Combatting envy by admiring the gifts which Providence grants to others is a sure way to fulfil the sovereign will of God in our lives.
Gospel– Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jesus told His disciples this parable: 1 “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 Going out about nine o’clock, the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.’ 5 So they went off. And he went out again around noon, and around three o’clock, and did likewise. 6 Going out about five o’clock, the landowner found others standing around, and said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ 7 They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’ 8 When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ 9 When those who had started about five o’clock came, each received the usual daily wage. 10 So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage.11 And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying, 12 ‘These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’ 13 He said to one of them in reply, ‘My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14 Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? 15 Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?’ 16a Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Mt 20:1-16a).
I – An Uncommon Parable
When we analyse what happens around us using merely human criteria, we often believe the abilities and gifts we have are our exclusive possession, when, in reality, they belong solely to God, for they come, ultimately, from His infinite power. Such an attitude leads us to believe that we have the right to demand something of Him, as pertains to the eternal reward or chastisement His judgement reserves for us after this life, for example. The fact is that the Lord distributes everything according to the measure of His justice and mercy, with lofty criteria that our poor intelligence cannot grasp, but which we know are infinitely perfect by the fact that they are His.
In the Gospel for the Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Our Lord Jesus Christ makes use of a special parable so as to place us in this supernatural perspective which is of great importance for our sanctification.
A landowner zealous for his property
Jesus told His disciples this parable: 1 “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire labourers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.”
In creating this parable, Our Lord chose the figure of a landowner, proprietor of a vineyard. When the vines are covered with grapes, additional labourers must be hired to gather the harvest on time. In Israel, a day was understood as twelve hours, from six in the morning to six in the evening, and the workday began at the first streak of dawn. Thus, being a practically minded man, dedicated to the proper development of his inheritance, this landowner went out while it was still dark, around five-thirty in the morning. Finding labourers seated in the city square, perhaps still half-asleep and waiting to be contracted for some service, he invited them to work on his land.
This was normally done by oral contract, setting a price for the entire day’s work. In order to protect these day-labourers, generally people of little means, the law required that the employer pay them before sunset. On this occasion, the vineyard owner and the workers agreed to the usual daily wage.
An unrealistic situation
3 “Going out about nine o’clock, the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.’ 5 So they went off. And he went out again around noon, and around three o’clock, and did likewise.”
The description of the first scene was very familiar to the public listening to the Divine Master. However, He goes on to present an unheard-of situation. The vineyard owner returns to the city square at nine o’clock, at noontime and at three in the afternoon, each time contracting more workers to harvest on his property. But to these he makes the generic offer of just pay. They doubtless calculated the amount they would receive by dividing the usual wage by the hours of work they would each do. This is an imaginary situation, for those not contracted at the first hour would return home or would begin to wander about the streets, it being clear that there was no employer to offer them work. The narration shows that Our Lord’s intention was to shake up His listeners, emphasizing how the proprietor had complete liberty to do whatever he wished with what belonged to him.
Called to the vineyard at the end of the afternoon
6 “Going out about five o’clock, the landowner found others standing around, and said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ 7 They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’”
If the scene laid out in the previous verse was unusual, it was virtually impossible for the new scenario formulated by Our Lord to occur. The same landowner who had gone out at various intervals during the day to contract workers, once again appears in the city square just one hour before sunset. There he finds men who have spent the whole day doing nothing. Although almost no time remains to do anything in the vineyard, he employs them.
Once again, Our Lord purposely portrays a circumstance that is entirely atypical to the customs of the time so as to shock His listeners, while making it easier for them to comprehend the supernatural reality that He wants to bring to their attention.
Generosity with the labourers of the last hour
8 “When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Summon the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ 9 When those who had started about five o’clock came, each received the usual daily wage.”
Finally, the day ends and the time for payment arrives. Now, as we have seen, while the owner had agreed to the usual daily wage with those who were contracted at six in the morning, the rest had only been promised to be paid a just wage. He first calls those who worked only one hour to receive their pay. No rule is transgressed, for, as the wages come from his own money, he can distribute them in the order he pleases. Nevertheless, the fact naturally causes a certain uneasiness in the others. This is soon transformed into expectancy when, very happily, the labourers of the eleventh hour receive the full day’s wages that the vineyard owner had stipulated for those who had worked since sunrise.
The first receive the same wage
10 “So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage.11 And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying, 12 ‘These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’”
Almost spontaneously, the group of the first labourers began to make calculations. If those who had worked one hour received this amount, they should receive at least ten times as much. What a generous man this employer is!
However, to their disappointment, the landowner called them and gave them only the amount agreed upon at the start of the day. They immediately complained, for after the fatigue of a long day, they felt undervalued in receiving the same wage as those who had worked only one hour.
The landowner, both just and generous
13 “He said to one of them in reply, ‘My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14 Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? 15 Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?’”
The landowner’s reply makes the justice of his actions very clear, and he addresses only one of the labourers, perhaps due to the latter being the one inciting discontent among the others. After all, he had paid them the day’s wages agreed upon at dawn. As for the rest, he could use his goods as he wished, without having to explain or render accounts to the first ones, especially when he did so practising generosity with the others. Seen in this way, where was the injustice in his conduct? He had been magnanimous with the labourers of the eleventh hour and had given the first what had been agreed upon; both should be happy.
Instead, in face of this act of kindness, those men took a completely erroneous attitude of envy. But, as things stood, not one of them had the courage to say to the employer that he was wrong.
Preparing the Apostles to accept God’s will
The Gospel does not explicitly say so, but we understand between the lines that, faced with this unusual parable, Our Lord’s disciples sympathized with the labourers who, according to their rather mercantile mentality, had been wronged by the owner of the vineyard. The disciples were troubled as to what might be the meaning of the Master’s teaching. What was He trying to say?
We are in chapter twenty of St. Matthew’s Gospel, and the Passion of Our Lord is drawing near; He is already on the way to Jerusalem. Immediately following the narration of this parable, the Redeemer will make the third announcement of His Death and Resurrection (cf. Mt 20:17-19), after which the mother of St. James and St. John will kneel before Him and ask Him to grant the places at His right and left hand to her two sons, in the kingdom that He was to establish (cf. Mt 20:20-23). This attitude produced a tremendous uproar among the Apostles, not due to their uprightness, but because they all desired similar posts in this human kingdom that they awaited (cf. Mt 20:24).
Dominated as they were by such a distorted outlook, the teaching contained in the parable of the last-hour labourers was very useful in helping them to understand that everything depends on God’s will, which must be respected.
A teaching for all ages
16a “Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Contrary to what the Apostles most likely expected, Our Lord concludes this teaching with a sui generis affirmation which shows us the supernatural explanation of the parable.
The payment made by the landowner is a metaphor of the distribution of gifts which God discharges with complete liberality, in accord with His will and independent of our effort. However, it is not related of any of the labourers that his work was not satisfactory. All did as they should and earned the same salary. This means that those who work worthily in the vineyard of the Lord will receive Heaven, where they will see God face to face. But all of this depends on the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which He distributes as He wishes, so that He can give the last more than the first. Absolute Lord of all things, He will never commit an injustice!
II – Let us Serve the True Lord of the Vineyard!
The parable of the labourers of the vineyard has a special message for each one of us, for it plainly points out two mentalities: first, that of those who are concerned with the true Lord of the vineyard; second, that of those who are only concerned with themselves. Like the workers of the parable, we are also day-labourers, that is, we were called by God to fulfil a mission. In whatever hour of the day we have been convoked, we must work as they did, practising the Commandments and avoiding sin at all cost.
Nevertheless, we would be completely mistaken if we believed that Heaven was strictly obtained by our personal diligence. In fact, God recompenses even the work accomplished at the last hour in His vineyard, and He does so completely gratuitously , giving much more than deserved. One enters the Kingdom of Heaven not on account of the amount of work done, but as a merciful gift from Providence, for not even all human efforts combined would be sufficient to earn such a reward. As St. Augustine rightly affirms,1 when God rewards our merits, He crowns His own gifts.
God’s rights are above anything else
Thus, the Divine Master’s teaching revolves around the rights of God and the need for Him to be in the centre of everything; it is for us to adapt ourselves entirely to His most holy will. Everything depends on the Lord, for it is He who pays, who rewards, who gives… and it would be an absurdity for us to want to impose human criteria on Him.
This demands an absence of the least vestige of envy on our part. We must fill ourselves with admiration and joy for all the benefits that God bestows upon others, and not upon us. The contrary attitude is, at heart, a revolt against the goodness of the Creator. In fact, the origin of every revolution is a mutiny against the divine plans, and he who envies others for what they have received allows pride to implant the perilous root of disobedience in his soul.
Therefore, let us be flexible in God’s hands, striving to follow His most holy will in everything and to always fulfil His most holy designs. And let us conserve, in the depth of our souls, the conviction that we will be judged by what we have done from the moment in which Our Lord convoked us to work in His vineyard. If we have done everything within in our means, we will obtain the heavenly reward by His mercy; but let us not forget that, although the parable does not say it, there is also an eternal chastisement for those who work against the Lord of the vineyard.
May the maternal intercession of Mary Most Holy never permit us to stray from God’s ways, and help us attain, not by our merits, but by her goodness, the unmerited payment of eternal life! ◊
