The Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
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?
Take what is yours and go.
What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?
—Matthew 20:13-14
In certain parts of the United States, it isn’t uncommon to see groups of men and women waiting in the parking lots of stores like Home Depot and Lowes. To be honest, I never gave these people much thought until a friend explained who they were: these were day laborers who were hoping that a contractor or someone needing help with a home repair project would hire them for the day or, at the least, for a few hours. Day laborers like these can be found in nearly every culture and, as we see in this Sunday’s Gospel, they were certainly a common sight in Jesus’ day.
Some years ago, a member of my Salvatorian community who worked in Arizona and in rural parishes and mission stations in Mexico offered me some deeper insights into the realities these people face. Sharing that he had often had opportunities to talk with these laborers, my confrere recalled how one man had shared how heartbreaking it was to return home at the end of the day without having been hired, because it meant that he would have to face his family with no means to buy food or pay bills. It’s a mode of existence that most of us will never know, even though this life of uncertainty and hardship is the reality for far too many here and around the world.
With all of this in mind, we can understand why the decision of the landowner in Jesus’ parable is both generous and just. He’s giving every laborer he hired the opportunity to provide for themselves and their families. After all, these workers weren’t being lazy or avoiding hard work. In the text, the laborers themselves tell us why they weren’t working: “Because no one hired us.” If there is no work to be had, what option did they have but to wait?
Despite the hope and reminder of God’s generosity that this parable offers, there are many people who are offended by what they see as the unfairness of the story. Even the most faithful among us can chafe at the idea of living a life of committed discipleship and still receiving the same reward as someone who comes to God at the “end of the day.” After all, how many of us are skeptical at the idea of a deathbed conversion or of a condemned person “finding faith” before they are executed? And yet, when we respond in this way, aren’t we adopting the same attitude we often condemn in the “good brother” at the end of the Parable of the Prodigal Son: “Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your order; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.”
“The parable portrays the unlimited generosity of God, who is concerned about providing for the needs of all people. It is the landowner’s compassion for the poor - in this case, the unemployed - that compels him to pay all the workers a wage that is calculated not only according to the laws of the market-place, but according to the real needs of each one.”
-Pope Saint John Paul II; Image: “The Parable of the Vineyard Workers” from The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander (1355-1356)
The passage we hear this Sunday from the Prophet Isaiah highlights for us the limits of our human perspective with that of God: “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” (Isaiah 55:8-9). This passage reminds us that while we human beings get stuck on the question of what is or is not fair, God’s ultimate concern is justice. Reflecting on this, John Donahue, SJ, wrote,
“The parable summons us to believe that God’s justice played out in this world is not limited by human conceptions of strict mathematical judgment, by which reward is in proportion to effort or merit. Mercy and goodness challenge us, as they did the workers in the parable, to move beyond justice even though they do not exist at the expense of justice. God’s ways are not human ways.”
In the end, The Parable of the Vineyard Workers isn’t about wages or fair labor practice, although it does offer us the space to reflect on how our society treats the unemployed, the underemployed, and migrant workers. Rather, this important passage presents for us the mystery of God’s abundance. The landowner’s search for more and more laborers, regardless of the late hour, speaks to us of the way God continues to seek out and invite more and more “laborers” for his vineyard. The gift of salvation is expansive and inclusive and is always available, as Pope Francis reminds us:
“God does not look at the time and at the results, but at the availability; he looks at the generosity with which we put ourselves at his service. His way of acting is more than just, in the sense that it goes beyond justice and is manifested in Grace. Everything is Grace. Our salvation is Grace. Our holiness is Grace. In giving us Grace, he bestows on us more than what we merit.”
O God, who founded all the commands of your sacred Law
upon love of you and of our neighbor,
grant that, by keeping your precepts,
we may merit to attain eternal life.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
