Wednesday, August 20, 2014
20th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Ez 34; 1-11
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)
The equal wage the employer paid both late comers and early workers offends our sense of justice. Unfortunately God may have an idea of justice different from ours. Often God’s concern is mercy; that’s why he always tempers justice with compassion. While being lavish in mercy to the “spiritual late comers”, he maintains justice to the righteous.
For as long as the mercy that spiritual late comers enjoy does not deprive the upright of their due reward, no one can accuse God of being unjust. The problem with upright people is that instead of rejoicing over the conversion of sinners, they harp against the apparent favoritism God plays. They feel they alone deserve salvation simply because they work hard for it. They forget that salvation is not a matter of merit but a matter of God’s gratuitous mercy. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email:[email protected]. Website:www.frdan.org.
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