A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus told his disciples this parable. The reign of God is like the case of the owner of an estate who went out at dawn to hire workmen for his vineyard. After reaching an agreement with the workers for the usual daily wage, he sent them out into his vineyard. He came out about midmorning and saw other men standing around the marketplace idle.
So he said to them, you too go along to my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is fair. At that, they went away into his vineyard. Well, the man came out again around noon and then again in midafternoon and did exactly the same thing. And finally, going out in late afternoon, he found still other men hanging around idle. He said to them, why have you been standing here all the day idle?
No one, they said, has hired us. So he said, you too go into my vineyard. Now that was at the end of the day, practically. When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call all the workmen and give them their pay. But begin with the last group and end with the first.
When those hired in the late afternoon came up, they received each man a full day's pay. And when the first group appeared, they thought they were going to get more. If they received each one, their daily and the same wage. Thereupon, they complained bitterly to the owner. This last group did only an hour's work, but you have put them on the same basis as we who have worked the entire day in the scorching heat.
Not a bad argument. My friend, the owner said in reply, I do you know injustice. You agreed on the usual 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 I gave you.
Am I not free to do as I please with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous? Thus, says our lord, the last shall be first, and the first shall be last. And this is the good news, the gospel of the lord. The name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit.
Amen. And you can well imagine that this is not one of the text used on Labor Day when someone gets up to address the CIOAF of L. This is not one of their favorite texts. The first thing to note about this reading today, it's a parable. And parables are not to cover the whole waterfront of all human knowledge.
The point of it is, as it as our lord concludes, the last shall be first and the first shall be last, which is a hard doctrine. Most people reading this would sort of feel inclined aside with those men who had worked the whole day in the scorching remember, that's from sun up to sundown in the scorching heat of Israel, in a vineyard where there's absolutely no protection against a blazing sun and the dust, and the long and the hard hours and the grueling labor. And they had worked from dawn until sunset. And here, this guy comes along who'd only put in an hour's work and gets the same wage. You'd say that is certainly not fair.
Well, whether it's fair or not, it's not unjust. Everybody got the wages that he agreed by contract to get. So the man in the man can't be accused of injustice at all, not in the least. Although, if I were the among the group that worked all day, I know where what side I'd be on. I had a very, very striking experience in regard to this sort of thing in the course of my illustrious life.
In our little parish, where everybody knew each other, there were many people who were devout and sincere and very law abiding Catholics. And everybody knew that some of them were making tremendous sacrifices to obey the law of the church as regards certain commandments. Anyway, I can't give you the names. I forget. But about this time, a very in nationally known, thug, was finally captured in Chicago.
He had a horrendous record of crimes. You name it, and he did it. So finally, after after years of pursuing him and trying to get an indictment and even an indictment, they finally got an indictment. They finally had a trial. They found him guilty and condemned him to death.
This was a this is a few years ago, and of course this was blazed on all the headlines on all our papers. That's fine. Then, lo and behold you, this guy who had absolutely repulsive, he wasn't one of these attractive thugs like Mr. Bonono who we saw on TV Saturday night, he was repulsive. And here on almost the eve of his execution, what happens?
He calls a priest in. Of course, this was blazed out on all the papers. He he, gets himself baptized. He receive he receives practically all the sacraments, all that he could receive, and then he goes to execution, and thereafter, he's in god's hands. Well, now what was the reaction of some of these good people in my little parish.
They were scandalized. They were I'm not exaggerating this at all. They said, look. Look how we are slaving and working and sacrificing day after day. And here this fellow comes along after committing every crime in the book, and you're telling me that he's going to be saved as I'm hope to be saved after my all my labor in the vineyard.
They didn't say that. I bring that in on this. And I said, yes, they are. That didn't help the situation at all, because you can't I mean, you're not gonna change people's mind. The only the only argument that changes people's mind is what I refer to as the to before argument.
That's a hunk of wood. But the thing is, how little they see, that's the point of this parable. Our blessed lord isn't giving us a sociological theory here or something for the CIO or the f of l to take to heart or to reject. He's giving us a parable that the last will be first and the first will be last. What does he mean by that?
Of course, this applies to the Jewish people and being the chosen people. He told them that many times. He said, look. You were chosen first, but you're not going to make it. Those who were chosen last are are are going to come in first.
He told them many times, and it's one of the things they hated him for. Hated him for it. Of course, they hated him. But this isn't a terribly important thing. You see, plenty of good honest to and I say this without any sarcasm.
Plenty of good honest Catholics can understand that Christ came to save sinners. They don't understand that. At least they don't accept it in the sense of acknowledging it. They may have they may admit it of course, they've got to admit it theoretically. Christ Christ said, I've come not to call adjustment sinners.
You can't get anything more explicit than that. But you see this to to see this working out in a in a human situation which seems so terribly unfair, that is hard to swallow. You bet it's hard to swallow. But let me tell you folks, the doctrine of Jesus Christ is hard to swallow. He never said it was easy.
So why should we expect it to be? Why should we apply what we think are our norms of fairness, of the baseball field, the football field, the court of law, why do we think that we can put god in that category, in that pigeonhole? See, we do not realize how god loves us. We don't realize how god loves the sinner. See, we don't realize that.
Because if we did, we sinners wouldn't so many of us would not be eaten up by guilt. If we realize that god that Jesus Christ came to to save us from it. Exactly that. And so this parable has tremendous meaning for us. It brings home the idea that we're not dealing with a man when we're dealing with god almighty.
The omnipotent, the incomprehensible, the undefinable god. Don't let's try to bring him down and put him in the vice of being merely human. He's God, and we can't simply try to make him conform to our laws. What we have to try to do is to conform to his. That's all Jesus asked us to do, to follow him.
He never said he came down to follow us except in the sense of the hound of heaven. He pursues us to take us to himself. Let us realize that and rejoice and be glad because that's the moral of that story. In the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit. Amen.