Take What is Yours and Go

Gospel Reflection for August 21st, 2024

Christ the Judge, Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

Today’s Gospel tackles the mystery of God known as providence. The parable that is told by Our Lord refers to workers in the vineyard who are called at different times during the day and at day’s end, when evening comes, each of the workers is given the same share in the wages. The workers who work all day and who “bore the day’s burden” complain to the landowner. They perceive an injustice in the wages given.

These workers who come to work the land at different times are analogous to the different ages of life that people come to the faith. Some, like the workers who begin working in the morning, are the ones born into the faith and labor from the morning of their lives until the evening. Some are ones who, like those workers who begin in the afternoon, are the souls who convert in the middle of their lives. Maybe they begin their life in sin and contradiction to God, but they eventually make their way into the church. Finally, we have some who come in the evening of their lives, we could say deathbed conversions. They have lived their entire life away from God and yet in the last minutes, they cooperate with the grace given and are saved.

How many times are we like the workers who grumble at Our Lord for perceived injustices:

“So, when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage. And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying, 'These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day's burden and the heat.'” Matthew 20:10-12

We have to understand that the providence of God is ordered according to His wisdom and not our own. It is spiritual pride to look at one who is saved in the last moments and to feel slighted when we have labored our whole life. In a moment when we ought to be rejoicing in the salvation of one who was almost lost, we are focused on ourselves and what we think that we should get.

Our Lord will answer us in the same way as in today’s Gospel:

“'My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?' Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last." Matthew 20:13-16

The hardest lesson in all of this that we have to remember is that none of us are owed heaven. It is purely out of the gratuitous love of God that any person is saved. God is free to do with His grace what He decides to do with it. We must take what is ours and go, as the Gospel tells us. God desires the salvation of all and if some come in the evening of their lives, who are we to question that providence?