25 Sunday A Parable of the labourers in the vineyard

Four minute homilies

Labourers in the vineyard

We can relate to this parable in South Africa. So many people looking for work. Often you see them at roundabouts, with a sign announcing their skills: electrician, plumber, carpenter, painter. All waiting for somebody to hire them for the day. We can pray for these people that they find work to feed their families. And pray for the corruption to go away, greedy people who only look after themselves.

We all feel uneasy with this parable, sympathising with the workers that worked for the whole day and got the same wages as the ones who worked only for an hour. It is not fair. Children use this expression when they see something that lacks equality. But parents treat different children differently. The same with God. We are all the same in God’s eyes, with the same dignity, but God gives different graces to all of us. Why? Because we are all unique, and we all show different perfections and qualities of God. Variety brings forth many more gifts. Imagine if all of us were the same; life would be boring, all cracking the same jokes, inventing the same stories, composing the same music. Opposites attract each other, different skills balance societies, the more choices the more richness. At the end God gives the same reward to everyone: heaven. In paradise everybody will be filled with gifts, as much as they can hold. But if you compare them, some will contain more than others; the containers all have different capacities.

What is going to happen with people becoming Christians at the end of their lives, Catholics going to confession after many years just before they died, babies dying just born, fetuses being aborted in their mother’s womb? We all agree that they should go to heaven, in spite of their brief or non existent Christian lives. What about the good thief who stole heaven at the last moment? Jesus promised him: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” We cannot limit God’s mercy, goodness and generosity. Precisely as Jesus asks us in the parable: “Are you envious because I am generous?”

In the first reading from the book of Isaiah the Lord says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.” How can we dare to pass judgment on the Lord? How can we try to fit God in our mind, to measure him with our imperfect and limited human standards? We cannot cage him in our small world. It is like trying to fit all the data of the servers in the cloud on a single floppy disk. The Lord continues: “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.” We are a bit like babies trying to read the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas. We human beings see things with our eyes directed towards earth, only seeing the flat surface of the ground with no spatial perspective.

Jesus finishes his parable saying: “The last will be first, and the first will be last.” In heaven our society will be up side down: the poor will at the top and the multimillionaires will be the rubbish collectors, the famous and influencers will be forgotten and the real good deeds will come to the light. Imagine a race where this saying is fulfilled: everybody would run backwards. This is what we need to do: instead of running towards our own ego, we need to run towards God. We should be first in our love of God and last in our pride.

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