The First and the Last in the Kingdom

In Matthew 20, 1-16, we find Jesus telling the mysterious and unsettling parable about the man who hired workers for his vineyards at various hours and afterwards paid them all the same wage.  The man hired the workers at the first, third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh hours.  The "first" hour would have been near dawn, the sixth hour would have been close to our noon, and the eleventh hour just before sunset.  In his commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, St. Jerome provides his interpretation on these verses:

"It seems to me that the first hour is that of the workers Samuel, Jeremiah, and John the Baptist, who are able to say with the Psalmist: 'From my mother's womb, you are my God' (Psalm 21, 11).  At the third hour, the workers are those who begin to serve God in their early youth.  At the sixth hour, those who take up the yoke of Christ at a mature age.  At the ninth hour, those declining into their old age.  A little after the eleventh hour, those who reached their last hours.  And still, all of these receive an equal payment although the work was not divided equally.  There are those who read this parable differently.  They want that in the first hour, Adam and the rest of the Patriarchs up to Noah were sent into the vineyard.  At the third hour, those from Noah himself up to Abraham and the circumcision given to him.  At the sixth hour, those from Abraham up to Moses, when the law was given.  At the ninth hour, Moses himself and the Prophets.  At the eleventh hour, the Apostles and the Gentiles, who were envied.  John the Evangelist himself, knowing  that it was already past the eleventh hour, near sunset and towards evening, said: 'My little children, the hour is very near' (1 John 2, 18).  And at the same time, consider that all those who accused the head of the household of injustice in his equal treatment of the workers at the eleventh hour, did not see themselves in them.  Now, if the head of the household was wicked, he was not wicked to one only, but to all, for the worker of the third hour worked less than the worker of the first hour.  Similarly, the one who worked from the sixth hour worked less than the one who worked from the third.  And the worker at the ninth hour less than the worker of the sixth.  Therefore, everyone envied the one called after him, and was twisted around according to the grace of the Gospel.  Thus, the Savior concludes his parable: 'The first will be last, and the last will be first.'  The fact is that the Jews were turned around from the head to the tail, and we are changed from the tail to the head."