There are some parables of Jesus that are so powerful and beautiful that they are even known outside of Christian circles…  Like, “The Prodigal Son” where the rebellious son takes his inheritance early, squanders it, returns in shame and is received with overwhelming Mercy by the Father; or “The Lost Sheep” – where the shepherd leaves the 99 in search of the one who was lost.  Those stories and teachings of Jesus about who God is and how he acts are so impactful and accessible that people never tire of reflecting on them.

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And then there’s this one.  Because if we’re being completely honest, there’s something about this Gospel that just annoys us.

A landowner goes out early in the morning and hires people to work in his vineyard.  They agree on the usual daily wage, and they go to work.  Then the landowner goes out at nine.  Again at noon – at three… and then unbelievably, at five o’clock – with barely an hour left to the work day, finds a few more people standing around and sends them into the vineyard.  It comes to paying the guys and the people who work an hour and get a full days wage.  So naturally the people who have been there since sunrise start doing the math.  “DANG – if they’re getting THAT much – IMAGINE what we’re going to get!”

And then they get exactly what they were promised.  The same amount.  And immediately, that gut reaction comes: – That’s not fair.  Which is why this parable has generated arguments, debates among Christians probably from the first time Jesus told it.  Because Jesus picked an analogy that hits us right where we live.

We know what unfair feels like:

You’ve been in that group project where you did almost everything, someone else barely answered the group chat, and somehow everybody gets the same grade.

You’ve been doing all the behind the scenes work – putting in overtime hours, taking extra responsibility and then someone who barely understands the project is congratulated for their “leadership.”

Those things bother us, because there really are injustices in life.  So I think Jesus deliberatley tells the story in a way that makes something inside of us say – Wait – that’s just not right.

But there’s something important happening immediately before this Gospel that we miss because the Church divides the Gospel passages between different Sundays.  Right before this parable, Peter has watched Jesus encounter the Rich Young Man.  The one who asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life.  Eventually the conversation got to Jesus telling him – If you want to go all the way, let go of everything and follow me.  And the young man couldn’t do it.  St. Matthew in writing this in the Gospel tells us the guy “walks away sad because he has many possessions.”

And we hear that story almost as a tragedy.  Poor guy.  He had Jesus right in front of him personally inviting him and guaranteeing him all that his heart could ever have longed for and he walked away.  Maybe its not for him.  Maybe…

Except almost immediately Jesus says something incredibly hopeful to those who just witnessed the whole thing – for human beings this is impossible, but for God, all things are possible.  In other words, don’t count him out just yet…

You gotta love St. Peter, that’s when he decides to raise his hand.  You can almost hear what’s buzzing in his head before he says it – That’s great Jesus.  Wonderful… God can do anything… very inspiring but we who have left everything…. we’re still here.  We ARE already following you.  Some of us (no one in particular) some of ous have been corrected by you constantly and publicly and (some of us) we’re still here… So what do we get?

And honestly?  That seems reasonable.  It’s why I love Peter – he speaks for us who are thinking “Membership has to have some perks, some privileges right?  I mean, we got in on the ground floor with this thing – we’re like the original investors, right?  Surely that comes from some kind of preferred status.”

That is what was hanging in the air right before Jesus tells this parable.

Peter is imagining the Kingdom of God the same way we see so many other things in life – I put this much in… therefore I should get this much out.

Jesus is trying to completely change his vision.  Which fulfills what we heard God say through the prophet Isaiah in the first reading: My thoughts are not your thoughts… nor are your ways my ways.  That doesn’t simply mean God is smarter than we are (obviously He is).  It means the way that God thinks about love, mercy, grace, salvation – even the way He thinks about US is radically different than the way we tend to think.

And I think there are two major blind spots we have that Jesus is trying to correct.  The first is how we picture “the reward.”  Because we hear “payment” in the parable, we’re immediately triggered to thinking rewards the way we understand rewards.  You put in more effort, you get more stuff.  And somehow that translates into heaven – I’ve been Catholic my whole life, went to Catholic school, got all my sacraments, never missed a Mass, even did a few novenas here and there.   So obviously there should be some deluxe package waiting for me – a premium tier, express check in – something right???

I remember hearing an observation – I wish I could take credit for because it made me laugh.  But I think it was either from Bishop Barron or Fr. Mike Schmitz, who used Mother Teresa as an example.  So think about St. Teresa of Calcutta.  Here’s a woman who poured out her life for decades serving the poorest, sickest, most forgotten of human beings imaginable.  She gives her life to Jesus.  Now imagine her arriving in heaven.  She’s sitting there in her heavenly penthouse overlooking the ocean, no humidity, nice breeze coming in.  Relaxing probably for the first time in 60 years.

Suddenly she notices the guy moving into the place next door. And she says “wait a second – HIM – the guy who ignored God his whole life, never darkened the door of a church, lived however he wanted – and then five minutes before he died, he sincerely repented, went to confession, turned back to Jesus – and he’s on the same beach front as me?  ARE YOU KIDDING?

It’s ridiculous picturing this tiny Albanian nun who served the poorest of the poor suddenly sounding like an outraged Jersey Shore neighbor: ‘HE gets the place next door?!’” Which is why we laugh at that.  We know how ridiculous that whole thing is.  Because Mother Teresa wasn’t spending her life serving the poor that someday she could FINALLY collect her prize.

JESUS WAS THE PRIZE

Serving Him was already participating in the life she wanted forever. That doesn’t mean it was easy.  We’ve learned after her passing that Mother Teresa experienced profound spiritual darkness for the vast majority of her life.  But she knew who she belonged to.  Her life wasn’t about accumulating enough religious points so someday she could turn them in at the prize booth of Heaven – she didn’t think God owed her anything.

Her life had become an answer to the love she had already received. 

That’s what St. Paul is talking about in the Second Reading today.  Paul is sitting in prison and unsure whether this is the time he will finally be executed or not.  What’s his reaction?  For to me life is Christ – and death is gain.

That’s an astounding sentence.  Paul doesn’t say “Man oh man, I’ve suffered enough – God better have something incredible waiting for me…”  He says – if I live?  Christ.  If I DIE? Christ.  Either way I get HIM.

That is what we call true freedom.  Because Christianity isn’t spending 70 or 80 years punching in a spiritual time clock hoping God gives you a great payday in the end.  Eternal life begins now.  Knowing Christ begins now.  Being forgiven begins now.  Learning the true meaning of love and doing it – begins now.  Receiving Him in the Eucharist begins now.  Being freed from the things that enslave us, diminish us, begins now.

The people who entered the vineyard early didn’t get cheated.  They got to spend their whole day in the vineyard.

Which brings us to the second blind spot Jesus is trying to fix for us.  Where do we place ourselves in the story.  Because almost everybody hears this parable and instinctively assumes – I’m the guy who’s been there all day.  Of course we do – we’re here at Mass.  We show up.  Obviously we’re good workers.  And somewhere out there somewhere are all those “five o’clockers” The slackers.  The people who haven’t taken God seriously.  The people who’ve messed up their lives.  The people who will eventually come crawling in at the last minute… the same ones who only show up on Christmas and Easter and take the good parking spaces and my pew…

Jesus warns us to be very careful.  Because once we start thinking like that, something very strange happens.  We can actually become resentful when God is merciful to someone else.

Notice something in the Gospel.  The workers who had been there all day -were not underpaid.  The landowner gave them exactly what he promised.  Their anger wasn’t caused because they received less.  Their anger came because someone else received more generosity than they thought that person deserved.

And that is a very different problem.  The landowner asks – are you envious because I’m generous?  That question goest straight to the heart.  Because now forget the hypothetical person for a second.

Think of someone you love.  Maybe someone in your family, or a friend… someone you went to school with… maybe someone you haven’t seen at Mass in years.  Someone who has drifted from God.  Someone who argues with you saying religion is pointless.  Someone whose life is really messy right now.  Someone you’ve prayed for – hoping, wishing, longing for them to know what you know about the mercy of Jesus Christ.  Someone who you wish knew what it was like to walk into confession carrying sins and mistakes and shame that’s haunted them for years and walking out knowing it is forgiven.  Someone you wish understood what—or rather Who—we receive when we come to this altar. Because that host isn’t merely a symbol or a reminder. In the Eucharist we receive Jesus Christ Himself—Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. The One we hope to possess forever in heaven gives Himself to us here and now.

That’s life in the vineyard. We don’t have to wait until heaven to begin receiving the reward.

So imagine after 5, 10, 20 – fifty years they come back.  Maybe it is in the last hours of their life, they finally get it.  They finally say JESUS I NEED YOU.

Would you really stand there and say That’s not fair, I’ve been here longer?

Or would you be overwhelmed with Joy that the person you love finally came home?

Suddenly the five-o’clocker’s look very different.

And maybe even more importantly – Maybe some of us need to realize today that we are the five o’clockers.  Maybe you think everybody else has this figured out.  You grew up Catholic but disappeared for awhile.  You made some choices you’re embarrassed about.  Maybe you look around at Mass and think “they belong here… I’m just trying to slip in and out.  Maybe you think you’ve wasted too much time.

Jesus’ extraordinary revelation in this Gospel is that He is still going out looking for workers at five o’clock.  He hasn’t given up… Apparently, God is terrible at cutting His losses.  He keeps going out – 9:00, noon, three – five…. looking.  Calling. Inviting. Offering people another chance; and another; and another.  Why?  The prophet Isaiah told us His thoughts are not our thoughts.

This parable isn’t teaching us that following Jesus doesn’t matter until the last minute.  It’s teaching us something far more beautiful.  There is no point in your life when God stops calling you.  And there is no point in someone else’s life when we get permission to stop praying and hoping for them.

Peter asked Jesus –we left everything – what are we going to get? Eventually he will understand.  Not immediately.  He still has a lot of mistakes ahead of him.  He will boast that he would never abandon Jesus, that he was willing to die for him and then he’ll deny even knowing Jesus three times to servants and bystanders in the high priests courtyard. When Peter himself completely failed – Jesus went looking for him again.  So even Peter discovers that he wasn’t nearly as much of an “all day worker” as he thought.

And maybe that is the freedom Jesus wants to give us today:  Stop keeping score.  Stop comparing.  Stop wondering whether somebody else deserves the mercy God is giving them.  And stop believing that your relationship with Jesus is payment for services rendered.    It’s what St. Paul discovered – to live is Christ.  Christ is the reward.  Christ is the treasure.  Christ is what every Saint wants.

And the amazing truth about our God is whether someone has been walking with Him faitfhully since childhood or comes running toward Him as the sun is setting…when the person finally says “Lord I want You,” God doesn’t look at the clock.  He simply opens the vineyard.

So the question for us isn’t how long have I been here?  But rather – Am I glad that God is still out there looking for those who aren’t?   And if you’re the one who’s been away — are you willing to believe the vineyard gate is still open for you?