The last will be first

 Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A - 20th September 2020

Gospel Matthew 20: 1–16 (abridged)

Jesus said to his disciples: “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner going out at daybreak to hire workers for his vineyard. He made an agreement with the workers for one denarius a day, and sent them to his vineyard. Going out at about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the market place and said to them, ‘You go to my vineyard too and I will give you a fair wage.’ So they went. At about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. Then at about the eleventh hour he went out and found more men standing round, and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing idle all day?’ ‘Because no one hired us,’ they answered.

He said to them, ‘You go into my vineyard too’. In the evening, the owner of the vineyard said to his bailiff, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last arrivals and ending with the first.’ So those who were hired last came forward and received one denarius each. When the first came, they expected to get more, but grumbled at the landowner. ‘The men who came last have done only one hour, and you have treated them the same as us, though we have done a heavy day’s work in all the heat.’ He said, ‘My friend, I am not being unjust to you; did we not agree on one denarius? Take your earnings and go. I choose to pay the last-comer as much as I pay you. Have I no right to do what I like with my own? Why be envious because I am generous? Thus the last will be first, and the first, last.”

Reflection from St Beuno's Outreach

After first becoming as still as I can, I read the Gospel passage slowly, as many times as I need.

Perhaps I imagine being one of the workers in the parable.

How do I react when I see the latecomers being paid as much as those who have worked all day?

Does this speak to me of justice... or of injustice?

Are there times when I want to grumble at the generosity of God?

With a spirit of loving generosity, I ask God for whatever I need to be able to live with an attitude of joyful freedom for the Kingdom of God.

I close my prayer with my own words of gratitude and by making a slow sign of the cross.

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