Sunday, September 20, 2026·Liturgical Year A

25th Sunday of Ordinary Time"Are You Envious Because I Am Generous?": The Laborers in the Vineyard

Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16a

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Readings at a Glance

First Reading

Isaiah 55:6-9

"Seek the Lord while he may be found, call him while he is near." The prophet of the return from exile invites the scoundrel to forsake his way and turn to the Lord, "who is generous in forgiving." Then comes the verse that is the key to this Sunday's parable: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord
As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways." God's generosity will always look unreasonable when measured by our accounting

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 145:2-3, 8-9, 17-18

"The Lord is near to all who call upon him." The psalm praises a God who is "gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness," whose "compassion is over all his works." It sings of the landowner who keeps returning to the marketplace: "The Lord is just in all his ways and holy in all his works," and he is near to every one who calls — the first and the last alike

Second Reading

Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a

Paul writes from prison, uncertain whether he will be released or put to death, and finds that the question has lost its sting: "For to me life is Christ, and death is gain." To go and be with Christ "is far better," yet to remain in the flesh "is more necessary for your benefit." He is content to labor in the vineyard as long as the Lord wills, and he asks only one thing of the Philippians: "conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ." Paul, who called himself the least of the apostles and "one born abnormally," is himself a laborer hired at the eleventh hour

Gospel

Matthew 20:1-16a

Jesus tells a parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard." He agrees with them on the usual daily wage and sends them into the vineyard
Going out again around nine o'clock, and again at noon and at three, he finds others standing idle in the marketplace and sends them in too, promising to give them "what is just." At about five o'clock he finds still others and asks why they have stood idle all day; they answer, "Because no one has hired us," and he sends them into the vineyard as well
At evening he tells his foreman to pay the workers, "beginning with the last and ending with the first." Those hired at five receive a full day's wage
When the first come, they expect more, but they too receive the usual daily wage, and they grumble: "These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day's burden and the heat." The landowner answers one of them, "My friend, I am not cheating you." Did he not agree to the usual wage? "Am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?" Jesus concludes: "Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last."

Before you read: Read this Sunday's full Mass readings at USCCB.org →

Key Themes7

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•"A landowner who went out at dawn" — God takes the initiative, and keeps taking it; the owner goes to the marketplace five times
•"Because no one has hired us" — the eleventh-hour workers are not lazy but unwanted; grace seeks out those the world has passed over
•"Beginning with the last and ending with the first" — the order of payment is itself a revelation; the first must watch the last receive a full day's wage
•"You have made them equal to us" — the heart of the complaint and the heart of the Gospel: grace makes equal those whom merit would rank
•"My friend, I am not cheating you" — justice is fully kept; generosity goes beyond it without violating it
•"Is your eye evil because I am good?" — the Greek idiom unmasks envy as a way of seeing, the inability to rejoice in another's gift
•"The last will be first, and the first will be last" — the reversal that frames the parable on both sides and runs through the whole Gospel

Historical & Literary Context

The 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time takes us out of the community discourse of Matthew 18 and onto the road to Jerusalem. In chapter 19, Jesus has begun his final journey south; a rich young man has asked what good he must do to gain eternal life and gone away sad; and Peter, speaking for the Twelve, has asked the anxious question of the hardworking: "We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?" (19:27). Jesus promises them thrones and a hundredfold reward, and then adds a warning: "Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first" (19:30). This Sunday's parable, found only in Matthew, illustrates that saying, and the lectionary closes it with the same saying in reverse (20:16). The parable is framed on both sides by the reversal of first and last. The setting would have been instantly familiar to Jesus' hearers. Day laborers gathered in the ἀγορά (agora), the marketplace, at dawn, hoping to be hired. The standard wage was a δηνάριον (dēnarion), a silver coin that roughly covered a family's needs for one day; a man who was not hired did not eat, and neither did his household. The Law of Moses required that such a worker be paid before sunset, "since he is poor and his livelihood depends on it" (Deuteronomy 24:14-15; cf. Leviticus 19:13). The landowner's evening payment is simply obedience to Torah. What is unusual is everything else: an owner who hires personally rather than through a steward, returns to the marketplace five times, and hires men at the eleventh hour — "about five o'clock," with only an hour of daylight left — whom no ordinary employer would have wanted. Three phrases in the Greek sharpen the ending. The complaint of the first workers is literally "you made them equal to us" (ἴσους αὐτοὺς ἡμῖν ἐποίησας, isous autous hēmin epoiēsas), which is exactly what grace does and exactly what offends. The landowner addresses the spokesman as ἑταῖρε (hetaire), "friend" or "comrade" — a word Matthew uses only three times, each time for someone in the wrong: here, for the guest without a wedding garment (22:12), and for Judas in Gethsemane (26:50). It is a word of reproach spoken with patience. And the question the NABRE renders "Are you envious because I am generous?" reads literally, "Is your eye evil because I am good?" (ἢ ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου πονηρός ἐστιν ὅτι ἐγὼ ἀγαθός εἰμι). The "evil eye" was the biblical idiom for envy and stinginess (cf. Matthew 6:23; Deuteronomy 15:9), and the adjective agathos, "good," is the word Jesus used a few verses earlier: "There is only One who is good" (19:17). The vineyard is Israel's most familiar image of God's people (Isaiah 5:1-7; Jeremiah 2:21; Psalm 80), and the Church will hear it again on each of the next two Sundays. Early interpreters read the successive hours allegorically. St. Gregory the Great (Homilies on the Gospels 19) saw in them the ages of salvation history from Adam to Christ, and also the stages of a single human life, from childhood to old age, so that no one who comes to God late should despair. St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies IV.36.7) read the same parable as the one God calling humanity in every generation. On authorship and date, Matthew is generally placed around AD 80–90, in a community where Jewish Christians who had kept the covenant for generations now shared the table with Gentiles who had arrived only recently. John P. Meier (Matthew, New Testament Message) and Daniel J. Harrington, SJ (Sacra Pagina) both note that the parable would have spoken directly to that situation. But its primary reference in Jesus' own ministry is to the tax collectors and sinners welcomed into the kingdom alongside the observant, and its enduring reference is to every believer tempted to measure grace by merit.

Commentary

Peter's Question Behind the Parable: "What Will There Be for Us?"

The parable of the laborers is Jesus' answer to a question the lectionary does not read this Sunday but which stands just before it. Peter, having watched the rich young man walk away, reminds Jesus that the Twelve have left everything, and asks what their reward will be (19:27). It is the question of the faithful, not of the lax — the question of people who have "borne the day's burden and the heat." Jesus assures them of a real and abundant reward, and then tells a story designed to purify their motives. The danger for disciples who have given up much is not laziness but comparison: the quiet conviction that long service should earn them more than the newcomer. This parable is addressed first to the people in the front pews.

The Landowner Who Keeps Going Out: A Portrait of God's Initiative

Every movement in the first half of the parable belongs to the landowner. He goes out at dawn, at nine, at noon, at three, and at five. No employer in first-century Galilee behaved this way; hiring was done early, through a steward, and the late-afternoon crowd in the marketplace were the men no one wanted. This owner goes himself, and keeps going. Here is the parable's first revelation, before any wage is paid: God is the one who seeks. The Catechism begins its account of grace with the same truth — "the preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace" (CCC 2001). No one in the vineyard hired himself. Even the first workers are there only because the owner went out to find them at daybreak.

"Because No One Has Hired Us" — The Dignity of the Overlooked

The eleventh-hour workers are often preached as latecomers who dawdled, but that is not what they say. When asked why they have stood idle all day, they answer, "Because no one has hired us." They were not unwilling; they were unwanted — perhaps older, weaker, or less skilled than those chosen at dawn. And a man who was not hired did not bring home bread. The landowner's final trip to the marketplace is therefore an act of mercy toward people the economy had already written off. Pope Francis, preaching on this Gospel (Angelus, September 24, 2017), contrasted the landowner's generosity with the calculating logic of human reward, and saw in his repeated going out an image of the God who calls everyone. The Church's social teaching, from Rerum Novarum to St. John Paul II's Laborem Exercens (1981), has drawn from this image a conviction about the dignity of every worker and the scandal of those left standing idle through no fault of their own.

"Beginning With the Last": Why the Order of Payment Matters

Had the landowner paid the first workers first, they would have taken their denarius and gone home content, never knowing what the others received. The story deliberately arranges for them to watch. This is not a narrative accident; it is the point. The parable is designed to expose the heart of those who compare. Grace has an audience, and the question is whether that audience will rejoice or resent. Every Christian community sees this scene played out: the lifelong parishioner watching a recent convert welcomed with joy, the faithful elder son of Luke 15 watching the feast for the prodigal. The Gospel asks which way we will look at it.

"You Have Made Them Equal to Us" — The Scandal of Grace

The grumblers' complaint is precise, and in a sense they are right: the owner has made the last equal to the first. That is exactly what grace does. The Catechism is unambiguous that "with regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man," because "between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him" (CCC 2007). Merit is real — the Church teaches that God freely associates us with the work of his grace and rewards it (CCC 2008-2010) — but it is itself God's gift. The Catechism closes its section on merit with the words of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who understood this parable from the inside: "In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works" (CCC 2011). The first workers came to the evening with full hands and discovered that this was not what the owner was counting.

Justice Kept, Generosity Exceeded: "My Friend, I Am Not Cheating You"

It is important to hear what the landowner does not do. He does not break his word. The first workers agreed to a denarius, the just and customary wage, and they received it in full, before sunset, as the Law required. The parable is not a charter for underpaying anyone. God is never less than just; what the parable reveals is that he is also free to be more than just. St. Thomas Aquinas makes the same distinction in treating God's justice and mercy: mercy does not destroy justice but is, in a sense, its fullness (Summa Theologiae I, q. 21, a. 3). And the owner's word to the complainer is "friend" — hetaire — the same address Jesus will one day speak to Judas. Even the reproach is an invitation.

"Is Your Eye Evil Because I Am Good?" — Envy as a Way of Seeing

The NABRE's "Are you envious because I am generous?" captures the sense, but the literal Greek is more piercing: "Is your eye evil because I am good?" Jesus has already said that "the lamp of the body is the eye," and that if the eye is "bad," the whole body is in darkness (6:22-23). Envy, in the biblical imagination, is a disease of vision: it looks at another's blessing and sees only its own loss. The Catechism counts it among the capital sins and defines it as "sadness at the sight of another's goods" (CCC 2539). Its remedy, the Catechism says, is goodwill and humility, and it borrows St. John Chrysostom's counsel: "Would you like to see God glorified by you? Then rejoice in your brother's progress and you will immediately give glory to God" (CCC 2540). The first workers' real loss is not a larger wage; it is the joy they could have shared that evening.

"My Thoughts Are Not Your Thoughts": Isaiah and the Parable

The first reading provides the parable's theological key. Isaiah calls the wicked to return to a God "generous in forgiving," and then says that God's thoughts and ways are as far above ours as the heavens are above the earth. That verse is often quoted to mean that God is mysterious. In context, it means something more specific: God forgives more readily than we would. The distance between the heavens and the earth is the distance between the landowner's generosity and the grumblers' accounting. The reading also carries an urgency the parable shares: "Seek the Lord while he may be found." The eleventh hour is still an hour. No one standing in the marketplace at five o'clock is too late to be called.

Paul, the Eleventh-Hour Apostle: The Second Reading

Paul's letter to the Philippians gives the parable a human face. He was, by his own account, the last of the apostles, "born abnormally" and "not fit to be called an apostle" (1 Corinthians 15:8-9), hired after the others had borne the burden of the day. Yet from prison he writes with the freedom of a man who no longer calculates: "For to me life is Christ, and death is gain." He does not measure his wages. He will stay in the vineyard if that serves the Philippians, or go to Christ if the Lord calls him, and either is joy. Pope Benedict XVI, reflecting on this Sunday's readings (Angelus, September 21, 2008), pointed to Paul as the laborer who understood that the true reward of work in the vineyard is Christ himself — which is why no one can receive "more" of it than another.

A Note for the Homilist

This parable sounds unfair to modern ears, so meet the objection directly: no one is cheated, justice is kept, and the scandal lies only in generosity. Then turn the congregation around. Most people in the pews instinctively identify with the workers hired at dawn; invite them to see themselves as the ones hired at five o'clock, which before God is what every one of us is. Name envy honestly and gently, as a way of seeing that robs us of joy. Speak a word of hope to those who feel they have come to faith, or back to the Church, "too late." And lead the assembly to the altar, where every communicant receives the same gift — not a portion proportioned to merit, but the whole Christ. At the Eucharist, the first and the last receive the one denarius, and it is enough for all.

Living the Gospel This Week

- For the homilist: Meet the "it's unfair" reaction head-on: the first workers received exactly what was just. Then invite the congregation to discover that they are the ones hired at five o'clock, and preach grace as gift before merit - For the long-serving parishioner: Notice where you compare your faithfulness with someone else's — the newcomer, the returning Catholic, the person who "only comes at Christmas." Pray this week for the grace to rejoice in their welcome as though it were your own - For the one who feels too late: The landowner went out at five o'clock. Whether you are returning to the sacraments after many years, or preparing for Baptism as an adult, the Gospel says clearly that there is still an hour of daylight and a full day's wage - For examining envy: Ask yourself where your "eye" has grown "evil" — resentment at a colleague's promotion, a sibling's success, another family's blessings. Name it in prayer or in confession, and ask for the grace of goodwill that rejoices in another's good (CCC 2540) - For work and justice: The landowner paid a living wage before sunset, as the Law required. Employers, managers, and consumers can ask this week whether the people who serve them are paid justly and on time, and whether anyone in their community is "standing idle" because no one has hired them - For the Eucharist as fulfillment of the Gospel's promise: At Communion, the first and the last receive one and the same gift: the whole Christ, not a portion measured by merit. Receive him this Sunday with the "empty hands" of St. Thérèse (CCC 2011), and thank him for calling you into his vineyard at all - For daily prayer: Pray Psalm 145 slowly one morning this week — "The Lord is near to all who call upon him" — and name before God someone you find it hard to see him being generous to

Sources & Further Reading

New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE), Matthew 20:1-16a; Isaiah 55:6-9; Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a; Psalm 145:2-18; Deuteronomy 24:14-15 — United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 1996–2005 (grace as free and undeserved gift), §§ 2006–2011 (merit, including the prayer of St. Thérèse of Lisieux at § 2011), §§ 2538–2540 (envy and its remedy), §§ 2427–2436 (human work and just wages)
Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World), §§ 67–68 — the dignity of labor and the just wage, December 7, 1965
Pope St. John Paul II, Laborem Exercens (Encyclical on Human Work), §§ 6, 19 — the subjective dimension of work and the just remuneration of workers, September 14, 1981
Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus address on Matthew 20:1-16 and Philippians 1, Castel Gandolfo, September 21, 2008
Pope Francis, Angelus address on the laborers in the vineyard, Saint Peter's Square, September 24, 2017
Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospels, Homily 19 — the hours of the day as the ages of the world and the stages of human life, c. AD 591
Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, Book IV, ch. 36.7 — the one God calling laborers in every age, c. AD 180
John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 64 — on the laborers and the removal of envy, NPNF Series I, vol. 10, c. AD 390
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 21 (the justice and mercy of God), a. 3–4, c. AD 1266
St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Act of Oblation to Merciful Love, June 9, 1895
Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, The Gospel of Matthew, Sacra Pagina 1, Liturgical Press, 1991
W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, ICC, vol. 3, T&T Clark, 1997 (on Matthew 20:1-16)
Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 2nd rev. ed., Scribner, 1972
Klyne R. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus, Eerdmans, 2008 (on the workers in the vineyard)

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