Year A
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“My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts” (Is 55:8-9). God’s concept of justice is infinitely greater than ours and His love and compassion for the needy and struggling knows no bounds. Today’s Gospel portrays this very well.
At harvest time there is an urgency to gather in the harvest as soon as possible. At a time when all work was done by hand, farmers would hire as many labourers as they possibly could. They would go to the local marketplace where hired labourers, the lowest class of workers, would gather, waiting until someone hired them. These hired labourers were entirely at the mercy of chance employment, desperately hoping for work in order to provide for their families. If they were unemployed even for one day, their children would go hungry that day. William Barclay notes that the men waiting in the marketplace were not mere street-corner idlers. The fact that some of them stood on until even 5pm proves how desperately they wanted work. Perhaps these were the older men who did not appear as fit and productive as younger labourers.
In the parable a landowner goes out early in the morning and hires a group of labourers, agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, which was one denarius – enough to support a family for one day. In his concern to make sure everything was harvested on time, the landowner returned several times to the marketplace to hire more labourers. Even towards the end of the day he still found more men he could hire.
When payment time came, the landowner gave these men hired at the end of the day a denarius, a full day’s wage. He showed great generosity here. Perhaps he was taking into consideration that they had waited the entire day and needed money to support their families. The labourers hired early in the day received the amount they had negotiated with the landowner – one denarius, a full day’s wage.
From a mere human perspective this seems unfair, perhaps because we tend to read into this parable our preconceived notions of how fairness and equality should be quantified. But the point of this parable is that God’s notion of fairness and equality is much greater. Jesus makes it clear that the only reason the others receive the same reward is because of the generosity of the owner of the vineyard (God). He treats the first ones justly, but the latter ones with astounding generosity.
The wages at stake here are not actual daily wages for workers, but God’s grace, mercy and forgiveness. God’s work of salvation is motivated not only by justice, but also by love and compassion. God owes us nothing, but he offers abundantly. We might be tempted at times to think that our many years of service deserve more reward, more of God’s abundant mercy, than the shorter service of late converts. God is asking us to see things and people as He does. This parable shows us what God is like, full of generous compassion for those who are struggling. We have no right to ever feel “cheated”, because God’s mercy and compassion know no bounds. It is not the amount of service given, but the love in which it is given that matters. The labourers hired towards the end of the day must have felt particular gratitude for even the short time they were hired. Perhaps the labourers hired early in the day took it for granted that they were getting a full day of work and pay.
In the end, what God gives to each one is always given out of the goodness of His heart. What He gives is never merely payment, but a gift; not simply a reward, but a grace. Our first concern should never be payment or reward, but rather gratitude and humble, joyful service.
What Jesus Crucified did for the Good Thief on Calvary is a concrete example of this parable. Not merely at the end of the day, but at the very end of his life, the Good Thief reaches out to Jesus: “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom”. Jesus offered him more than a denarius, a day’s wage. He gave him heaven: “This day you will be with me in paradise!”
Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Catholicism of the Catholic Church References:
CCC 210-211: God of mercy and piety
CCC 588-589: Jesus identifies his compassion to sinners with God’s
The two-fold commandment of love of God and of neighbour is Christ's own summary of the divine ordinances, and the Collect for the Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time explores this mystery of the Christian faith and the moral law.
It reminds us that all the many commands of the law come forth from the two-fold commandment, somewhat perhaps as flowers and fruit from a tree; the same sap of love flowing through and into all.
It reminds us also that God himself is the founder, the root if you like, of the moral law in its entirety. He is the law's guarantee. Indeed, it is hard to see what authority any law could have without God.
If the world came to be by chance, from where could come the unconditional command? From where could come the conscience with its absolute decree? There is nothing accidental about morality.
But a God who necessarily and unchangeably exists, the one source of all that is, he can have an authority, which it is not only impracticable to deny, but which corresponds to the inviolable voice of conscience.
Moved by this voice we can conclude the Collect by praying for the help of God, to keep his precepts, and to find the fulness of life in him, who alone is good, and whose very name is love.
These hymns have been picked and chosen from different sources.
God is love, his the care (CFE215,L794, LHON862)
Let us with a gladsome mind (CFE362, L707, LHON
Love is his word, love is his way (CFE399, L803, LHON462)
Sing of the Lord's goodness (CFE654, 713)
There is a wideness in God's mercy (L810 TCH268)
Tell out my soul (CFE684, L880, LHON644, TCH264)
CFE - Celebration Hymnal for Everyone
L – Laudate
LHON – Liturgical Hymns Old and New (Mayhew, 1999)
TCH – The Catholic Hymnbook (Gracewing)
Do you have questions about the liturgy and how we are called to participate in it? Explore how the Church councils, saints, and popes have answered this key question and many more.
Every movement of the Mass is rich in meaning but we can become over-familiar with it. Rediscover the Mass and explore how it relates to the Exodus story, where many of its rituals come from, and how it makes Jesus present to us today.
