “Is your eye evil because I am generous?” the difficulty is in how we were trained to see things, in how we were trained to see God, and this parable of Jesus is like a corrective glasses.  He wants us to see the real God, the real Father. Not our idea of the Father, but Jesus’ idea, and experience of the Father and his love.