“And on receiving their wages they grumbled against the landowner”
[Mathew 20:1-16]
Agnes is a psychiatrist, wife, and mother. She stumbled and fractured her foot - six to eight weeks of immobilization! She saw it as an opportunity to practice what psychiatry calls the "higher defenses": humor, unselfishness, and patience. But it didn't happen. Everything she did required monumental effort on her part. Her husband stepped up to take on her end of the household chores: driving their daughter to school and soccer practice, doing the shopping, taking over all the cleaning, in addition to his own work and household duties.
Realizing her limits, she accepted his help. Thanks so much, here's the grocery list. Thanks for clearing the dishwasher, and thanks for filling it afterward. Thanks for carrying my coffee mug to the table. Thanks for driving to and from soccer games. Thanks for walking the dog at dawn. She was overcome with appreciation. Frankly, she found something uplifting about gratitude. It accepts whatever is given.
But the joy of gratitude began to erode over the weeks as she noticed that the plants were not watered fully - or at least not as she had watered them. The tuna fish he bought was not her brand. The dishwasher was being loaded side to side instead of front to back. Before long, only the dog was happy - he didn't need perfect help!
"I had crossed over," she remembers. "Where there had been appreciation, there was now dissatisfaction. I began to resent what was given, yet at the same time wanted more of it. It didn’t matter that I was a psychiatrist.” Unless you are extraordinary . . . gratitude soon is replaced by demand and appreciation by resentment.
This Sunday’s Gospel calls for a change of perspective in the way we live our lives. Like the workers who feel that they have been cheated, we can become too preoccupied with our disappointments at what has failed us, too overwhelmed by our anger over what has hurt us, too debilitated by the gnawing things we fear. The psychiatrist discovered her gratitude soon became her resentment. Jesus calls us to look beyond what we do not have and see what has been given. In these times we cannot allow ourselves to be overcome by resentment.
Over these months have some of your initial appreciation and gratitude become cynicism and resentment? Think carefully before you answer that! You just might need to change your perspective for your sake and the sake of those whom you love.
