Our Sunday gospel reading today is another parable that our Lord Jesus Christ told to his disciples, which they handed down to all Christianity 2,000 years later. It is still as relevant today as it was during the time of our Lord in Palestine. You can read it in Matt.20: 1-16.
“[Jesus told his disciples this parable] 1 “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 Going out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace 4 and he said to them, “You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just. 5 So they went off.
[And] he went out again around noon, and around three o’clock, and did likewise. 6 Going out about five o’clock, he found others standing around, and said to them. ‘Why do you stand here idle all day? They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’ 8 When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.”
9 When those who had started about five o’clock came, each received the usual daily wage. 10 So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage. 11 And on receiving it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’
13 He said to one of them in reply, ‘my friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14 Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? 15 [Or] am I not free do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous? 16 Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
This parable gives us a glimpse of God’s love and mercy for those who become disciples of God. At some point in our lives, God calls us to him … some are called at a very young age and go to the extreme of devoting their lives to the service of the Lord, while others are called much later in life. I’m only sorry for those who have been called by God, but failed to respond to His call … while there are many who are called to faith, through a medical problem or a near death experience, which is why they respond to God’s call because they were in the brink of death and, by some miracle, they were saved!
In my own faith journey, I was approached by well-meaning friends to join many charismatic movements a long time ago. It was then that I realized that all of those who invited me had at one time of their lives; a serious medical problem, which they survived and they attributed this cure to the grace and mercy of God. This is why, before I would be called to faith through a medical problem, I already responded to God’s call.
You can make parallels with God’s call to the call of the vineyard owner. Those who were called at a very young age and responded positively to God’s call will certainly get His reward in heaven. But there are those who respond to God’s call at the nth hour … even if they lived a life of wickedness. In their dying days, they asked the Lord for forgiveness; they could still be forgiven by God … depending on the sincerity of their confession.
In today’s parable, God is warning us about being envious about his generosity. Remember in the Parable of the Sower, our Lord Jesus Christ teaches his disciples about a man who owned a hundred sheep and when one wanders away, the Good Shepherd would leave the 99 sheep in his flock to find the lost sheep. When the sheep is found, he rejoices more over it than the 99 that did not leave his flock. But the 99 good sheeps also rejoice when the lost sheep is found. This should be the attitude of a good Christian.
Rather than being envious, we should praise God for his love and mercy for all of us have sinned and will be blessed by God’s grace in the sacrament of reconciliation. Lest you have forgotten, In John 6: 37-39 Jesus said, “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me. Because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it [on] the last day.”
So go to confession now and be cleansed from your sins. But be wary of those who tell you, “What’s the use of confessing when you will still sin again?” My own reply to that is, “Why should we take a bath everyday when we know we will end up dirty by the end of the day?” More importantly going to confession reconciles us back to God and there will be rejoicing in heaven!
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