Fr Marco Lazzaron
he first reading of today, from the prophet Isaiah, introduces us to this Sunday’s Gospel, which at first sight may seem rather strange. Isaiah says: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord”.
Here, then, is the key to understand this Gospel: we need another point of reference. Normally, we have our own ways, and we often follow them, but sooner or later we realise that our calculations do not match God’s view. Our ways, without God, even if they do not lead us into evil, nevertheless lead us to emptiness and meaninglessness. This is why we will never be truly joyful unless we open ourselves to God.
The Gospel speaks to us of a landowner who begins by doing what seems perfectly normal, but then, according to our way of thinking and acting, starts behaving in a rather strange way. First of all, the landowner’s concern is to go out and look for workers: what matters to him is that everyone should enter the vineyard. He calls those who are doing nothing, those who are wasting their lives.
He goes out into the city and calls workers at every hour of the day and, in the end, pays them all in the same way: he gives each of them one denarius. According to our logic, it seems absurd that he should pay everyone equally. It appears to be an “injustice” towards the workers of the first hour, who have worked all day. But the word “injustice” is not quite accurate. Indeed, the landowner says to one of the workers who came first: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for one denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”
Jesus told this parable to the scribes and Pharisees who, “called ‘first’, were scandalised that Jesus should offer the same salvation to everyone, even to sinners. In fact, the worker called first does not so much demand a higher wage as complain about the equal treatment given to the one who arrived last” (Cardinal G. Ravasi).
The Lord does not reason according to our grumbling or according to our little scales. God’s work is according to grace, according to the abundance of his love and his mercy. God is a Father, not a tax collector.
How could we imagine a relationship between husband and wife based simply on strict justice: if one gives fifty, the other gives fifty and no more? Often in life something more is needed. We give the other person something they have not earned or deserved.
How can we raise a child simply by giving them what is strictly due to them? A child needs to experience tenderness, love and forgiveness. How can we nurture a friendship if the relationship is reduced simply to giving and receiving?
The Lord invites us to go beyond a narrow idea of human justice and to begin living according to divine justice, which is revealed on the Cross. The Lord Jesus does not love us according to what we deserve, but according to his love: a love freely given, an unconditional love.