catching up

Been too busy to blog...and I have had (as usual) so many things to say! Oh, well. Today I am inspired to blog by the Gospel assigned to Wednesday of the 20th Week of Ordinary Time. It is that awful parable of the workers in the vineyard and their equal pay. I say "awful" because, you know, I tend to identify with the people who had been laboring since sunup, who found themselves treated "on a par" economically with those who had not picked up a hoe (or whatever they were using in the vineyard that day) until 5 p.m. Whether or not that self-identification is justified is a question in itself. Could be that I have not yet picked up my hoe.

Anyway, this morning I recognized that there is a parallel between this parable and Paul's observation in (I think) Romans, around Chapter 9-11. Because if you think of things from the perspective of the 11th-hour workers, they saw the owner of the vineyard as generous, and would have gone home with praise and gratitude. And those early-morning workers would have had to agree that the owner had kept his word with them. As Paul says, "The Gentiles glorify God for his mercy." And in the case of those who had been with the Lord "from the beginning," "Israel will acknowledge him for his faithfulness."

Speaking of Israel, my prayers are that the withdrawal from the Gaza strip will be peaceful, and that the more vehement settlers and protesters will surrender their misguided attempts to hold on to disputed territory--territory from which other families were expelled 40 years ago. When I heard that some of the settler families were using a form of psychological warfare against the soldiers assigned to this operation--having their small children draw pictures of the evacuation, showing the drawings to the soldiers and telling them that the children would bring them to school to tell about how they were forced from their homes--I felt so sick. They are using their children in a way that will reinforce in those children a sense of disenfranchisement--rousing in them the same kind of resentment that motivates the most violent of the Palistinian groups. It is perpetuating the madness.

About two years ago I read an excellent book on the situation, and I highly recommend it: "How Long O Lord: Jewish, Muslim and Christian Voices" (I forget the rest of the title). It was published by an Anglican religious order in Massachusetts. I was impressed by one of the Jewish writers, who noted that since God has consistently shown himself to be the vindicator of the oppressed, he was quite concerned that Israel was setting itself up for divine judgment over the treatment of the Palestinians since the establishment of the Jewish state. I imagine that if the Palestinian territories had had access to better economic possibilities, reliable sources of water (their waterways were all cut off, so they had to return to exclusive dependence on wells)  and other aspects of autonomous life, there would have been less motive and even less opportunity for the preposterous levels of violence unleashed by unemployed, uneducated and disenfranchised young people.

Anyway, it is one of those areas that most cries out for prayer.