The Workers in the Vineyard

 Today's Reflections

The Workers in the Vineyard 

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Mt 20:1-16

[Jesus said to his disciples,] ¹“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. ²After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. ³Going out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, ⁴and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.’ ⁵So they went off. [And] he went out again around noon, and around three o’clock, and did likewise. ⁶Going out about five o’clock, he found others standing around, and said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ ⁷They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’ ⁸When 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.’ ⁹When those who had started about five o’clock came, each received the usual daily wage. ¹⁰So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage. ¹¹And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, ¹²saying, ‘These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’ ¹³He 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? ¹⁴Take 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?’ ¹⁶Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Reflection:

Are you envious because I am generous? The first group of laborers learns about the equal payment given to the last group and expresses dissatisfaction. This may seem reasonable to us.

But the first-century Palestinian landowner is master of his property and has the right to be generous. By giving to the last group the usual daily wage they have agreed on, he takes nothing away from the first group.

This parable is not making any pronouncement on just employment practices. It only presents to us the superabundant generosity of God, represented by the landowner, who dispenses his gifts freely, without injustice to any rightful claim. God is surprisingly generous, beyond all human calculation, unpredictable, sovereignly free; otherwise, he would not be God.

“My thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord” (Is 55:8).