Matthew 20:14

Take that thine is, and go thy way. — The tone of dismissal is natural and intelligible in the parable. The question, What answers to it in God’s dealings with men? is not so easy to answer. If the “penny” which each received was the gift of eternal life, did those who answered to the murmuring labourers receive that, or were they excluded by their discontent from all share in it? Was the money which they received as “fairy-gold” that turned to a withered leaf in the hands of its thankless possessor? The answer is, perhaps, to be found in the thought that that reward lies in the presence of God to the soul of the disciple, and that this depends for its blessedness on the harmony between the character of the believer and the mind of God. Heaven is not a place, but a state, its happiness is not sensual but spiritual, and those who are in it share its blessedness in proportion as they are like God and see Him as He is. It is only perfect when their charity is like His.