Counting ourselves among the last ones

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Is 55, 6-9; Phil 1,10-27; Mt 20,1-16 

Hitting a neuralgic point

We are all sensitive to unfairness - especially when we feel that it is ourselves who are being treated unfairly. Jesus knew exactly what to talk about and what examples to use to attract our attention and how to make us stop and think. Other parables spoke about seeds and harvest, about the love of a father to his son, about lost sheep. But this parable is perhaps the most powerful one because it speaks about money and that is a tender point for us all. But Jesus does so not because he wants to make us feel uncomfortable in any way but because he has some good news to share with us and that he wants to make sure that we all hear.

The threat of unemployment #1

However, before proceeding I would like to share with you something. I cannot read this gospel without thinking of the particular groups of people represented in today's gospel. In today's world, as mentioned in today's gospel, there are millions of people who are unemployed. Like the men mentioned in today's gospel, they are not gainfully employed not because they do not want to be employed, because they like to sit around idle, but because "nobody has hired them." Even worse, some jobs require that you have previous work experience and therefore work becomes almost impossible. John Paul II once issued a beautiful letter about the importance of work and described how work restores dignity to the life of the human person. Therefore creation of job opportunities and a just wage, the Pope continues, is essential for the human person and for the common good.

The threat of unemployment #2

Unfortunately around the world we are already fearing a time, perhaps in the not so distant future, human labour is taken over almost completely by robots, with the risk of putting many people out of employment. In a similar way, a number of companies are moving to other areas around the world where perhaps regulations are not so strict and wages are very low, so that more people can be employed at a lower wage. Today's gospel reminds me also of so many people around the world, especially women and children who toil under harsh conditions and yet receive little too low a wage or no recompense for their hard work.

Could God be unfair?

But today's gospel is not specifically about work and work conditions. I must confess that for many years I found this gospel very unfair. I could not understand how a supposedly just God who is love could be so unjust in his actions. The workers who arrived first must be given their wage and the rest of the workers must be payed according to the amount of time that they worked.

From counting ourselves among the first ones

It is obvious that when we think in this way, we are considering ourselves to be in the group of workers who were hired first. We are considering ourselves to be hard workers in the vineyard of the Lord, those who responded first to God's call. Therefore we recon that we deserve our just pay for doing so. In other words, we expect to be payed by God for being good persons!

To counting ourselves among the last ones

Today however I would like to invite you to consider ourselves not among those who were hired first, but among those who were hired last. And I have a number of reasons to say so. First, we tend to drag our feet when we are called to build the kingdom of heaven, which after all this parable is all about. I do not think that I am the only one to drag my feet what I must help others, especially those who are most in need. The same thing with prayer: we tend to give priority to everything and prayer always seems to get the second place. With St Augustine we can say,

Late did I love you,
O Fairness so ancient
and yet so new,
late did I love you!

Indeed, God deals with us so generously and all too often our response is always too little and too late.

We are loved for who we are not for what we do

On the other hand, we know that there is nothing that we can do to deserve God's love. He loves us just for who we are. We are grateful not so much for the wage that he wants to give us but for the very opportunity of working in the vineyard. Jesus himself tells us that the vineyard is the kingdom of God. Working in the vineyard of the Lord, building the Kingdom of God is in itself the greatest reward one can receive. And therefore this must fill us with a lot of gratitude, because although we have been late to respond to God's love, God still deals with us as though we have always responded promptly to his calling.

God's ways are not our ways

Isaiah says that God's thoughts are not our thoughts and God's ways are not our ways, by which he means that God's way of thinking is completely different from our own. Jesus wants us now to change our way of thinking so that we may now think as God thinks, that is to be generous with each other in the same way that God is generous with us.

Working in the Lord's vineyard

This is what working to make present the kingdom of heaven present means. It is not simply a treat for those who were lucky enough to be called first, or who were able bodied enough to withstand the toil of the day. To make present the kingdom of heaven means to be sensitive to the needs of others, to recognize injustices and have the courage to call them out by name. The kingdom of heaven starts from this life - true, in an incomplete and limited way - but it depends on us about how complete it may be.

Conclusion

May the Blessed Virgin Mary teach us the true meaning of being workers in God's vineyard. May she teach us to accept God's generosity and learn from it so that we too may be generous with others especially with those who are considered last and least in our society.