18/09/2026
“You go to my vineyard.”
20th September 2026 (Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time; Year A)
Isaiah 55:6-9; Psalm 144(145):2-3,8-9,17-18; Philippians 1:20-24,27; Matthew 20:1-16.
Jesus today speaks to his disciples a parable about the Reign of God (Kingdom of God / Kingdom of Heaven). The first two notes in the opening line of today’s gospel are important, they give us the context. By this parable Matthew addresses his Church community, the disciples, and states that this is about the Reign of God and not about any type of injustice that may be carried out on the workplace, industrial relations or fair wages. To appreciate this parable, we need to understand that the theme is the Reign of God, a space where, unlike our human world order, the last will be first and the first will be last.
The scene is a vineyard. In scriptural terms, the vineyard is a special space a landowner is very proud of; it is a place which produces joy. In other parables, the Reign of God is compared to a wedding banquet, a feast. Working in the vineyard, therefore, is not hard labour, but a work of love, a work of enjoyment. The vineyard produces grapes that are turned into w**e. While water is an essential element of life, w**e is an added extra used for celebrations. While excessive drinking of w**e is frowned upon in scripture, w**e is a symbol of joy and celebration. The workers in the vineyard share in this celebration and it is an honour to be part of this work.
In the parable, the harvest is ready and the landowner wants to harvest his grapes urgently as rain can ruin the value of his grapes. He personally goes out at different times of the day to hire workers for his harvest.
At the end of the day the landowner starts to pay his workers, each one is given a denarius, a full day’s wage. The denarius was the maximum a worker could expect. In the context of today’s parable, the denarius is equivalent to a full share in the life of the Reign of God, full participation in God’s life.
Those who were welcomed into the vineyard early in the day are not upset that they only received a denarius as a wage, but rather that the late comers were given the same amount as themselves. They expected those who came in late to be given less.
We can often be caught up in the same conundrum. We think that we who have been participating in the Reign of God since birth should be treated differently to anyone who came into the Reign of God later in life. Fortunately for all of us, the ‘good thief’ on the cross next to Jesus at the crucifixion, who asks Jesus to remember him when he establishes his kingdom, is immediately promised “today you will be with me in paradise.” In God’s presence, what counts is not the amount of time one has worked but that one has accepted the invitation to participate. The workers who were hired at the eleventh hour had been waiting in the market place all day, waiting for someone to hire them; we should be grateful that we encountered the Reign of God early in life, we were hired in the early hours of the day, we should not be jealous of those who came in at the last minute.
One mistake that the early workers made is that they did not understand how the Reign of God works. Instead of being grateful that they had been privileged enough to enjoy working in the harvest from an early hour, they saw this as a hard labour: “we have done a heavy day’s work in all the heat.” This response is similar to the response of the older brother in the parable of the Lost Son (also referred to as the Prodigal Son). The older son complained to the father that he had “been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command.” What the older son failed to understand was that in fact “you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours;” he was already enjoying the fullness of the Reign of God.
If we consider obeying the commandments and living a life pleasing to God as a burden, then we too will fall into the same mistake as the workers hired at the first hour. We need to learn to appreciate that working in the Reign of God is a privilege and not a burden. We do not accept to work in the harvest of the Reign of God to gain God’s acceptance and love; we are already loved by God who created us all, out of love, in his own image and likeness. Rather, we choose to work in the vineyard of the Lord because we are loved and because we have been called. We need to be grateful for God’s great love and gift of faith, as we pray that many of our sisters and brothers understand the gift of being able to participate in the Reign of God and that they too join us in this festive celebration.
If we speak of participating in the Reign of God as a heavy burden, then we are not being good missionary disciples, we are not promoting the benefits of the Reign of God among our sisters and brothers.
Mario mssp
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