[The prophet insists that Israel (and we can include ourselves) must ‘seek the Lord’, which means here turning to God with humility and a real sense of need of God.
God is different to us: God is transcendent, yet close enough to help us.
A main theme of the reading is the ever-present possibility of forgiveness from God (my ways are not your ways) Sinners are forgiven not because they have earned forgiveness - we can be hard hearted)
Seek the Lord while he is still to be found, call to him while he is still near.
Let the wicked man abandon his way, the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn back to the Lord who will take pity on him,
to our God who is rich in forgiving;
for my thoughts are not your thoughts,
my ways not your ways - it is the Lord who speaks.
Yes, the heavens are as high above earth as my ways are above your ways,
my thoughts above your thoughts.
[St Paul is writing from prison to his good friends at Philippi. Since his ‘Damascus experience’ Christ was at the centre of Paul’s life.]
Christ will be glorified in my body, whether by my life or by my death. Life to me, of course, is Christ, but then death would bring me something more; but then again, if living in this body means doing work which is having good results - I do not know what I should choose. I am caught in this dilemma: I want to be gone and be with Christ, which would be very much the better, but for me to stay alive in this body is a more urgent need for your sake.
Avoid anything in your everyday lives that would be unworthy of the gospel of Christ.
[See notes in Reflection A]
Jesus said to his disciples: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner going out at daybreak to hire workers for his vineyard. He made an agreement with the workers for one denarius a day, and sent them to his vineyard. Going out at about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place and said to them. "You go to my vineyard too and I will give you a fair wage." So they went. At about the sixth hour and again at about the ninth hour, he went out and did the same. Then at about the eleventh hour he went out and found more men standing round, and he said to them, "Why have you been standing here idle all day?" "Because no one has hired us" they answered. He said to them, "You go into my vineyard too." In the evening, the owner of the vineyard said to his bailiff, "Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last arrivals and ending with the first." So those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came forward and received one denarius each. When the first came, they expected to get more, but they too received one denarius each. They took it, but grumbled at the landowner. "The men who came last" they said "have done only one hour, and you have treated them the same as us though we have done a heavy day's work in all the heat." He answered one of them and said, "My friend, I am not being unjust to you; did we not agree on one denarius? Take your earnings and go. I choose to pay the last-comer as much as I pay you. Have I no right to do what I like with my own? Why be envious because I am generous?" Thus the last will be first, and the first last.'
A
1. What word or phrase stands out for you? Why?
2. With whom in the readings do you most identify? Why
3. Do you feel attracted to anything in today�s readings? Do you feel
resistant to anything? Do you know why?
4. In what way do these readings affirm you?
5. In what way do these readings challenge you?
6. What can you do to respond to this challenge?
B
1.Do any of the readings, passages relate to your life, speak to you? How?
2.What do you like about the story of the labourers in the vineyard? What do you dislike? How does the story challenge you?
3.Think of a time when you were bothered by generosity / (praise) shown to a person you thought less deserving
4.Tell of an experience when you were treated better than you thought you deserved.
5.Relate an experience when you were criticized for being generous or forgiving.
6.Describe a time when you felt cheated by someone else’s good fortune.
7.What recent experiences remind you of the differences between your ways and God’s ways.
This parable is found only in St Matthew. This parable can be offensive to us and challenge our sense of justice. We feel for the grumbling workers who complain that the latecomers are paid the same as themselves. How can God be so unfair?
Why did Matthew include this parable? Who was it aimed at?
The parable contains two major parts: the hiring of the workers and instruction about payment (20:1-7) and the payment of the workers and then the indignation of those who feel themselves cheated; the murmurers, the begrudgers in the community whom Matthew is hitting out against. (20:8-15)
We may feel that God is not fair. The fact is that God is not ‘fair’. The parable shows what God is like: full of compassion for the poor. It points out how wrong it is to be scandalised by his great goodness.
God’s prodigal goodness is an affront to human level headedness. His love for sinners is an insult to the pious. We call this story the parable of the labourers in the vineyard but it is more about the ‘good’ employer. The parable of the good employer defends Jesus’ special concern for the marginal in society (a friend of tax collectors and sinners), and Jesus never denied that (I came not to call the righteous but sinners). This parable is a bit like the parable of the prodigal son: Prodigal Father/ Prodigal employer.
Matthew reflects his own concern.
The traditional title of this parable is “the labourers in the vineyard”. The central person in it is the householder/master. Some say the title of the parable should be : “the good employer” since he is the main character from start to finish.
Matthew has added in verse 16 (the first shall be last and the last first] What Jesus said is one thing. For Jesus, surely, the parable has to do with God’s generosity, which transcends human standards. The parable ended originally at verse 15. The key to the parable is the last phrase: “because I am generous.”
It is the goodness of the householder that explains his capricious, unpredictable conduct. At first sight it does not seem fair, but the motives explain. A denarius represented a day’s wage - enough to support a family, anything less would be insufficient (especially just for an hour). It is because he had compassion on the latecomers that he called them into the vineyard in the first place, and paid them a full denarius. It is the action of a man full of compassion for the poor. So too does God act for he is full of mercy. This is the message of the parable.
The last shall be first (in Matt 19:30) and in Matt 20: 17 is not part of the parable. The connection between the saying and the parable is weak, since the only point in common with it is the order of payment (20:8), but the order of payment (necessary to the dramatic presentation in the parable) is not the core of the parable.]
Do you feel a little uncomfortable with today's gospel? If so I'm happy, because I always feel that way myself. We know that those who had laboured all day hadn't been promised anything extra. We know they would have been quite happy with their pay, had they not known that the others had received the same pay. That may be very true, but we feel they should have received 'extra'. Those who complained [ the ones who came first] didn't complain against their fellow workers, but against the landowner. I'm sure we have all experienced the same in different ways - you give in generosity to one and the others ask - where is mine. I'm sure parents find that with children. Generosity can breed envy.
This parable is not about social justice/ nor how labourers should be treated - parable make points, and the details are not to be taken literally.
When Jesus spoke this parable it was meant for the religious leaders of his time and for his followers. The scribes and pharisees had difficulty in Jesus relationship with those they called sinners/ pagans/ tax collectors. He should not have mixed with such people. Some people believed they had an exclusive claim on God's love. They were the chosen people. Now they hear that God's kingdom is freely given, is gift, and not earned. All who turn to God, and respond to God's invitation receive the same welcome. This was the lesson for the Jews of our Lord's time.
St Matthew wrote this gospel for his community made up of Jewish Christians and pagan converts. (The last shall be first). The pagans are being received into the church on equal terms (St Paul - we are all one in Christ) St Matthew is finding it difficulty to persuade his community to welcome convert pagans.
This Gospel ultimately is not about our Lord talking to the Scribes and Pharisees, explaining God's generosity nor is it about newcomers in the church being received on an equal footing.
Matthew is telling us that our church should be open. We can all too easily become the Pharisees/ the insiders who are smug/ who want to keep things as they are...... Are you in a multicultural community? Do you welcome the newcomers? Are you one of the solid parishioners, a rock of the parish hardworking etc… do you begrudge newcomers?
Today's gospel reminds us [i] that God's kingdom is gift...........that we have no right to it. [2] no group has an exclusive claim on God's love - all who turn and respond are welcome. [3] today's gospel questions our attitudes to one another.
I sometimes think that the parables enjoy a popularity that may be misplaced. By this I do not mean to question their extraordinary composition or their radical religious message. It is just that we may be identifying with the wrong person and then might miss the really subversive flavour of the story. The parable in today’s Gospel dispels any doubt about the challenge always placed before us by these remarkable accounts.
We might find this parable disturbing because we identify ourselves with those “who bore the day’s burden and the heat.” I am sure we want God to be generous with all, but many of us might expect God’s generosity to be proportionate to the duration and quality of one’s commitment. But this parable shows that the criterion by which God operates is not the standard that most women and men might follow. According to human standards, our generous God does not seem to be fair. (Notice how I have hedged this statement: Our generous God does not seem to be fair.) We have learned that God is all-knowing, all-loving, all-just, all-everything-that-is-good, etc. Therefore, we are afraid to suggest that God might not be fair. We are afraid that this might be a kind of blasphemy. But then, how is this parable to be understood?
Perhaps we should understand it as a concrete example of what is found in the last lines of today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah:
For 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.
The prophet very clearly states that we simply cannot understand God or the ways of God. In fact, even our best theological statements can lead to misunderstanding. This limitation calls to mind the negative way of speaking of God developed in the theology of the Eastern Church. Called apophatic, it explicitly acknowledges the inadequacy of the human mind to grasp the things of God. Does this then strip the parables of their religious value? Certainly not! But it does remind us that even the parables of Jesus can provide only glimpses of the ways of God. And even when they do this, they might very well, if taken too literally, misrepresent another aspect of the divine reality. They are, after all, merely human compositions.
What then is the point of today’s parable? It clearly states that people are called by God at different times during their lifetime. We know from experience that this is a fact, and so we can accept it as true. The parable also says that those who respond positively to this call from God are promised “what is just.” Again, this flows from an understanding of God that we have come to know, and so we can accept it as well. But then the parable turns our understanding of fairness upside down. Yet this is what makes it so powerful! It appears to tell us something about God, when in fact it may be revealing our own arrogance and selfishness.
Perhaps we are understanding the story from the wrong perspective. If we identify with those “who bore the day’s burden and the heat,” in other words, those who deserve “what is just,” we may be troubled by God’s generosity. In fact, we might even be tempted to judge this generosity as unfair. If we identify with the undeserving ones, however, those who may even be an afterthought, we will be thrilled with the divine generosity. What, after all, makes us identify with one group rather than another?
Divine generosity is always a scandal to people who believe that it should only be granted to those who deserve it. And it is in this conviction that their error is laid bare, for no one deserves the generosity of God. It is a free gift, given to all who will accept it. If we think we deserve it, we will resent those who in our judgment do not. It is arrogant to think that we have earned it; it is selfish to want to hug it to ourselves.
In today’s short passage from Philippians, Paul displays remarkable unselfishness toward others. He is certainly one “who bore the day’s burden and the heat.” Yet, for the sake of others, he is willing to remain working in the vineyard. He knows the generosity of God, and he decides to continue to act as an agent of that generosity as long as he is able.
The reign of God is a reign of divine generosity. We are invited to participate in it. If God invites others, we should be happy that they join us. Divine generosity is not a limited commodity. Their enjoyment will take nothing from ours. On the contrary, if we truly share in the generosity of God, their enjoyment will enhance ours.
• With the grumbling workers, place your complaints before God.
• Pray about times when you have felt resentful over the goodness given to others, and think of ways that God has been gracious and merciful toward you (Ps. 145:8).
• Think of ways that justice in our society must be transformed by generosity.