Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A
Reflecting on Isaiah 55:6-9, Matthew 20:1-16a
I’m quitting. We’re all quitting. You’d quit too if you worked all day in that blazing sun, pulling those weeds and trying to plant crops in that hard ground. All day long I worked! I was one of the first ones there this morning. I got on the truck and ate the tortilla Maria made for me while they drove us out to the fields. I didn’t stop until lunch. And you know how hot it’s been. But I worked in that heat all day, and all day long the laborers kept coming.
Are you envious because I am generous?
And they got paid first! When I saw what they got I thought he must have upped the pay scale, but no, he paid me just what he promised.
But it’s not fair that the workers who came late, all the way up until 5 in the afternoon, got paid the very same thing I did! If that’s the way it works then from now on I’m showing up at the end of the day too.
“Are you envious because I’m generous?” he asked us when we complained. Well, I can tell you that his ways are not the ways of doing business! And his thoughts are not the thoughts of somebody who wants to keep his workers working hard for him!
I’m mad. I’m frustrated. But I’ve been thinking about all the things God has given me in my life that I didn’t earn. I want to get to know this guy better, whose ways are not my ways and whose thoughts are not my thoughts.
Name some of the things you have received from God that you didn’t earn.
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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).