Are You Envious Because I Am Generous?

The psalm tells us that the Lord is near to all who call upon him. Yet Isaiah adds something important: “Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked his thoughts; let him turn to the LORD for mercy.”

God is near. He is generous in forgiving those who turn to him. But he does not force us to turn. We must be willing to leave behind not only our wicked ways, but also our wicked thoughts.

Conversion requires us to learn to see things differently. God’s ways are not our ways, and one place where that difference becomes especially clear is in the generosity of his mercy.

We often look at things primarily in terms of ourselves. What will satisfy me? What can I get out of this? What do I deserve? Even our religious lives can become another way of keeping score. We notice what we have sacrificed, compare ourselves with others, and begin to think that God owes us something.

Jesus exposes this attitude in the parable of the landowner.

Some laborers begin working at dawn. Others are hired later, and some work for only one hour. At the end of the day, the landowner gives everyone the same daily wage.

Those who worked all day are indignant. We can understand their reaction. Surely they should receive more than those who barely had time to get started.

But the landowner has not cheated them. They receive exactly what they agreed to receive.

Their anger is not really about injustice. It is about generosity shown to someone else.

“Are you envious because I am generous?” the landowner asks.

That is an uncomfortable question, because we can carry the same attitude into our relationship with God.

We have gone to Mass, struggled to keep the commandments, and served others for years. Then someone turns to God late in life, perhaps even on a deathbed, and we wonder whether it is fair for that person to receive the mercy we hope to receive.

We may not put it quite so bluntly, but the thought can still be there: Surely my years of faithfulness should put me ahead of someone who has only just begun.

But grace is not a wage that places God in our debt.

Our faithfulness matters, and God truly rewards the good we do through his grace. Yet even our ability to persevere is his gift. A lifetime of service does not make us less dependent on his mercy than the person who has just begun.

If we resent someone’s late conversion, perhaps we need to ask what we think we have lost by following Christ.

Has knowing him been a punishment?

Have the years spent learning to love, receiving the sacraments, growing in faith, and serving our neighbor been wasted?

Those years may have involved real sacrifice. But they have also been years in which God has been drawing us closer to himself. To have known and served him for much of our lives is itself a gift, not a disadvantage for which we must be compensated.

Nor should God’s generosity become an excuse to delay our response.

Isaiah urges us to seek the Lord while he may be found. The invitation is before us now. Why would we deliberately put off turning toward the one who loves us?

Heaven is not a competition over who receives the biggest mansion.

It is communion with God in perfect love. In that love, another person’s joy will not threaten our own. We will not be disappointed that someone else has been saved. We will rejoice that they, too, share in the life of God.

Saint Paul shows us what it looks like to begin living with that love now.

He longs to be with Christ, yet he recognizes that continuing his earthly life means fruitful labor for the sake of others. His concern is not simply what he will receive, but how his life can serve Christ and benefit those entrusted to him.

Our lives should have that same direction. Whether through prayer, daily work, care for our families, or service to those in need, we are called to give ourselves in love. We should desire the salvation of our neighbor, not resent the mercy that makes it possible.

Can we rejoice when God is generous to someone who does not seem to deserve it?

Can we stop measuring what we have earned and instead be grateful for what we have received?

Can we spend whatever time remains to us in fruitful labor for others?

The question is not whether God has been too generous to someone else.

It is whether we are allowing his generosity to change our own hearts.

Then, like Saint Paul, we can desire above all that Christ be magnified in us, whether by our life or our death.