Wednesday, August 23, 2017
20th Week in Ordinary Time
1st reading: Judges 9.6-15
Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16
This story throws light on the kingdom of heaven. A landowner went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay the workers a salary of a silver coin for the day, and sent them to his vineyard.
He went out again at about nine in the morning, and seeing others idle in the square, he said to them:
‘You, too, go to my vineyard and I will pay you what is just.’ So they went.
The owner went out at midday and again at three in the afternoon, and he did the same. Finally he went out at the last working hour—it was the eleventh—and he saw others standing there. So he said to them: ‘Why do you stay idle the whole day?’ They answered: ‘Because no one has hired us.’ The master said: ‘Go and work in my vine yard.’
When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager: ‘Call the workers and pay them their wage, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ Those who had come to work at the eleventh hour turned up and were given a denarius each (a silver coin). When it was the turn of the first, they thought they would receive more. But they, too, received a denarius each. So, on receiving it, they began to grumble against the landowner.
They said: ‘These last hardly worked an hour, yet you have treated them the same as us who have endured the day’s burden and heat.’ The owner said to one of them: ‘Friend, I have not been unjust to you. Did we not agree on a denarius a day? So take what is yours and go. I want to give to the last the same as I give to you. Don’t I have the right to do as I please with my money? Why are you envious when I am kind?’ So will it be: the last will be first, the first will be last.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Under the law, parties to a contract can stipulate anything except those contrary to law, morals, good customs and public policy. Laws of most countries adhere to this principle, including the Law of Moses.
In light of this, the master in today’s Gospel reading committed no injustice when he gave higher wages to the second batch of laborers. After all, the master paid the first batch as agreed. Their contract was stand-alone and was not subject to how much the master was to give to the second batch. When he gave more to the second batch out of compassion, the master was exercising his right over his money.
The moral of the parable is crystal clear: In matters of salvation God tempers justice with compassion. Without doing injustice to the upright, God is lavish in mercy to the spiritual latecomers. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM
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