Letter 2 on comparing yourself to others, in Ruth’s voice

Dear friend,

“For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who was the master of a household, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. He went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise. About the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle. He said to them, ‘Why do you stand here all day idle?’ “They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ “He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is right.’ “When evening had come, the lord of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.’ “When those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius. When the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise each received a denarius. When they received it, they murmured against the master of the household, saying, ‘These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’ “But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius? Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you. Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’ So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen.”

I keep thinking about how comparison shows up not just in the obvious places, but in the quiet ones — in how someone else's steadiness at prayer, or her house, or her children's ease, gets read as a verdict on your own life.

There is a servant in Matthew 20:1-16 who worked the whole day in the vineyard and was paid the same as those who came at the eleventh hour. I notice the landowner does not argue that the full-day laborer is wrong to notice the difference. He asks instead whether the man's eye is evil because the owner is generous. That is a strange question, and it does not resolve the sting. It simply relocates the problem — from the wage to the watching.

I have stood in that vineyard more than once, counting someone else's hours instead of tending my own row. It never once made my row grow faster. What it did was keep me from the work in front of me, which was the only work that was ever mine to do.

What would it cost you to stop counting someone else's hours today?