1st
February Trinity
Matthew
20: 1-16
The
kingdom of the heavens is like a man, the master of his house, who went out
early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. Agreeing to pay them one
denarius a day, he sent them out into his vineyard.
At
about 9 o’clock he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace, and he
said to them, “Go also into my vineyard, and I will give you whatever is
right.” So they went.
He
went out again at about noon and at 3 o’clock and did the same. At 5 o’clock he
went out and found others standing there, and he said to them, “Why do you
stand here all day idle?” They said, “Because no one has hired us.” He said,
“You, too, go into the vineyard.”
And
when evening came, the master of the vineyard said to his steward, “Call the
workers and give them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going
on to the first.”
Those
who had been hired at 5 o’clock came forward, and each received one denarius.
Therefore, when it was the turn of those who were hired first, they expected to
receive more. However, they too also received one denarius each. They took it,
but they began to grumble against the master of the house. “These men who were
hired last only worked one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne
the burden of the work and the heat of the day.”
However,
he answered one of them, saying, “Friend, I am not being unjust to you. Did you
not agree with me for one denarius? Take what you have earned and go. I wish to
give to the man hired last the same as I give to you. Have I not the right to
do as I wish with what is mine? Or do you give me an evil look because I am
generous? Thus will the last be first and the first will one day be last. “
1st February Trinity
Matthew 20: 1 – 16
A kingdom is a realm or a sphere. It implies a boundary or
border. In today’s reading Christ uses the term ‘the kingdom of the heavens’.
The way that He uses it, we cannot think of this kingdom of the heavens as a
place in the afterlife, a place we can only enter after death. His kingdom of
the heavens is a place here on the earth. It is a sort of parallel universe that
happens alongside or within our earthly lives. Its boundaries are drawn by our
awareness of it, our attention. It exists wherever the spiritual and the
earthly are united in the now of the human heart.
This earthly-heavenly kingdom is a place where we are called
to work, to engage our wills, in community with others. God calls each of us,
wants to ‘hire’ anyone who is willing to work ‘heartily’ now, in and for this
heavenly-earthly realm. God’s kingdom is created by His wish, His desire, that
the spiritual and the earthly intersect. His reward, the day’s wage, is the
same for all—we receive what we need to sustain us for the day’s work.
In the middle of each Act of Consecration of Man we pray,
along with Christ, the words He taught us. They are the keys to the doorway to
the Kingdom: May what the Father wants for the earth happen through our deeds.
We can trust that we will be given daily nourishment that will sustain us for
His work. With Christ, we pray to the Father:
May your kingdom extend itself
in our deeds and moral conduct.
May we so perform your will
as you, Father, have laid it down
in our inmost being.
Spiritual nourishment,
the bread of life,
you give us superabundantly
in all the changing conditions
of our lives.[1]
