‘You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.’
We sometimes have a different idea of justice than the one Jesus teaches. We tend to make comparison the basis of our understanding. With this basis we can only understand if what we receive is just by comparing it with what others receive.
So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more,
but each of them also got the usual wage.
The wage that is just is the one the landowner promised, but to recognize this we need to move beyond our sense of entitlement. It is not us or our work that merit the wage but rather the generosity of the landowner.
‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’
They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’
Even if we begin to work in the evening the landowner still desires us to assist in his vineyard in whatever measure we are able for whatever time remains. There are even extreme cases like that of the good thief who repented in the last moments of his life and still received the same reward as the saints (see Luke 23:39-43).
In the vineyard of the Kingdom the landowner has no need of our efforts or our works. The reward promised is purely out of generosity. Even those who work the longest and hardest can't approach the value of what they receive in return. We might well wonder why we are asked to work if our work isn't needed, if it isn't deserving of value based on the effort we expend.
And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, 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.’
It is possible that our work in the vineyard, given to us as a privilege, can help to transform us. If we grumble we may end up dissatisfied, like those who began to work first in the parable. But if we can learn to embrace the work the Lord gives us and to delight in his generosity to others even as much as to ourselves we can learn to receive the usual daily wage with thankful hearts. The burden of the day and the heat can drive us one of two ways. They can make the wage we receive seem insufficient and inadequate and cause us to grumble. Or they can help us to appreciate the generosity of the landowner to the degree that, although we receive the same coin, it is mysteriously worth more to us. Just so, though all receive the same reward in the Kingdom of heaven, there are those who, through love, are more open to be filled by that reward.
Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?
Are you envious because I am generous?’
In the Kingdom we have at last found a truly good and generous king to reign over us. He alone is so sufficient in himself that he is able to be truly generous and mercy to us over whom he reigns. He is not like the trees in the first reading who have better things to do. Nor is he like the weed with nothing better to do, who will make the best of ruling for his own selfish ends. Rather, because Jesus has no need to take a thought for himself he is able to be entirely available to us and to hold nothing back in what he gives. And this is the truth of the usual daily wage, that, although we can receive God himself in the Eucharist daily, and it is in that sense usual, nevertheless there is nothing more that he could give us. It is in fact his everything.
You made him a blessing forever,
you gladdened him with the joy of your face.
We might pause to reflect on whether the world might not be able to look a little more like this. Of course we know, or imagine, that if everyone was paid a living wage they wouldn't be motivated to work. Or would they? It seems that Jesus himself believes that a different incentive structure is possible. Whether something like this can also work at a secular level is not a given, but it should not be dismissed out of hand.
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