The landowner hired his employees for the “the usual daily wage.” In the Greek original, the word is denarius: that is, the landowner agrees to pay the workers one denarius, or the normal daily pay for a labourer. At the end of the workday, the workers expect to be paid, and so they are. The ones who started last, in the late afternoon, come first, and they are given a denarius. Then, the ones who started work in the morning also arrive, and they are hoping for something more – if someone received a denarius for a couple hours, then they should be getting more for putting in a full 8-hour workday. Still, the landowner also gives them a denarius. They begin to grumble, and say, that they had worked harder than the late arrivals, and had put up with the heat of the day. Yet, the landowner reminds them that he has treated them fairly, and that he chooses to be generous with those who arrived last, as well as with those who arrived first.
Parables are always full of symbols so let us take a closer look at images that Our Lord uses in this parable. The denarius is certainly a symbol. St. Augustine of Hippo writes, “The denarius …is given equally to all. By that denarius it is certainly eternal life that is signified, in which no one lives longer than anyone else, since in eternity life has no diversity in its measure” (The Faith of the Early Fathers, William A. Jurgens ed., vol. 3, pg. 121, 1979). And he adds, “in that pay, then, we shall all be equal, the first like the last and the last like the first. Because that denarius is eternal life, and in eternal life all will be equal. For although they will shine, some more and some less, by a diversity of merit, what pertains to eternal life will be given equally to all” (The Faith of the Early Fathers, William A. Jurgens ed., vol. 3, pg. 27, 1979). St. Gregory the Great has this to say about people standing idle in the marketplace: “He who lives for himself, who gratifies himself with the pleasures of the flesh, is rightfully considered as one standing idle, because he is not seeking after the fruits of labouring for God” (The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, M.F. Toal ed., vol. 1, pg. 361, 1957). As the prophet Isaiah says in the First Reading, we are to “seek the Lord.” Seeking the Lord means working to find Him, means making an effort to search him out, to seek the Lord is to labour to discover His presence in our lives, through prayer, reading Sacred Scripture, and making use of the sacraments. St. Paul in the second reading speaks of his “fruitful labour”, a labour that brought many souls to Christ, a truly missionary labour.
There is another reality that we should examine. The landowner pays all of his workers publicly. He could have taken the ones who started last aside, he could have said to them, “come away with me, so that your fellow workers don’t see, and I’ll give you a very generous wage.” And yet, the landowner did not want to do anything in secret, but wanted everyone to know of his generosity, even if this caused some of the workers to grumble. There is a public generosity of God’s goodness and grace, even towards sinners and the unrighteous, which at times, is hard to comprehend. We too may be tempted to say, equal pay for equal work, it is not fair to pay those who worked less the same as those who worked more. And yet, as St. Gregory says, “it is a foolish complaint of man to murmur against the goodness of God” (Catena aurea, vol.1, pg. 559, 2014).
My brothers and sisters, it is our task to put into practice the teachings of the Gospel, even if at times they seem not fair, outdated, or difficult to comprehend. It is not our task to try to explain away the hard teachings of the Gospel, or even say that Our Lord made a mistake, or should have acted differently, or was too much bound by the customs and traditions of his time, etc…We are to humbly and prayerfully accept the Gospel texts, and see in them a reflection of the true image of God. As the Second Vatican Council constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, says: “Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels…faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven” (Dei Verbum, 19). https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html In other words, the Gospels truly do bring us what Christ did and taught for our eternal salvation.
As Saint Paul said in the second reading, “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me.” He ends the reading by asking us, to “Live your life in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ.”We live our lives worthily by striving, to the best of our ability, to seek the Lord while He may be found. We are to work, and avoid spiritual idleness. We are to put into practice also the harder sayings of the Gospel, and to see in them Christ’s true words. As we do so, let us call upon the assistance of Mary, the Mother of the Word Incarnate, whom we also honour under the title of Our Lady of Ransom. May Our Lady of Ransom help us to break free of chains that hold us spiritually captive, and from the bondage of sin. Also, may the Blessed Virgin help us to put into practice the words of Her Son.
(Fr. Paweł Ratajczak, OMI, Sept. 24, 2023)
