"It has always been that way" is a phrase no dynamic leader wants to hear. Or to put it another way, madness is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. The way things are now is due to the decisions of whoever went before. This is a fact, of course. But it does not need to be a life sentence.

The Prophet Ezekiel speaks to the defeated people of God with a bracing and forthright message. It is a message full of hope not only for the distant future, but for now as well.

In a parable about the astounding generosity of God (link to readings), we’re meant to find ourselves siding with the wrong people—primarily concerned about equity and the proper disbursement of wages. It gets at something visceral.
 
This is because the biggest problem with God’s generosity is that is so often violates our own sense of right and wrong, our sense of how things would be if we ran the world. Fair. Equitable. We’d get what we’ve earned.
 
This parable, however, insists that God is a really lousy bookkeeper.

This session explores types 8, 9, and 1

Irish playwright Oscar Wilde wrote, “Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them quite so much.”

While that might take some of the sting out of forgiving, according to a parable Jesus told it misses the point.

There’s a whole other why.

2nd Century theologian Origen, commenting on this week's Epistle reading wrote, "This debt remains with us permanently and never leaves us; it is a debt which we both discharge every day and for ever owe."

Do you know what it is?

You should, because it completely fulfills everything else.