Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today’s gospel is a declaration of love from the Lord to all of us. There is an anecdote related to this gospel about the desert Fathers in a monastery back in the fourth century. There was a monk apparently who was not a very good monk, and the others despised him and thought they were better than him. They always reminded him of one thing, they said, hey, when you are going to convert or change your ways and he always answered the same thing: today, the Lord is going to convert me. The day would go by, and the next day would come, and they would ask him, why have you not converted, when are you going to convert? And he answered: when the Lord helps me to convert. In his heart he was repeating a little prayer: today, the Lord will convert me, today the Lord will convert me. And even after night prayers the monks would ask him, hey, when are you going to convert today, and he had the same response: when the Lord helps me.
This is a simple story to help us see that the Lord at any time, at any moment of our lives, can give us that special touch of divine grace, which is the gift of conversion. This moment of grace is important because the gift of faith is given by the Holy Spirit. It is given to us at two points in time. When there is an announcement of the Good News, the kerygma, first, the Lord helps us see our sin. Like Peter said in the Acts of Apostles. He told the Jewish leaders: You killed the Lord of life, and you nailed him on a cross. Then comes the second part: the Lord has risen from the tomb and loves you; he loves you madly and did this for love of you. This is the Good News; it is a touch of grace that is not only to listen to it, which is important because grace comes from listening, but it is fundamental to experience it.
We see in all the gospels how those who come to Jesus come because they have heard about him. They heard something and he was close by and perhaps for the first time ever they were able to experience their sins, their poverty. That experience then is how the Master touches your poverty, your weakness. The Lord comes to love you and he touches your true reality. We see this in today’s gospel.
The workers are there in the town square. Imagine they were waiting to be hired. This is an example of the first stage. They need to experience the truth about who they are. Those who come in the first hours cannot experience their poverty. They are organized, they came early, and they even think they deserve the denarius, and even more than the denarius.
Who are the ones that really experience their poverty, their weaknesses, and their sins? Those who are hired at the last hours, those that no one wanted to hire all day long. Those that are not even good workers. Those who experience frustration, the meaninglessness of their lives, the desperation of not being able to work. It is impressive how the Lord goes there in person. The owner does not send anyone, the owner goes himself to hire the laborers for his vineyard.
It was the Lord who looked for you. He has sought us, he looked for us every day. That’s why this expression of this monk is so special. If the Lord comes today, he is going to convert me. I hope that today the Lord is coming into my life with a little something. Today the Lord comes to show his love to me, he grants me the power to forgive someone. I don’t know how to love a little or understand my wife even for a second. But before I close my eyes to sleep, the Lord gives me a grace to think well of her or to think well of those people that I judged badly during the day. Do you see?
The Lord comes into our life, into our meaninglessness when the day is nearly over. He arrives when there is nothing more to do and hires us for his vineyard. How wonderful He is. He does not want working in the vineyard to be seen as an effort, as something painful. To work in the Lord’s vineyard is only so you can experience the love of the Lord. That is what it means to work in the vineyard. It is not work in the ordinary sense of work; it is to experience this amazing love.
You harvest the fruit; you harvest this love that the Lord has given you. That’s why working in the Lord’s vineyard is the best thing to do, which is what those first workers didn’t understand because they did not know themselves. They did not know that one who is forgiven much will love much. That is why the gospel says, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. The first ones are like the “good ones”, like the Pharisees the who think they are great or like those who go to Mass every day and don’t convert. Going to Mass every day is all very good but if you don’t convert what good is it?
Those who watch all the Masses on the internet and even believe they have moral authority to correct the Pope. They despise the prophets that God has sent into their lives; they are the first ones. They are in the first place since they have put themselves in the place of God. These first ones will be the last because they will never be able to experience the love of the Lord. They will go to the vineyard of the Lord and will even be paid the denarius, but they will despise it. They don’t realize that Christ is the denarius.
I love all the parables of the kingdom of heaven but notice that these are the parables of the kingdom of heaven, not the parables of heaven. Some believe that these parables are about heaven, but this is not true. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, or the sower who goes out to sow, or the owner who goes and hires day laborers. If you live this parable, you have the kingdom of heaven in you. The kingdom of heaven is given to everyone one of us when we have been able to experience this love. This is the kingdom of heaven; it is within you.
The elder son in the parable of the prodigal son was not in the kingdom of heaven; he never experienced the love of the Father. The prodigal son, the younger one, even though he went very far away from the Father and comes back at last minute when everything had already been spent, when he could no longer do anything, when he could not even fill his belly with what the pigs were eating. It was at that moment that God goes looking for him. He realizes by a touch of grace that he has a Father who loves him. So, he returns to the house, to the vineyard of the Lord, the kingdom of heaven. It is not about working; it’s about being loved by the Lord so you can have the kingdom of heaven.
Let us return to the anecdote of the monk. Today the Lord is going to convert me. How good it would be if you said that when the devil tries to deceive you. Today the Lord will convert me! I really want the Lord to change me, to take these sins away from me. I really want to love the Lord, I do. Lord, come to my aid, come today, and help me. You can repeat it and repeat it and what a wonderful prayer!
This parable is marvelous and what is the pay for the day’s work? The payment is this denarius, which is Christ. In all the parables of the kingdom Jesus speaks of himself. He is the denarius that some despise, and others are grateful for. The denarius is worth a lot to some and for others it is worth nothing. The pay is a denarius even for those who came at the last hour. For the last ones, it is worth a lot more than a denarius since they have done almost no work, but they have felt loved in a spectacular way. No one else loved them like our Lord. This denarius which is Christ has been given to them.
The ones who came from the first hour are the ones who think they deserve more. They were called first. They deserve more, much more. If they had the chance, they would have asked the owner for ten or fifteen or twenty. They would have protested; they wanted more. They were not interested in Jesus Christ. They wanted more because they are good the “good ones.” They think they are good; they think they are God. That is our real problem and that’s why conversion always comes in these two stages.
They cannot convert unless they first see their sins, unless they are touching the bottom, at wits ends. They have to be touching hell and then, the Lord goes to their hell, looks for them and takes them and brings them to the kingdom of heaven, and they don’t deserve it.
How wonderful to have this encounter with Jesus Christ and there is no need to commit great sins, to steal, to fornicate, to kill. It is not necessary to come out of some scandalous thing, a drug addiction or whatever. Your hatred and your selfishness are very serious sins and your backbiting also, your lack of love towards your wife is a very grave sin. However, if you are there in your hell and you feel loved by the Lord. What could be better. May the Lord grant us to come out of this Phariseeism. That you only want others to think that you are good, no! I will gladly boast of my weaknesses that the power of Christ may be manifested in me. When I am weak then I am strong because it is the Lord!