Is Thy Eye Evil, Because I am Good?

Gospel Reflection for September 24, 2023 - Matthew 20:1-16a

The kingdom of heaven is like to an householder, who went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.

And having agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing in the market place idle.

And he said to them: Go you also into my vineyard, and I will give you what shall be just.

And they went their way. And again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did in like manner.

But about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing, and he saith to them: Why stand you here all the day idle?

They say to him: Because no man hath hired us. He saith to them: Go you also into my vineyard.

And when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard saith to his steward: Call the labourers and pay them their hire, beginning from the last even to the first.

When therefore they were come, that came about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.

But when the first also came, they thought that they should receive more: and they also received every man a penny.

And receiving it they murmured against the master of the house,

Saying: These last have worked but one hour, and thou hast made them equal to us, that have borne the burden of the day and the heats.

But he answering said to one of them: Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst thou not agree with me for a penny?

Take what is thine, and go thy way: I will also give to this last even as to thee.

Or, is it not lawful for me to do what I will? is thy eye evil, because I am good?

So shall the last be first, and the first last. (Matthew 20:1-16a DRA)

Since the earliest days of the Church, when the Fathers began commenting on Sacred Scripture, it has been understood that there are four senses or ways of understanding the meaning and presence of the Word of God in the inspired words of His sacred writers, the means through which He as the singular Author of Scripture conveys His grace and truth. These senses are the literal, allegorical (or typological), moral (or tropological) and anagogical. St. Thomas Aquinas developed a full and rich explanation of these senses in his Summa Theologiae (I, q. 1, a. 10):

The author of Holy Writ is God, in whose power it is to signify His meaning, not by words only (as man also can do), but also by things themselves. So, whereas in every other science things are signified by words, this science has the property, that the things signified by the words have themselves also a signification.

The literal or historical sense is the most like ordinary human writing, where words signify things. The other three senses are divisions of one spiritual sense; in them, God reveals deeper levels of signification from the things themselves which the words signify. God teaches not only by words but by Creation and history themselves. These spiritual senses are founded on the literal and act as a supplement to it: “nothing necessary to faith is contained under the spiritual sense which is not elsewhere put forward by the Scripture in its literal sense.” The literal sense includes the plain and historical meaning of the words (history), the cause or reason for the related event or idea (etiology) and their harmony with the rest of Scripture (analogy).

From this foundation, the allegorical sense expounds the fulfillment of types, images and prophecies contained in the Old Testament by Christ in the New Testament. The moral sense applies the teachings and actions of Our Lord, and anything in Scripture which is done in Him or which signifies Him, to how we ought to live today. Finally, the anagogical sense is apocalyptic, both in the sense of foretelling the Parousia of Christ’s Second Coming and the End Times, and in the sense of unveiling the mysteries which are at this moment occurring sub specie aeternitatis all around us, including the Heavenly Liturgy of which the Mass is a sacramental sign and participation.

I give this brief refresher on the senses of Scripture because it is one of many traditional teachings of the Church which have been largely forgotten in modern times, discarded as “outdated” and “artificial,” but also because the Gospel reading for this Sunday is a perfect example of how we, like the Fathers and Doctors of history, can enter into Scripture beyond its plain literal meaning. Indeed, the literal sense is applicable to Christ’s parables but only in a limited way; He gave them precisely to be read spiritually, through lectio divina, and their infinite depths are still fathomless for us today.

Literal Sense: As I said, since Our Lord’s parables are essentially works of fiction, masterpieces of divine storytelling, their literal and historical meaning is limited. However, it can be said that this parable, which occurs just before Christ again prophecies His Passion (Mt 20:18-19) and the events of Palm Sunday (Mt 21:1-9), is caused by the preceding discussion at the end of Matthew 19, when Christ promises the disciples that they will receive everlasting life and judgement seats in Heaven, but that “many that are first, shall be last: and the last shall be first.” (Mt 19:28-30) This parable, therefore, illustrates this prophecy, which is in harmony with St. Paul’s teaching that Christ, despite being God, “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man… humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross.” (Phil 2:7-8)

Allegorical Sense: Pope St. Gregory the Great gives a masterful exegesis of the allegorical sense of this parable:

The Master of the household, that is, our Maker, has a vineyard, that is, the Church universal, which has borne so many stocks, as many saints as it has put forth from righteous Abel to the very last saint who shall be born in the end of the world. [Origen adds that the marketplace is the non-Christian world outside the Church.] To instruct this His people as for the dressing of a vineyard, the Lord has never ceased to send out His labourers; first by the Patriarchs, next by the teachers of the Law, then by the Prophets, and at the last by the Apostles, He has toiled in the cultivation of His vineyard; though every man, in whatsoever measure or degree he has joined good action with right faith, has been a labourer in the vineyard… The labourer in the morning, at the third, sixth, and ninth hours, denotes the ancient Hebrew people, which in its elect from the very beginning of the world, while it zealously and with right faith served the Lord, ceased not to labour in the husbandry of the vineyard. But at the eleventh the Gentiles are called. For they who through so many ages of the world had neglected to labour for their living, were they who had stood the whole day idle… They get alike a denarius who have wrought since the eleventh hour, (for they sought it with their whole soul,) and who have wrought since the first. They, that is, who were called from the beginning of the world have alike received the reward of eternal happiness, with those who come to the Lord in the end of the world. (Catena Aurea)

Moral Sense: Arguably, the most important point of Our Lord’s parable is tropological, extolling the necessity of humility, poverty and obedience above any sense of entitlement. Like the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the earlier workers in this parable expected greater reward for their longer obedience and suffering, as though they could somehow deserve the gifts given to them beyond what they had already been promised and begrudging the Master’s generosity. Instead, Christ shows the ineffable mercy of God, who awarded the Gentiles, the latecomers, the same promise of salvation offered to the Jews in Himself. Likewise, Christians today are called to avoid any kind of prideful entitlement, elitism, resentment or vain ambition, humbling themselves in grateful obedience to Christ and His Church to evangelize the nations and treat all people with dignity.

Anagogical Sense: In Matthew 19:28, Christ told His disciples, “Amen, I say to you, that you, who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” In this parable, He gives the means by which this glory is accomplished. Unlike earthly kings, who “rule over” and “lord it over” their servants, “it is not so among you: whosoever will be greater, shall be your minister. And whosoever will be first among you, shall be the servant of all.” (Mk 10:42-44) Therefore, humble service in charity is the work which, by grace in Christ, merits divinization and heavenly glory, whose champions are the apostles and who even now sit on judgments seats in Heaven awaiting the final judgment at the Parousia. In the Mass, we kneel in humility before Christ, recognizing our emptiness and unworthiness; thus, through the reception of His Presence in the Eucharist, we are more perfectly sanctified for the consummation of Heaven.

(Cover image credit: By Андрей Николаевич Миронов (A.N. Mironov) - Own work, Andrey Mironov See also ticket:2015070410013036http://artmiro.ru/photo/religija_zhanrovaja_kartina/pritcha_o_vinogradnike/4-0-300, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24843092)