Homily for Wednesday of the 20th Week in Ordinary Time - Queenship of Mary

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In the Gospel story, the payment of the last workers first is crucial to exposing the sin of envy on the part of the workers who went out early in the morning. Envy is a sin more invidious than jealousy, for jealousy is the simple feeling of wanting what another has, wanting to be equal with them in some way. Envy actually seeks to deprive another person of what they have; in this case, the early morning workers would like to see the wages of the late workers reduced. In doing so, they show that they found neither joy nor meaning in their work. The parable shows that this attitude is not appropriate for working in the kingdom of God. We are not to work begrudgingly, or worse, to work only so as to get a reward that someone else does not have. That, of course, was Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees, that they only wanted to be righteous in comparison to someone else, not to be righteous in the sense of experiencing the ‘fullness of life’ that comes from obedience to the will of God.
It is important to experience that our ‘wage’ for working in the kingdom of God, that gift of eternal life, is not simply a ‘ticket’ that we receive at the end of a job well done. It is a gift that is given in response to faith, and as we walk by faith in Jesus, we begin to live now the life that we will live forever with God. The ‘fullness of life’ that Jesus came to bring is given to us immediately upon our acceptance of the kingdom. Our working in the vineyard is a sign that we have received the gift in gratitude, and that it is bearing fruit within us. We do not work in the vineyard in order to receive this gift, our work in the vineyard is our response of thanksgiving, an outpouring of joy that results in our sharing of the gift of eternal life, and our welcoming, not excluding, all those to whom God also wants to give this gift.