On most occasions when people talk about the gospel we have heard today they say that they have difficulty with it. The images in the parable are things everyone easily identifies with: work, unemployment, wages, and the urgency to get a job finished on time. But it is what happens at the end, when the wages are being distributed, that upsets people. Their immediate reaction is that the situation is unjust. We shouldn’t underestimate just how uncomfortable the parable can make us.
The scene opens in the market square where the unemployed would gather each morning and hope that someone would come along and hire them for the day. If they were lucky, and the harvest was big, they might even get work for a few days or a few weeks. We can imagine that they would have gone to the vineyard happy and eager to work and earn their wage. Many of these people knew they were hardly likely to get the good jobs, so they were happy for whatever might come their way. As for the landowner, it seems that he had grapes that needed to be picked in a hurry; if they weren’t picked that day they would become too ripe to yield good quality fruit or wine. This is why he keeps returning to the market place to get more workers. Those hired late in the day were obviously the ones who were not at all keen on work, but just turned up later in the day on the off-chance that there may be some small jobs available for them.
The parable takes a twist when it comes to paying the workers. As I said, this is the part that upsets the listeners, and prompts us to ask if the landowner was being fair. He starts with the last arrivals, who have probably only worked for about an hour, and gives them what he had agreed to, namely a full day’s wage. The workers who started early in the morning grumble when they only receive the same wage – the wage, by the way, that they had agreed to. The reply of the landowner to their complaints makes the point of the parable very clear: “Are you envious because I am generous?”
Jesus is teaching those who listen to him about God. He wants to purify their image of God. The point he wants to make is that to welcome the God who comes is to open yourself for a big surprise. They are about to learn that the way they have thought about God is not necessarily the way God is. They had probably been only too aware of God’s justice, now they were about to learn of God’s mercy and generosity. The Prophet Isaiah, who we heard in the first reading, alerted us to the surprise that comes when God is encountered: “my thoughts are not your thoughts; my ways are not your ways”, he says. This is the shock that the parable delivered to those listening to Jesus, and that it still delivers to us. God is like the landowner who seeks out the poorest and the weakest and gives them an equal place in the kingdom. The parable is not about fairness; it is about mercy and generosity.
That is why there is a reminder here that people are drawn into the kingdom because of God’s graciousness. It is not just those whose lives appear to be untroubled or without failures who are drawn into the embrace of God. God is like the landowner who actually goes out to find those who no one else would welcome, and he offers them the opportunity to participate. This is important for the disciples of Jesus to hear – and he addresses the parable to them. Perhaps he wants to warn them not to become too arrogant about their position. They should remember that in the kingdom the first will be last and the last first. All disciples of Jesus need to be ready to welcome even the late-comer into the realm of God.
What does the parable say to the church today? It calls on us all to be witnesses to the mercy of God revealed in the parable. The biggest danger a society like ours faces is that it becomes complacent and thinks that all is well. We are a very prosperous people, with a high standard of living – and yes, all does seem to be well. One effect of this is that people end up putting all their energies into maintaining what they have – keeping it safe. Ultimately, this happens at the expense of other people. The result is a selfish society, where there is no room for the poor or those who are different. Often the poorest people are not even noticed or they are labelled in such a way that we become comfortable ignoring them. In today’s gospel, these are the people that God notices. So we, as the church, should remind society that the salvation of the human community is built on generosity – the generosity of God in the People of God.
In this way we give authentic witness to the Gospel Jesus inaugurated. Our God is the creator of the human community, and he sustains it through his mercy. To know God is to be in communion with God and with each other. The church thus gives witness to an image of God that is far bigger than what many in the society have of him. By our own life, perhaps more than by our words, we give witness to the generosity of God, and hence to what God has planned for the whole of humanity.
Fr. Gerard Kelly
