Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Introduction   

With par­ables based on con­crete and every­day life, Jesus con­tin­ues to por­tray the true image of the king­dom of God. The idea of a house­hold­er who goes out in search of labour­ers is def­in­itely not strange to us. Mov­ing along our vari­ous major cit­ies is a daily scene. We see labour­ers wait­ing to be hired for the day’s job. Hav­ing out­lined the pro­ced­ure for set­tling dis­putes and indic­ated that it is nat­ur­al that Jesus under­lines anoth­er aspect of the king­dom of God, Since the King­dom of God is not a pub­lic park, those who wish to enjoy it must ful­fil the require­ments. What require­ments are con­tained in Mat­thew 20:1–16?  

The message of the parable

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matt 20:16). The mes­sage of the king­dom (of God) and the motive for which Jesus nar­rated this par­able to the dis­ciples come at the end of the day, when the laborers gath­er for pay­ment. To all, the mas­ter paid the same amount agreed with the first group, begin­ning with the last group. Pay­ing oth­er groups the same amount aroused in the first and offi­cial group the false hope that the mas­ter would give them some­thing high­er. But when they received the same amount, they mur­mured and lamen­ted, express­ing their total dis­agree­ment with what they con­sidered to be an “act of injustice” on the part of the mas­ter. To their mur­mur­ing, the mas­ter replied to one of them, “Com­rade, I am not being unjust to you. Did you not agree to work for a den­ari­us? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you.Do I not have the right to do what I want with what is mine? Or are your eyes evil because I am good?”

Conclusion  

“So, the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matt 20:16). God’s way is truly dif­fer­ent from ours. As stated above, the mas­ter could have ignored those oth­er labour­ers because the work­ers he employed early in the morn­ing were already work­ing in his vine­yard. While the labour­ers employed by 6 o’clock in the morn­ing rep­res­ent the Jews, the sub­sequent labour­ers rep­res­ent oth­er people, includ­ing the Gen­tiles. If the Jews think they have abso­lute pref­er­ence and right to the king­dom of God, they should know that oth­ers equally have the same right and pref­er­ence to the same king­dom. The king­dom of God must be dis­tin­guished from the king­dom of man. The two king­doms have dif­fer­ent cri­ter­ia for eval­u­at­ing them. To do oth­er­wise is to harm one­self and risk exclud­ing one­self from the king­dom of God.

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SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 25^th Sunday of the year (A) is found in The Word of Life, vol. I, pages 454–463. Happy reading!

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