Wednesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
Today we have the parable of the workers in the field. The owner of the field goes out and hires more workers to collect his harvest hour after hour throughout the day. Until finally the last group of workers only works for an hour in the field. Finally, at the end of the day, the owner pays the workers. But everyone is surprised when everyone is paid the same amount, those who worked all day, those who worked only an hour, and everyone in between. Of course, those who worked fewer hours were quite pleased with this, while those who worked all day in the hot sun were very unhappy. I think we all sympathize with these workers and rightly so. If this parable were about paying people wages, it would actually be wrong.
But Jesus is not talking about paying wages, and we should not understand the parable that way. Rather, He is highlighting generosity. Specifically, God’s generosity to us. This goes back to what we saw yesterday in our reflections: salvation is not something that we can earn. Rather, salvation is God’s gift to us, freely given out of God’s generosity. Likewise, with everything else God gives to us: our very life, forgiveness for our sins, the people whom we love and who love us. Everything good is God’s gift and comes from God’s generosity. We don’t earn it and we don’t deserve it. But God very much wants us to have all of His good gifts. And our best response is our loving acceptance of His gifts and our gratitude.
Reflection by Fr. Aquinas Keusenkothen, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections