A reading of the holy gospel according to Matthew. Jesus told his disciples this parable. The reign of God is like the owner of an estate who went out at dawn to hire workmen to work in his vineyard. After reaching an agreement with them for the usual daily wage, The owner sent them into his vineyard. Then in midmorning, he came out again and saw other men standing around the marketplace without work.
He said to them, you too go along into my vineyard and I will pay you whatever is fair. At that, they went away into his vineyard. Then he came out again around noon, and then later on in mid afternoon and did the same thing. Finally, going out in late afternoon, he found still others standing around without work. To these he said, why have you been standing here all the day idle?
They replied, no one has hired us. So he said to them, you too go into my vineyard. Now when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, here's where we get into the crunch, call the workmen and give them their pay, but begin with the last group and end with the first. Those who were last hired pay them off first. When those hired late in the afternoon came up, they received a full day's pay.
And when the first group, those who had been hired early in the morning, when the first group appeared, they supposed that they would get more than they had contracted for. Yet they received the same daily wage. And thereupon, they complained to the owner, this last group did only an hour's work, but you have put them on the same basis as us who have worked a full day in the scorching heat. That seems like a very fair argument. But the owner says, my friend, I do you no injustice.
You agreed on the usual daily wage, did you not? Take your pay then and go home. I intend to give this man who was hired last the same pay as you. I am free to do as I please with my money. Am I not?
Is he? Or are you envious because I am generous? And thus, our lord is speaking now. This is no parable. Thus, the last shall be first and the first shall be last.
And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Just as a number of other statements, implications, or attitudes of our lord prove scandalous to many contemporary social thinkers, so this one does. So this one does.
You see, if you go to up to the New Testament to find a blueprint of social justice, well, I don't know what you'll find entirely and completely. I am sure of some of the things you'll find because I know that Christ said them or is reported to have said them. They are imputed to him as being the speaker, and this is one of them. Now on the surface, this seems unfair. That one man who has put in a whole day's work from sunup to sundown in the scorching heat should get no more money than the one who was hired just one hour before closing time, before the whistle blew.
Why should a man who was put in around twelve hours get the same pay as a man who put in only one hour? You would say, well, justice, whatever that is, the man who worked twelve ought to get 12 times what the one who put in one hour, or the one who put in the one hour ought to get one twelfth of what the man who put in the twelve hours. Well, on the surface, that seems very fair. You can't you cannot fault it. But this raises other issues.
Can I spend my money the way I want to? Was the owner just in saying, it's my money? I made a deal with you. I we had a bilateral contract. You would give me a day's way work.
I would give you a day's wages. And I'm giving you your day's wages. This is what we agreed to early this morning. What have you to argue about? Your argument isn't that I'm giving you less than we agreed upon.
Your argument is I'm giving the other man too much. Well, the first thing he could have said but, of course, many of our social justice people today wouldn't like that either because they say it is his business. But the point is, if the man agreed and it was a a a valid contract, then later on in the day he hires other men and he says notice he doesn't he says, I'll pay you what's fair. He doesn't say what he's gonna give them. And so at the end of the day, gives the guy who worked only one hour a full day's pay because he was generous.
Notice the text doesn't say justice. Because he was generous. After all, both of those men may have had families. They both had to eat. They both had to pay the rent.
They both had to pay for their TV installment. And the man who worked one hour had just as much need for a day's pay as the man who worked 12. We don't know why he wasn't hired before. He says no one hired me. So it wasn't his fault as far as we know.
Well, today, of course, he'd be on relief and he'd be getting a paycheck without doing any work. But you see, this this gossip this parable raises all kinds of issues. Now one of the issues is a man's right to work written in capitals, which you're hearing something about today. In other words, it's a strong movement. Of course, it's bolstered by conservatives, men like William Buckley and Company, that a person has a right to work.
He shouldn't be coerced by a union. You're having this issue right now with the airline controllers, airplane controllers. Many of them are saying they were coerced, they were threatened, phone calls were disturbing them at night, obscenities coming over, they were threatened with retribution if they didn't go along. So today you have a society for called the right to work. Now I'm not up here resolving all these issues.
I'm only these are these are big issues. These are tremendous issues. I'm only saying this. You you can't go to Jesus Christ for a blueprint to solve our economic problems in 1981. You can go to him for principles of love.
Notice I don't this word justice is a is a is a is a sensitive word because what do we mean by justice? In many mean ways we don't talk about justice, we talk about legality, which is a totally different thing. Legality means what's the law in a book. When you talk about justice, what are you talking about? How does it differ from generosity?
Was that employer was he obliged to do one of two things, to be just and fair? Give the man who worked only one twelfth of the day one twelfth of pay or practically double the pay of the other guy? Were were those two his only choices, or did he have a third that wouldn't be just, that it wouldn't be bound by a law of quid pro quo, but that it would be a matter of generosity. Now I'm I am personally familiar with plenty of instances where a working man depended upon his day's wage to live and to support his family. And some of you are too.
When he goes out in the morning, he's not sure of a job. He goes and he's hired for that day only, and at the end of the day he collects his pay. Now if he collects only one twelfth of the day's pay, how can he support his family and live? Who's going to help him? Remember in our Lord's Day, there was no handouts from any government.
There was no welfare. There was no unemployment checks coming along. There was no workman's compensation and so on and so on. Jay, we didn't have well, anyway, we won't get into that. But the thing is, these issues are very important issues.
I'm not resolving them. I'm only saying they are so many sided. They're not simple. And it's it it of course, anytime you solve a big complex problem with a very simple solution, you're a champion. You'll get a following.
I don't care what it is because you see you have solved the problem, you're no longer in doubt, you no longer have to struggle, you have it made. So right or wrong, it's solved. You'll get a following. I don't care what it is. History, I mean, you know, you don't have to be a genius to know that.
And so the the this issue of a just pay. Just read, for example, how many people today have read Leo the thirteenth's encyclical on labor? Of course, it's it's kind of ancient history now, but how many people have read it? What is a just wage? Who has the obligation to pay it?
And all and on and on. These are tremendously important issues, and we're facing some of them more and more today. And we ought to realize some very important issues. For example, was the owner of the estate was he correct in saying, I can I am I wrong in being generous with my own money? And to what extent could he say it is mine and not yours?
In other words, why can't the workman come and say, look, we should share in your vineyard. Should you? So you can see how this leads on and on and on and on. Anyway, this is one of the parables of our lord. The point of the parable is generosity.
And another point, and this is the point of the gospel, Christ was not laying down here an economic theory, a sociological doctrine. What Christ was saying was this, the worst sinner that comes under the line is a winner. The name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.