The parable of the vineyard workers in today’s gospel reading shines a spotlight on the extravagant generosity of God. As the story goes, a landowner goes out several times during the day seeking workers for his vineyard. Each worker is given the same opportunity to work for the regular daily wage. This meant that the late hires received from the landowner the same compensation as the early arrivals. The story speaks of the unmerited and amazing generosity of our Lord. Yet many of us, when we first hear this story, side with the early workers who worked a full day but got the same wage as those who only worked an hour. How can that be fair? Our first reading today from Isaiah provides insight into our challenge in accepting that we cannot possibly think as God thinks. God can never be figured out or second-guessed if the Scriptures are to be believed. You can shake your fist at God or bend your knee to worship God, but you can never understand God. Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that we like to compare God’s ways to our ways and, on that basis, find God unacceptable. We do this in sincere and well-intentioned ways; for example, we say things like: “If there were an all-loving and all-powerful God, this suffering would not exist!” “God could never permit this!” “This cannot make sense!” “An all-powerful God would do something about this!” These expressions and the attitudes that go with them seem enlightened, sympathetic, and courageous; certainly, most people would say that of Harold Kushner’s book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” which says precisely those things. However, this notion of “understanding God” is problematic. Why? Simply put, a God whose thoughts are our thoughts and whose ways are our ways, a God who can be understood, is eventually not an object for reverence or worship. Such a God is too small, ordinary, and impotent to be an object of faith. Likewise, such a God can neither be fully Creator nor Redeemer and will be seen as an opium for those lacking intellectual courage. Does this mean we should stop trying to understand God and asking questions? No. Faith never demands that we stop asking hard questions. However, at the end of the day, whether you are staring at blessing or curse, graciousness or suffering, love or hate, life or death, you can only say this of God: “Holy, Holy, Holy!…God’s ways are not my ways!” Faith embraces this reality, trusts in God’s promises, and faithfully seeks to do His will.