Twenty- fith Sunday in Ordinary Time A

The kingdom of heaven is like a farmer who goes out early in the morning to hire worgoeskers for his vineyard. He negotiated with the workers for a denarius a day…

God has called us to live in the world, whereby we can participate in the improvement and sanctification of God’s creation. If someone realizes this, that is already a reward for him. But God, as a generous farmer, motivates us even more to work in His vineyard, with the reward of eternity.

When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing strangely in the square… likewise at twelve, three, and five in the afternoon, and finding them standing, he said to them: ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’

Parables about the kingdom of God reveal its essence from different points of view. The parable of the workers in the vineyard emphasizes the work, the credit for the work done. In other words: “Heaven is not for the lazy”, as St. John Bosco. God desires human activity, not dullness in both the spiritual and physical realms. Of course, professions have their differences, some work more physically, others mentally. One can see in the hours when the lord invites the workers, his status duties, which may have their destination either for work or prayer… 

When evening came, the lord of the vineyard said to his steward: ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last and ending with the first!’

With the workers in the parable, it is clear that not everyone knows what they are working for. Only the first will know the agreed salary, the others have been promised a fair reward. In the case of God’s steward, it should be enough for us...

So those who boarded around five o’clock in the afternoon came, and each received a denarius. When the first ones came, they thought they would get more. But they also got a denarius each.

It is strange that the pay is the same, although the length of the work is not. There is a conflict between human and God’s vision of justice. The agreement was not broken, but the human expectation was different. The temptation to evaluate oneself and one’s merits in comparison with others is human, but to try to be satisfied with what God gives and to believe that it is the best for us is divine.

They took him and grumbled at the householder: ‘These last worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us, who bore the burden of the day and the heat.’

We may have our merits, but let God judge them. Feelings of guilt—there will always be some. And maybe that is precisely the message of the parable, so that we can handle them and not get bored with the work, which in God’s eyes will certainly not lose its reward. God is sometimes surprisingly, disturbingly, even “outrageously” good in our eyes. “Are you staring at me because I’m good?”