Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A (2026) - Fr Robert Krishna, OP

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Our Gospel today is shocking, because we all expect fair treatment, and the parable in today’s Gospel seems massively unfair. We’re told not only that the first workers receive the same amount as the last ones, but that they have to wait in line until the end to receive that same amount. As Christians reacting to a Gospel we’ve heard over and over again in the course of our lives, we can easily criticize the labourers, because we know they must be wrong. But if we are honest with ourselves, we would have done the same thing. If the parable is supposed to be a depiction of the kingdom of God, then, does that mean God is massively unfair?

To answer this question, we need to understand the context in which Jesus tells the story in today’s Gospel. Just before this parable, Peter has asked Jesus: “What about us? We have left everything to follow you.” In other words, what’s in it for me? Jesus promises him a hundred-fold return on anything he gives up for his sake, and eternal life in addition. And then he tells the disciples this parable. The point of the parable is to get the disciples, and all of us, to question the concept of fairness as applied to following Jesus. We, human beings, are always tempted to look at our good deeds or our worship of God as a bargain. I serve God, and in return God gives me good things or prevents disasters from happening to me. So too, we tend to look at others and what they get and question God: If I’ve put in all this effort and made this many sacrifices, why should someone who has not put in this effort get more than I? Particularly, when we struggle, we can grumble, and question why God isn’t rescuing us from this struggle.

Jesus wants us to move beyond this. And he does it by giving voice to the plight of those who say at the eleventh hour, “No one has hired us.” He wants us to hear the emptiness expressed in those words. These are real people, those who have never heard of Christ, those who have been turned away from Christ by one thing or another, those who do not know what God offers us in Christ. Christ came to live and die for all human beings, even and especially those who have lived lives far away from God. Sometimes, when they convert, such people seem especially favoured. They receive a mercy which seems out of proportion to the lives they have lived until they met Christ. But then what about us? Are we not too, more or less, late to the party? Have we not slacked off during the day, wasted our time? And if we ourselves have come to God or come back to God, it is because, again and again, God has reached out to us in Christ. It is because God has shown us his compassion and drawn near to us when we cried to him. And whatever good we have done, God does not palm us off with just a measly denarius, a working man’s daily wages. Jesus has already promised his disciples the kingdom of God, which ultimately is the gift of living in union with God for all eternity. Even here and now, he offers us a thousand consolations, if only we have the eyes to recognise them, and the hearts to appreciate and respond to them. He gives us himself in the sacraments, especially in the Eucharist. He reveals himself to us in the Scriptures, in the monuments of Christian tradition like the writings of the fathers of the Church and the Catechism, in prayer, in our own struggle against sin, and for virtue, in the consolation and assistance others provide to us, and we are able to give them. Every day, God continually reaches out to us, and calls us to himself by giving us his own love, the Holy Spirit. The price God gives our labour is so much greater than what we deserve. We are called to reflect on, and realize, every day, this exceeding generosity of God, and to be grateful. That gratitude should shape our whole lives to the extent that we too should be able to say with St Paul, “for me to live is Christ.”

And as we receive God’s grace together, we should realize that we’re all in this life in Christ together: If the life of every Christian is Christ himself, then we have a share in whatever every other Christian suffers, and in whatever mercy is shown to every other Christian. Our gratitude should help us move beyond the terrible affliction of envy. But more than that, our gratitude should move us to actively share each other’s joys and sorrows. It should make us reach out to each other in joy and sorrow, pray for each other for everything we need, and help where we can. Even just asking to find out what’s going on in each other’s lives is a great beginning. Ultimately, our gratitude should take us out into the world, so as to share with all those who still cry out “No one has hired us,” the good news of the extraordinary mercy of God who is not bound by our expectations of fairness because he exceeds them.

Fr Robert Krishna, OP teaches Biblical Studies at Holy Name of Mary Seminary, Honiara, Solomon Islands and is currently assigned to St Laurence's Priory, North Adelaide, South Australia.