The Vineyard

" Jesus told His disciples this parable: 'The kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about nine o'clock, the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, 'You go, too, into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.'  . . . And he went out again around noon and around three o'clock and did likewise. Going out about five o'clock, the landowner found others standing around and said to them, 'Why do you stand here idle all day?. . . You, too, go into my vineyard.'  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.' When those who had started about five o'clock came, each received the usual daily wage. So when the first came, . . . each of them also got the usual wage. . . 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.'

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? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? Or, am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous? Thus, the last shall be first and the first will be last.' " --[Matthew 20:1-16].


It is difficult to read this parable as a secular person and not get angry. How, we ask, can a landowner and a foreman run a business this way? If everyone were paid the same, regardless of their production and output, that is totally unfair!

Some have read this parable as a call to fair wages and fair treatment of workers. But to read this parable in this way is to totally miss the point.

This is NOT a story about our secular business world. In fact, this is a story about the opposite. This is a story about how God's Kingdom works.

In God's Kingdom, God is so very generous that, regardless of whether we show up in His vineyard early or late, He rewards us equally -- with a place in His abundant harvest.

I have grappled with this concept for many, if not most, of the years in my life.

I endured, as a tiny girl, bruises, hunger, verbal abuse, neglect and abandonment. I watched this happening to me, as if I were watching myself from afar. I have wondered, 'Is this really my life? What kind of parents did I get?'

I never did really blame my parents. These were the people who gave me life. . . .

Several years ago, my father died suddenly of a massive heart attack. After his shocking passing, more memories surfaced of the cruelty and the traumas of my childhood.

I began to actively worry about where my dad WAS? Could God have been generous enough to welcome my father into His Kingdom, even IF my father had come to God only at the very last moments of his life? At times, I have even prayed to God, 'God, if You are a merciful God, please judge generously.'

I remember, in the year or two after my dad's death, I went almost compulsively to Confession, to confess my father's sins. Finally, the priest let me in on a simple precept of Reconciliation and forgiveness. He said, 'You cannot confess your father's sins.'

NOW where did that leave me?! Sometimes, I delve into my earthly self. I say, 'Whatever dark place my father is in, after what he did ---- he deserves God's wrath.'

But then, I wonder, if I am wishing that bad place upon my dad, how much have I really forgiven him? God's generosity, then, is about far more that what each of us "gets".  It is also about what we give.  It is about granting others the freedom to create their own relationship with God, without interference from us.

I am beginning to see that, I cannot hold onto those feelings of hate and resentment and retribution.  Those feelings are a downward path to bitterness. And bitterness will never yield a fruitful harvest for me.

I can never know if my dad reconciled with God in his last moments. I have wondered about this, and my heart has ached over it. After literally years of worrying about this, I have finally had to say that this is too big for me figure out.

God is the vineyard owner, He can handle this. What another vineyard worker has done or not done, is not merely "not my business".  It is something I cannot fathom or judge myself. I will drown in hypotheses, and never prosper myself, if I continue along this path.

But the greatest moment of consolation came at my father's wake. As my mother and I knelt before the casket, I whispered to her, 'Ma. Do you believe that you will see dad again in the next life?' And she whispered, back,"Yes!" I was so happy, I choked back tears.

No matter how my mother had expressed her serious misgivings to me about God and Christ, all my life, I could tell that her heart had softened. Maybe she AND my dad would come to God's vineyard after all. Maybe I will see them again in the next life?

 Because, for God, it is never too late.

[Related Postings: "The Last Shall Be First", September 17, 2011; "Putting The Last First", August 25, 2013.]

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