What is the meaning of the Parable of the workers in the Vineyard?

Homily for 25^th Sunday in Ordinary Time year A.

What is the meaning of the Parable of the workers in the Vineyard?

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this lengthy parable which we have just heard is found only in the gospel of Matthew.

Jesus tells the Parable of the workers in the Vineyard (Mathew 20:1-16). He uses the image of an employer who hired workers to work in his vineyard at different times of the day but paid them the same amount of money.

Here we see 3 characters. The first one is the employer, the second one are the workers and lastly the place of employment (the vineyard or the garden).

Most of us here are employed and are working somewhere. Others are retired, but of course, not tired.

Some of us are working in big organizations, others in the government, others in the municipality while others are self employed. And still others are not employed but still searching for jobs. May God help you find one.

To get a job in any organization or government or at the municipality you have to have some qualifications. For example if you want to become a Mayor, you have to go to school. If you want to become a doctor you have to go to school. If you want to become a builder you have to go to school. You prepare yourself for such jobs from the time you are young. You go to primary school, then secondary school then college or university and get an academic diploma or degree.

After the college or university, you have to write an application letter for the job you want and send it together with your resume to the office. Then the employer will look at it. If it doesn’t satisfy him he won’t employ you. Your employment and salary will largely depend on your academic qualification, competence and previous experience.

In those days in Israel it was not like that. Employers and employees used to meet in the market square. If you needed a job you had to go to the marketplace in the morning so that you can be hired. You didn’t need to first have a university degree or experience. You only needed to present yourself the way you are. And you would be hired.

 If you were an employer and needed workers, you had to go to the same market square in order to get them. It is in this context that Jesus is giving us this parable.

Just as it was in Israel so it is with God. Just come to God the way you are. You don’t need to have had a good experience before. You don’t need to be highly educated. Just come as you are and God will receive you.

Make a demonstration here (putting the parable in our context):

According to the parable

1. The employer went to the market square at 6:00am and hired this worker to work for him. They agreed for a payment of 1 dollar
2. Because the work was much, the employer went again to the market square at 9:00am and got more workers.
3. At 12:00 noon, the employer went back to the market square and got another worker to do the same job.
4. At 3:00pm, the work was still incomplete so the employer went back to the market square and hired another worker to join the one’s he had hired earlier on.
5. Again at 5:00pm the employer realised that the work was still much and yet the day was about to end so he went again to the market square and hired another worker.

So, in the evening at 6:00pm the work was complete. This means that:

• The first worker worked for 12 (twelve hours)
• The second worker worked for 9 (nine hours)
• The third worker worked for only 6 (six hours)
• The fourth worker worked for only 3 (three hours)
• Lastly the fifth worker worked for only 1 (one hour)

When time came to pay the workers at the end of the day, the employer started paying every worker beginning with the last worker who started at 5:00pm and ending with the first worker who started in the morning at 6:00 am. He paid 1 dollar to each one of them according to the contract they had made.

Let me ask you a question

1. Was the employer fair?
2. If you were the last worker  who started working at 5 :00pm in the evening how would you feel?
3. If you were the first worker  who started working in the morning how would you feel?

In today’s first reading God tells us through prophet Isaiah that

“my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways… As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts”.

The way we think is not the way God thinks. The way we understand life is not the way God understands it. The way we reason is not the way God reasons. The way we look at other people is not the way God looks at them. The way we look at ourselves is not the way God looks at us. God is simply amazing. He sees things in an opposite direction.

Upon receiving his payment and seeing what the last worker received, the first worker reacted in the same way most of us would react.

He got angry and began complaining, even though he got exactly what he had agreed upon when he was hired.

What do we learn from today’s parable

1. God’s ways are not our ways. And that is a fact which we cannot change.
2. The Parable  reveals that the matter of rewards is under God’s sovereignty. Our human nature tends to judge people by what we can visibly see, but God judges by a different standard—the hidden and unseen.
3. No matter how long or how hard a believer works during his lifetime, the ultimate reward of eternal life will be the same given to all.
4. God does not depend so much on our deeds to reward us but on the quality of our relationship with Him.
5. Even those who are converted late in life earn equal rewards along with those converted early. People who come to Christianity later in their lives will still be given the same reward (entry into the Kingdom of Heaven) as those who have been faithful all their lives.
6. God’s kindness surrounds those who have served him for decades and those who have served him for one year. Both receive the gift of eternal life. The thief on the cross (Luke 23:39-23), whose life of service was limited to a moment of repentance and confession of faith in Christ Jesus on the cross, received the same reward of eternal life as the apostle Paul who had spent his entire life preaching the word of God to the gentiles.
7. Even-though we are all Catholics and pray in the same church, our spiritual journey and relationship with God is personal and different. So Avoid comparing yourself to others.
8. We are all workers in God’s Kingdom. We work in different capacities and different times. Some work for more years than others. But at the end of our life we all get the same reward. This reward is ETERNAL LIFE. For example some people die young and others die very old. Some die at 20 years while others die at 90 years. They all get the same reward of eternal life.
9. We have a contract with God. We made that contract during baptism. According to that contract we are supposed to live our christian faith according to the expectations of God and not according to our deeds. And at the end, God will reward us according to the quality of our relationship with Him.
10. Finally, God gives eternal life, not to those who work harder and longer as the Parable of the Vineyard shows us, but to all who believe and obey.
11. God is always ready to receive us at any time we come to Him

Let us now stand and have a brief moment of prayer

Open your heart to the Lord.

I don’t know what your history is?

I don’t know what your experience is?

I don’t know what your feeling is?

I don’t know how your relationship with God is?

But I know we are all on the journey of faith.

We are standing on the market square of faith.

Waiting on God to pick us up.

Let us present ourselves to God the way we are.

All of you repeat after me in a loud voice saying;

O Lord I am here to renew my faith

And to renew my love for you

Receive me the way I am

Help me not to look at others

But to focus on you and what you provide for me

Renew my heart to love and serve you better.

Increase my faith even in the difficult situations.

Never let me depart from you

Amen