This morning’s Gospel reading is Matthew 20:1–16a:

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, the landowner 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, the landowner 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.”

At first, today’s parable might look like a lesson in economics. If so, the lesson here would clearly be the modern, cynical take on the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules. And believe it or not, that may well be applicable here — not as an economic teaching, but in understanding the true relationship between the Lord and us, individually as a whole.

The Bible has some very good economic advice, after all. As my friend Peter Grandich often advises, nothing in the Scriptures of either testament has a single positive word to say about debt. Nor does the Bible look kindly on excessive spending or accumulation of wealth for one’s own purposes. Jesus spends a good deal of His mission warning the wealthy and powerful that their security is an illusion, and that they would be better prepared for judgment if they shared their wealth and used their power to serve rather than be served.

In fact, Jesus had to remind two of His apostles, James and John, of this latter point in a sharp manner. In Mark 10, the sons of Zebedee asked Jesus to raise them to the highest authority under Him, which Jesus declined to do. When the other ten heard about the demand, they got angry with James and John for their arrogance. Jesus then tells the twelve disciples that they misunderstand the nature of the authority to which they aspire, and even the nature of Jesus’ own authority:

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The prophets delivered the same message, time after time. Isaiah in particular spoke of the “suffering servant” that would deliver salvation (Isaiah 53). In today’s reading, the Lord spoke through Isaiah to warn the people that they did not know His ways well enough, and should repent and come to Him for their counsel instead (Isaiah 55:6-9):

Seek the LORD while he may be found, call him while he is near. Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked his thoughts; let him turn to the LORD for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving. 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.

Having this as continuous context in Jesus’ teachings, the use of an all-powerful landowner is both striking and deliberate. Jesus isn’t teaching about economics or social justice, but about authority and rebellion. The main lesson is explicitly that the first shall be last and the last shall be first, but also that the authority to order that belongs to God and not to the workers.

The grumbling of the first workers underscores the lesson from Isaiah, and has echoes in the parable of the prodigal son. The first workers on the job agree to the terms of the landowner, but they grow envious of the mercy and equal reward shown by their master to those who come later in the day. Justice in their eyes would be to either be given more or that later workers be given less, and to be fair, that’s how we’d see it too — if this were a lesson on economics. (I’d spent paragraphs on the issues of perverse incentives alone!)

This, however, is a lesson on the wages of salvation, not on wage policy in the workplace. The Lord only has the one Heaven to offer out of His own generosity and love, and all who toil for it can receive His grace to enter it — entirely out of His goodness, not our own merits. Those who become part of the Lord’s laborers early will have their reward, and so will those who come later, and it is the same reward.

No one will have rank or privilege or ‘wealth’ over others on the basis of early or later starts in the field. To the extent that we need that as ‘justice’ shows just how far off our ways are from the Lord’s. And clinging to that envy and resentment demonstrates the true Original Sin of humanity: rejecting God’s authority and arrogating it to ourselves. Jesus has the workers in this parable attempting to dictate policy to the landowner, which may seem more normal in our modern times but could possibly have produced chuckles in the time of Jesus’ telling of this parable.

“Am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?” Those questions take aim at our own hearts and the hardness of them when it comes to embracing the Lord’s authority. When we trust our own judgment over the Lord’s, we make the very same error as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. We can consider the first shall be last in this context, too; the more we consider ourselves first in authority, the further away from true Authority we become.

Finally, the resentment between the first and later workers flies in the face of Jesus’ commandment: Love your neighbors as yourselves. The workers who showed up first and received a just day’s pay for their labors should have been happy that workers found later without income received a just reward as well. More directly, we are called not to resent people who repent after a longer life of sin but to celebrate their salvation along with ours.

This too has echoes in the parable of the prodigal son, where the elder brother refused to celebrate the redemption of his own brother from damnation and poverty. The elder son could not bring himself to share the joy of his own father, whose other son had been dead to him but had returned. We are called to share the joy of the Father at all those who come home to Him through Christ, no matter what the circumstances — as others were at our own redemption through Christ.

That takes a lot of prayer and formation, of course. But there’s no better time for that than when we’re laboring in the fields together.

The front-page image is “Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard” by Andrei Mironov, 2022. Via Wikimedia Commons. 

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.