The Parable of the Workers in the Vinyard

Homily

That’s not fair! How much time and energy have we wasted comparing ourselves to others and thinking we deserve more than what we have been given? Some of us, like myself, have even struggled with the idea that God Himself hasn’t treated us fairly. As a little boy, I was raised in the Catholic faith. Every Sunday, we would go to Mass at St. Philips Church in Vacherie as a family. I loved going to Mass and at a young age I learned the responses I was supposed to say. I even memorized the parts of the Mass that the priest would say. I also have memories of kneeling down around the bed with my mom, dad, sisters, and brother at night to pray the rosary. I was taught to believe in God and to trust in him and life was good. But this all changed for me and my family when I was thirteen years old. One day I got home from school to find out that my father had left us. Without any warning he was gone, and my family would never be the same again. A lot of things changed for me that day, but one of the hardest things for me was that I lost my trust in God, and I was angry at him. How could he allow this to happen to me and my family? It wasn’t fair. I deserved to have a family like my friends had and I wanted my dad around.

Throughout my teenage years and through my early twenties, I didn’t want anything to do with God who was so unfair. Thankfully this changed and I eventually realized that I needed God in my life, but it has taken me most of my life to start to trust God again and to understand that He is not only fair, but he is perfectly just and merciful.

It is easy to fall into two extremes when it comes to God’s justice and mercy. On one extreme we wrongly convince ourselves that we can’t be saved because our sins are so bad that we will never be forgiven. On the opposite extreme, which is much more common today, we convince ourselves that we will be forgiven no matter what we do. This is reflected in the belief that most Christians have today that everyone, except for maybe mass murders and serial killers, will make it to heaven. Brothers and sisters, both ways of thinking about our relationship with God will get us into trouble. That’s why it is so important for us to understand what Scripture and Church Teachings tell us about God’s justice and mercy. God has made his justice known to us and the truth is that we can trust in his mercy, that is as long as we don’t take it for granted.

In our Gospel reading today Jesus gives us the parable about the workers in the vineyard to help us understand the justice and mercy of God. Like so many other parables, the main character, the landowner, seems foolish doing things that leave us wondering why. We tend to think of God in relation to our other relationships and through the eyes of the world. But this serves as a reminder for us that God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts. If we want to truly understand God’s justice and mercy, we need to forget what makes sense and accept that God is generous and forgiving beyond human reason.

The landowner is an example of how generously God deals with us. Right from the beginning, he does things that we wouldn’t expect, which shows how much he is invested in his vineyard. Instead of sending someone else to find workers, he goes to the marketplace himself. He does this not only once, but five times. His actions show not only a determination to provide enough workers for the harvest. Above all, they demonstrate that he doesn’t want anyone to go without work. After all, will finding more workers one hour before quitting time really make that much of a difference?

In the same way, Christ invites each one of us to work for him as his disciples and he doesn’t want to leave any of us behind. We are all continually offered the kingdom of heaven. God doesn’t call us only at certain times in our lives, he calls us continually through the forgiveness made available to us by Christ on the cross. No person looking for work will be excluded. This is an example of his mercy and love for us. But his Justice requires that at some point before we die, we must show up, willing to do the work of Christ. There is no reward at the end of our lives if we refuse his mercy in this life.

Now let’s look at the landowner’s agreements with the laborers. The first laborers that were hired agreed to work for one denarius a day which was typical for a day’s work at the time. The workers hired at the 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 11th hours all agree to work for what is just - without an amount being specified. At the end of the day, when it was time for all the workers to receive their pay, the landowner made no attempt to hide his intentions. He wanted everyone to know what he was doing. He paid the last workers, who essentially worked for less than an hour, in front of all the other workers, giving them a full day’s pay.

Seeing the generosity of the landowner, this led the workers that agreed to one denarius a day to expect more. When this didn’t happen, they grumbled to the landowner that they were being treated unfairly. Our initial reaction to the story might be the same. It isn’t fair for someone who worked twelve hours to be paid the same as someone for only an hour. But let’s look at this through the eyes of God and through the eyes of Justice.

The first question is whether the landowner was unfair in paying a full day’s wage to those who were hired only an hour before the end of the day. Should they have gotten the same pay as the early arrivals? We probably can agree that they don’t deserve it. But this doesn’t make his action unjust. Justice required that the eleventh-hour employees were owed wages only according to the hours they worked, which means they were only owed a small fraction of the usual payment. No one could have argued that the landowner was unfair if he had paid everyone according to what they deserved.

But justice is not violated by the landowner being more generous in paying more than was owed. Like he said, he was free to do what he wished with his own money. This is mercy; giving to those in need simply because they need it. In this case, giving all the workers what they needed that day to feed their family.

The second question is if it was fair for the laborers that worked all day to receive the same pay as all the rest. Again, the demands of justice were satisfied with those hired at dawn. They received the amount they agreed to when they were hired. They got what they were owed, which was also enough to feed their family for the day. The landowner was perfectly fair and just while at the same time showing mercy to all.

The landowner mirrors the generosity of God. Like the agreement between the laborers and the landowner, God has made an agreement with us which was fulfilled in the fact that while we were still sinners, he sent us his Son to suffer and die on the cross for us, giving us an opportunity to have eternal life - the life that was lost through the original sin of Adam and Eve.

God hasn’t kept any secrets from us. He has made it perfectly known that our reward is heaven. His justice is satisfied in our Baptism when our sins are forgiven, and we are set free from original and personal sin. This would have fulfilled his promise. He gave us a Savior and through him the opportunity to have our sins forgiven. God could have said this is enough and if we screwed up again, he didn’t owe us anything. But God, like the landowner, is overly generous in offering us more than his justice would demand by offering us his mercy.

God’s mercy towards us, like the generosity of the landowner, is not something we deserve or that he owes us. His mercy is a free and unmerited gift that exceeds his Justice. In his mercy, he gives us what we need simply because we need it. Just like everyone who wanted to work was given an opportunity to work by the landowner, everyone who truly seeks forgiveness at any time in their life can be forgiven.

God offers us the payment of heaven if we obey his commandments and follow him. Christ is the fulfillment of God’s Mercy giving us the Sacrament of Baptism to free us from original sin and the Sacrament of Reconciliation to atone for our sins when we fall.

This is God’s perfect justice and mercy. No person seeking forgiveness before the end of their lives will be excluded from the kingdom of heaven. But at some point, we must show up, willing to do the work of Christ, to be rewarded when we die. Neither God’s justice nor mercy are violated by excluding someone from heaven who refused his generosity when they were alive.

This is extremely important, actually it is a matter of life and death, for those of us who believe that Hell is not a possibility for us because of God’s mercy. Jesus did not come to abolish the law. We are still required to follow the commandments to make it to heaven.

As we prepare to receive the Eucharist let us ask ourselves if we are taking God’s mercy for granted believing that he owes us something that Justice doesn’t demand. Are we truly following his commandments and doing the work of loving our neighbor? Or are we picking and choosing which commandments and Church Teachings we want to follow based on what is comfortable for us and ignoring the people around us that need our help? These are important questions for us to answer if we are truly seeking the kingdom of heaven.

Life is complicated. It is easy for us to think of God’s Justice and Mercy in terms of our own relationships and experiences. Like my experience with my Father, this distorts our understanding of who God truly is. Remember, God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts.

He has promised us eternal life if we follow him, and we don’t have to worry about him breaking his agreement with us. But remember, there is a big difference between trusting in God’s Mercy and in taking it for granted. When we trust in God’s mercy, we know we can return to him at any time seeking his forgiveness and in doing so that our relationship will be restored. On the other hand, when we take him for granted, failing to follow him, and refusing to turn to him when we sin, thinking we have time or that it isn’t necessary, we risk spending eternity without him. Let us pray for God’s mercy. May he fill us with the grace we need to turn to him when we sin; trusting in his mercy without taking it for granted.