UNFAIR

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mt 20: 1-16

My parents did not spoil me when I was growing up, but I am sure that I was pampered a bit. When they gave me new clothes to wear, those clothes were really new. When I wore new shoes to school, they were really new not only newly polished. When my parents buy me toys, I was certain that those toys were really intended for me and not for any of my siblings. The reason was so simple. Those clothes, those shoes, and those toys were clothes, shoes, and toys for boys. And all my siblings are girls. I am an only son. There were no hand-me-downs for me.

While sometimes they did compare me with my other siblings, my parents could not compare me with a bigger brother or a smaller one. I was the only brother my sisters had and still have. They had no choice. They had no comparison to make. I was and still am the first and last son of my parents. My sisters never complained though. They never said, “Unfair!”

But we know that life is often not fair. Even children know that. There are many inequalities and injustice around us. Those who have more continue to have more, even often at the expense of those who have less. Those who have less continue to have less until they are left with nothing. This gives us the reason to hope that in heaven things will be even out, that God is the Great Equalizer. If taken to the extreme though, this also gives reason to what some people say that religion is the opium of the poor.

Today’s Gospel seems to destroy our over-romanticizing of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus is clearly presented to be taking sides with the landowner, saying that this is how things are in the Kingdom of God. In His Kingdom, the first are last while the last are first, and those who labor more are not necessarily paid more while those who labor less are not necessarily paid less.

The parable today teaches us three things about what the Kingdom of God is like.

The Kingdom of God is offered to all. Through no fault of their own, even latecomers are welcome. Those who were hired last in the parable were not to be blamed for not working. They stood idle all day were unemployed until the eleventh hour not because they did not like to work, but because no one gave them work. They wanted to work that was why they were out there waiting for someone to employ them. And if no one wanted to hire them, there was the landowner to employ them. God has something for everyone to do because even if the rest of humanity finds an individual not worthy of any task, God makes that individual worthy and sends him to work in His vineyard. If the Kingdom of God were a body, it has its arms wide open, not closed. It is a welcoming Kingdom even for the most unwelcomed in this world. But while it welcomes everyone, each must welcome the Kingdom as those who were hired last in the parable today accepted the landowner’s offer and went to work in his vineyard.

The Kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom. It reverses our present world. What this world values, the Kingdom of God very often shuns. What this world rewards is not necessarily rewarded in heaven. Those who were hired first in the parable today thought they would be given more because they worked more than the last employed. But they were wrong. They judge as this world judges. Did we not say that God is the Great Equalizer? There He is! He equalizes the last with the first making it appear in the eyes of the world that the first are made last while the last are made first. But for God, it is just the way it is because He loves both the first and the last with the same kind and amount of love. One secret in the Kingdom of God: expect the unexpected in this world.

Because it is a kingdom where all of us are loved more than we know, the Kingdom of God has no place for envy. Envy destroys families, communities, nations and the envious person himself. It cannot exist in God’s Kingdom. Heaven is not a haven for the envious. In the parable today, the landowner was not unfair to those who were hired first. The hired first, rather, were envious of those who were hired last. They who labored in the vineyard first and most agreed with the landowner for one denarius as their full day’s wage. And one denarius they received at the end of the day. Is there any injustice in that? But when they who were employed first and were given one denarius for their work saw that the same wage was given to those who were employed last, they complained. They complained because they were envious. The landowner was right; he could do what he pleased with his money. He decided to give the same wage to all – first and last – and that was his right. The landowner was not only just; he was also generous. God is generous even as He is also just. The envious always finds fault in the generous.

It was unfortunate that those who were hired first went home grumbling. They could have gone home contented and happy instead. They wanted work and they were given work. They wanted to bring home a day’s wage for their families and a day’s wage they got. But they envied the latecomers. Thus, they went home not only tired but also resentful. They could have tasted heaven but they drank bitterness. Envy is very bitter. Heaven is very sweet.

The Kingdom of God is offered to all, is an upside-down kingdom, and is off limits to envy. Take it or leave it? Take it.

Unlike my parents, God has more than one Son. We are all His children. He has only One Begotten Son though. And it was Him who was handed down to be crucified for the sake of His brothers and sisters. And no one complained at Calvary, “Unfair!”