Nothing is as difficult for human pride as accepting God’s gratuitous benevolence, by which He distributes His gifts unequally, being just towards all but especially generous towards some.
Gospel for the 25th 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 labourers 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 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. 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? 15Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Mt 20: 1-16a).
I – Human Pride and Divine Goodness
The Gospel for this 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time shows us two completely different perspectives from which we can consider everything throughout our lives: either we allow ourselves to be enlightened by faith, believing in what is beyond the reach of the senses and analysing everything according to God, or we restrict ourselves to concrete realities and are guided by our own criteria.
These two opposing outlooks even influence our understanding of the Creator and the way He relates to the beings He created. If we start from the human point of view, we often believe that the world conceived by God is not the most perfect, because it has the stain of sin. The ideal would be if, for example, only one man had sinned and was cast into hell, in order to reveal the punitive justice of the Omnipotent, but all the rest remained faithful in the time of trial, meriting the eternal reward.
However, an infallible principle of theology teaches us: “If God has done it, it is perfect.” Although He had the possibility of drawing from nothing creatures without any defect, He wanted to constitute a weak humanity subject to error, for in this way He would better manifest His supreme goodness. Although we do not know the proportion between the number of the Blessed and the number of the condemned, we know that in the plan of salvation, mercy far outshines justice.
Now pride makes us want to conquer Heaven by our merits, as if salvation depended exclusively on our good deeds, and so it is hard for us to accept God’s gratuitous benevolence towards us. And the difficulty becomes even greater when we see His compassion poured out upon our fellow men. It is easy for us to comprehend why divine justice falls upon someone, but how hard it is to admire and rejoice when the Father of mercy showers with His gifts those who, according to our judgement, are unfit to receive them!
This is one of the main teachings Our Lord transmits in telling His disciples the parable of the workers in the vineyard. While, on the one hand, the magnanimous gesture of the landowner shows how the distribution of divine benefits is independent of human efforts, on the other hand, the envious reaction of the workers illustrates how mistaken we are when we try to analyse the way God treats His children through a naturalistic lens.
II – Mercy that Is Gratuitous, Abundant and Anti-Egalitarian
St. Matthew, the only one who records the parable contemplated in this Liturgy, inserts it after the dialogue between Our Lord and the Apostles about the young rich man. After the latter “went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions” (Mt 19:22), the Divine Master made some comments on the generosity asked of the elect, rewarded by God with a hundredfold on this earth and in eternal life (cf. Mt 19:29). Then the Evangelist begins chapter 20 of his account with this parable, in which we also read the third foretelling of the Passion and the episode of the sons of Zebedee beseeching positions of honour in the Kingdom.
This contextual overview allows us to perceive that one of Jesus’ objectives in composing the story was to instil in His disciples the notion of God as the absolute Lord of His gifts, who grants them as He pleases.
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.”
It was part of the current agricultural customs in Palestine to admit day labourers at harvest time. They would gather in the marketplace at dawn, waiting for some offer of work. As the day was divided into hours counted from sunrise, the contract was made before dawn, and the harvest or picking began at about six in the morning. Since they were generally poor and needy people, they were paid at sunset on the same day, as prescribed by the Mosaic Law in the Book of Deuteronomy (cf. Dt 24:15).
The scenario described by Our Lord in these verses did not present any novelty to the disciples, because it entirely corresponded to reality. However, He develops the plot by adding unexpected details, likely to shock His listeners and highlight the figure of the landowner. Thus, the entry of new workers over the course of the day was something unusual, especially at the end of the workday.
Varying degrees of relationship with God
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.”
To the three groups of workers hired between nine o’clock in the morning and three in the afternoon, the landowner did not promise a predetermined wage, but only said that he would pay them “what is just”. This detail supposes a relationship of greater confidence towards the vinedresser on the part of these “idlers”, because they accept the job without further demands or formalities.
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.’”
Employers would naturally give preference to the sturdiest, most resourceful and experienced candidates; therefore, these ones whom no one had hired were probably the least skilled. The vine-dresser’s attitude, going out in search of people whose collaboration would yield him little or nothing, shows his disinterested goodness, since he does not do so out of necessity, but out of the desire to help.
Applied to the spiritual life, the parable illustrates three different degrees of intimacy of souls with God. While some see Him as a Lord whom they must serve and from whom they expect a reward, others regard Him as a Friend who will repay them in the measure of their fidelity. And there are yet those who consider Him as their Father, obeying Him like children, without expecting compensation. The latter are represented by the workers hired at dusk, to whom the owner makes no mention of a salary, but only sends them into the vineyard.
The egoist feels cheated by the goodness done to others
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.”
Every nuance of the story is finely tailored, with a clear purpose. The foreman begins to distribute the salary giving precedence to those who had dedicated only one hour. The others, when they see that they receive the full daily rate, immediately begin to make selfish calculations, each one multiplying the value by the hours of service rendered.
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.’”
In order to emphasize that the governance of all things belongs to the Creator, Our Lord again reverses the order of payment, placing those who had worked all day after those who entered last. The former may have been imagining that they would earn twelve coins, in proportion to the hours of “burden and the heat” endured in the vineyard, but they received only one. Because they were full of self-love, they felt cheated and began to grumble, indignant against the landowner. It is the typical attitude of the envious, who cannot tolerate the gifts that are given to others and, deep down, rebel against God.
Just recompense, abundant mercy
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?’ 16 Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
These words of the landowner, addressed not to all but “to one of them,” correct the erroneous view of the dissenters, pointing out how generosity towards some did not imply injustice against others. Besides emphasizing his rights as a proprietor, free to dispose of his goods as he wished, he draws their attention to what they had received and encourages them to be glad with it. If they, instead of comparing themselves with their fellows, had looked up to the generosity of the employer, they would not only have been satisfied with their own earnings, but would also have experienced the incomparable happiness that only admiration produces.
In interpreting the parable in a spiritual sense, certain authors apply it to the different moments of life when souls are invited to serve God with greater perfection. Thus, some go to “work in the vineyard” at the break of dawn, still in childhood, others enlist at more advanced stages, and there is even a contingent that enters only at the last hour. The Most High always rewards any effort made with the aim of pleasing Him, for He is Justice. But He does not follow narrow human concepts, and when He decides to show mercy, He does so abundantly and freely. Being omnipotent, He can either reciprocate in just measure or give with entire liberality.
Other commentators, however, prefer to associate this passage of the Gospel with salvation history. From this perspective, “the vineyard in which the Lord calls to work is the Church He founded. He invited the Jews to enter it first, not only through His preaching, but also through the ancient patriarchs and prophets, who with their lives and teachings prepared those people to receive the Messiah and take part in the Kingdom He would found on earth. He then called the Gentiles at the last hour, for He came to save and redeem all humanity, and granted them the same privileges as the Jewish people.”1
In this historical sense, it would not be an exaggeration to say that God’s way of acting with humanity in the present generations manifests a mercy that is even more disconcerting and anti-egalitarian than that portrayed in the parable, for the “later” one arrives, the greater the graces granted.
This is what St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort prophesies about the Saints of the latter times, upon whom Providence will pour out such graces that, if compared with the Saints of the previous period, they will resemble cedars of Lebanon beside small shrubs.2
III – Joy for Another’s Spiritual Good
“As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are My ways above your ways and My thoughts above your thoughts” (Is 55:9), says the Lord by the lips of Isaiah in the passage chosen for the first reading this Sunday. The language employed by the prophet imparts an idea of the immensity that separates divine and human cogitations. But the image is an understatement for, in reality, the distance is infinite.
If we are not nourished with special mystical graces, we will never be able to live up to our condition as baptized persons, that is, with an attitude of soul always attentive to the supernatural world. It is a plane so superior to our frailty that we, attracted by concrete things, easily look down, slip and fall. To remain in this elevated state of mind without the help of grace is as impossible as someone trying to walk around all day as in a ballet, touching the ground with only the tips of their toes.
Therefore, it is up to us to combat the tendency to give ourselves over to a practical atheism by which we wish to be guided only by what our senses and reason indicate, without referring to Providence. The result of such a deviation can be seen in today’s world: a Babel of chaos and lies where everything is an invitation to sin because it evolved divorced from God. In fact, it was not under the influence of mystical graces that man invented the airplane, the internet, the extraordinary present-day medical devices and so many other wonders of technology, but by the mere application of his intelligence. If we do not wish to allow ourselves to be taken in by the delirium of sensations offered by this situation, we must turn to the One who “is near to all who call upon Him,” as the Responsorial Psalm reminds us (cf. Ps 145:18), in the certainty that the Lord is found within each one of us. To be heard, we need only recollect ourselves and turn to Him in our interior tabernacle.
We are all bound to the practice of virtue, by the simple fact of having a soul created and redeemed by God. We must return what belongs to Him, keeping the Commandments and avoiding sin at all cost. However, we would be mistaken if we imagined that Heaven is obtained exclusively by personal effort. The heavenly realities are so far beyond our pure nature that no one could ever gain participation in eternal bliss, were it not for the mercy of the Creator.
However, let us not forget: in the parable, all the workers accepted the landowner’s call and dedicated themselves to his service. Accordingly, at the end of the day, each one earned a silver coin. And yet, how many people over the course of history have refused to “work in the vineyard,” or have done so in such a negligent way as to receive eternal punishment as payment!
Let us firmly establish in the depths of our souls the conviction that at the end of this period of toil, begun when God called us into His army, we too will be summoned before Him to obtain – or not – the heavenly reward. If we wish to be the object of His magnanimity, let us live with our eyes and hearts fixed on the wonders of the Kingdom of Heaven, on Jesus and Mary Most Holy, and let us love the goodness that they manifest to each one of Their children in an unequal manner.
Whoever becomes saddened or rebellious in beholding the generosity of Providence poured out upon others commit the sin of envy for another’s spiritual good. In this Liturgy, Our Lord invites us to the exact opposite of this: to delight in the good of another, rejoicing in the divine benevolence granted to our brothers. ◊
Notes
1 LEAL, SJ, Juan; DEL PÁRAMO, SJ, Severiano; ALONSO, SJ, José. La Sagrada Escritura. Texto y comentarios por los profesores de la Compañía de Jesús. Nuevo Testamento. Evangelios. Madrid: BAC, 1964, v.I, p.211.
2 Cf. ST. LOUIS-MARIE GRIGNION DE MONTFORT. Traité de la vraie dévotion a la Sainte Vierge, n.47. In: Œuvres Complètes. Paris: Du Seuil, 1966, p.512-513.
