Reflection
Latecomers often get a bad press. The impression is that such persons are negligent, indifferent, or simply sloppy. As a priest, I am often on time in my priestly duties and try not to be late. At least I try to. But I’ve realized that I won’t be on time every time because of many unforeseen circumstances beyond my control. So I allow myself to be late three times each year (unintentionally, that is). Once, I did not begin the mass at the time it should. An elderly person reprimanded me for being late and not doing my duty. Not one to make excuses, I acknowledge my fault. Trying to lessen the sting of the suggestion of being unreliable and negligent, I remembered what another priest told me about being late for mass. He said: “A priest can never be late for mass because it won’t start without him.”
In our Gospel today, the same impression of being unreliable, negligent, and derelict seems to characterize the latecomers who worked in the vineyard. The laborers hired at dawn felt they were more trustworthy and hardworking because they were hired first and worked longer. They also felt they were unjustly treated because they were given the same wage as those hired late and last. They did not understand that justice is the deserved reward or punishment, as the case may be. No injustice was done to them. They agreed on the wage before working and the amount for their labor was the going rate as well. What were they really grumbling about? More than the impression that the latecomers were unreliable and lazy, at the heart of their vehement reaction to the landowner’s treatment of the latecomers is nothing more than the sin of envy. Their hearts were envious. Where the early comers saw “delinquency” and “injustice” from the landowner, the latecomers experienced prodigal generosity.
In the parable, the landowner is God. He is a God not of strict justice alone but of abundant generosity and mercy. He not only calls the meritorious and exemplary but the unworthy and undeserving. Envy makes us think that we are the only ones who deserve God’s generosity. We think we are entitled to God’s generosity because of our own rectitude and merit. It takes a lot of self-honesty and humility to acknowledge having an envious heart. Envious people are addicted to what others have and take no notice of what they really need. To the envious, the feeling of emptiness and lacking something is unacceptable. The only way out is to blame others who have what they think should be theirs. Envious people fail to recognize that being human is to experience pockets of emptiness that long for fulfillment which can never be satisfied totally.
When we fail to accept this truth, we can easily become envious of who others are and what they have. How can we overcome envy? The feeling of deprivation and recognizing what we feel we have been deprived of can direct us to the good thing we long for. Appreciation and gratitude for the good things we already have is also a step towards healing. But more importantly, the message of today’s gospel is the medicine that heals an envious heart: the expansiveness and recklessness of God’s generosity. He is the only one who can deeply fulfill all the longings of our heart. He is generous to everyone. Even to latecomers.
Response
A boy was complaining to his mother that his shoes were not fashionable like his friends until he saw a TV ad of a boy who could only watch his friends play football because he lost his legs in a landmine explosion.
