Wednesday in the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time, August 19, 2020

Matthew 20:1-16

I have some news: We are gradually resuming parish activities at Blessed Sacrament, and I will be able to offer Bible Study again on Tuesday evenings and Wednesday mornings as before.  It looks like our startup dates will be Tuesday, September 15, at 7:00 PM, and Wednesday, September 16, after the 8:30 Mass, maybe about 9:15 AM.  Each meeting will last an hour, and will be held in Quinn Hall, not the Trinity Room as before.  I would like to look at the topics we were going to investigate during Lent before the virus shut us down.  They are very apt for today: Mercy, Forgiveness, and Justice, an hour-long meeting dedicated to each of these.  We will look at what the Scriptures teach us and see how they work in practice in the life of Jesus and in our lives today as Christians.  We will also explode the myths and misunderstanding so common about them.  What does mercy really mean?  Are mercy and justice incompatible?  Are we supposed to “forgive and forget”?  And how do we actually forgive?  Please email me or call me at the office if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for future topics!

Jesus told his disciples this parable: “The Kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.’ So they went off. And he went out again around noon, and around three o’clock, and did likewise. Going out about five o’clock, he found others standing around, and said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’ When 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.’ When those who had started about five o’clock came, each received the usual daily wage. So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage. And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’ 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? Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?’ Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

It seems to me that the last verse of chapter 19 belongs not to the end of the teaching about whether the rich could be saved (in yesterday’s Gospel reading) but to the beginning of the Gospel reading for today.  Evidently when the Gospels were carved up for the present lectionary, the person in charge went by the text decisions of Stephen Langton (d. 1228), the Archbishop of Canterbury, who provided what became the modern arrangement of the chapters in the Scriptures, rather than the strict sense of the text.  Thus, the parable of the workers in the vineyard, in my opinion, is introduced with a single basic teaching: “And many that are first, shall be last: and the last shall be first” (Matthew 19, 30), and then concluded with similar words that include an emphasis.  This radical teaching of the Lord frames the parable.

There are many ways to understand this parable precisely because it features such strange behavior on the part of the landowner.  One way to look at it is that it is about the lavish generosity he shows to his workers, particularly the ones hired later in the day.  Another is to understand the anxiety the landowner has to get his vineyard harvested before anything happens to the grapes.  Still another is to see that the ways of the landowner are not the ways of his laborers, but extremely different.  In all instances, the landowner is a figure for God.  In the first, we see that God’s purpose is to manifest his own glory and one way in which he does this is through a generosity only he can possess.  In the second, we see God’s great care for us, his grape clusters hanging on the vine, and to bring us into heaven as expeditiously as possible lest persecution or the cares of this world bruise or destroy us.  In the third, we see God making it abundantly clear how different his way are from our ways, and that with respect to his providence and his judgments, all we can do is to wonder.

It also pays to think of how this is about sin and forgiveness.  The workers who come out at dawn are those who come to their senses about their sins and do not put off repenting but come to the Lord right away.  The night of sin is ended, the dawn of new life has arrived, and they go to the Lord, begging forgiveness, and receiving from the Lord the grace of becoming his followers, indeed, members of his Body.  Others come to him more slowly.    They have also torn themselves from their lives of sin, but with greater difficulty than those who came at dawn.  They are also forgiven and are made followers as well, to toil in the vineyard of the world, doing the Lord’s business.  At the end, at the final judgment, all are to be received into heaven.  Some among those who toiled the longest complain that they should receive a greater reward, but the Lord reminds them that it is only due his grace that they are saved at all, and that it is unseemly for his followers to judge each other as to their worthiness or lack thereof. 

If  we look at ourselves and think how God overwhelms us with his grace and mercy each day simply by allowing us to call ourselves Christian, we will see our time in the vineyard of this world as a great favor he has granted us, despite the heat of the day and the difficulty of the labor.