Matthew’s chapter 22 begins with a parable. It’s narrated in two parts. The first part speaks about a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. Here are some cultural aspects to the story that will help us understand the parable.

This wasn’t an ordinary wedding. It was a royal wedding. It was celebrating the marriage of the king’s son. It was a very big deal to be invited to a wedding like this. Traditionally, invitations were sent out in advance, but the date for the actual wedding was not given. When the entire affair had been put together with the food and entertainment ready, servants would be dispatched to announce that it was time to come to the wedding feast. Once the general invitation was given the guests had to be on alert for the call to come to the wedding – right away.

The king dispatched his servants with the good news of the wedding feast, but it was met with indifference, and even hostility. Those invited continued with their ordinary business, working on their farms or in their businesses. But some of them were even hostile towards the servants and beat and murdered them. The king, in anger, sent his troops to destroy the murderers, and to burn down their city.

Once again, we can see the theme of Israel’s rejection of God’s invitation. Israel was specially chosen to attend the royal wedding banquet, but ultimately refused the invitation, settling for the ordinary things of life. The rejection and murder of the servants reflected the hostility shown to the prophets God sent to reaffirm his invitation. The reference to the king’s anger, and the ultimate destruction of those who were invited and the city they lived in, was Matthew’s interpretation of the horrific event of 70 AD, the destruction of Jerusalem. Matthew, and probably most of the Christian community at the time, saw it as God’s punishment for refusing to accept the Messiah, the king’s son.

The king then sent his servants to the main roads to invite to the banquet whomever they found, good and bad alike. This is in line with the parables we’ve heard in the liturgies of the past two weeks. Israel refused God’s invitation. Now the invitation has been extended inviting everyone to the wedding feast in the kingdom of God.

The second part of the parable describes a scene in which a person enters the wedding not properly dressed. This might seem a bit odd to us, and the king’s response quite radical. We’re used to wedding invitations that are stamped “black tie optional.”

The meaning is clear. Don’t dress like a slob; this is a special occasion. In our culture we expect to be told how to dress for occasions. Restaurants used to have notices of the door, “jackets required,” or “casual dress.”

Today, some private clubs have strict dress codes, no jeans or sneakers in places other than the athletic facilities, and jackets, dress slacks, collared shirt and dress shoes are required throughout the club. In the Middle East, a wedding is a highly formal occasion. People know that they’re to dress in their best clothes. It’s not just a custom; it’s part of the celebration. By dressing up, everyone feels special, and the occasion is raised above the ordinary.

This short scene acts as a commentary to the main parable. Even though everyone, “good and bad alike,” were invited to the wedding, a dress code needed to be followed. One was obliged to put on a wedding garment. In biblical thinking what a person wears symbolizes who they are is inside. In the parable, one had to be clothed in the wedding garment. As Christians, we can interpret it this way. To enter the wedding feast in the kingdom of God one must be clothed in the values of the kingdom. In Matthew’s Gospel, the Beatitudes articulate the foundational values of the Kingdom. The Beatitudes must be part and parcel of our lives. They make us who we are.

Each of us has been invited to the wedding feast in the kingdom of God. To enter, Jesus has asked us to make an interior break from the everyday things of life, like our work, business concerns, and even family. Jesus proclaimed the Good News that everyone is called to the kingdom of God, “good and bad alike.” In the Beatitudes, Jesus listed what his followers were to wear: poverty of spirit, meekness, a thirst for righteousness, mercy, purity of heart and peacemaking. Saint Paul put it this way to the Christians of Rome. “Let us throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light…put on the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 13:12b-14)”

Jesus invited the religious leaders to the wedding feast but was disappointed. They refused the invitation he extended to them. We’re offered the same invitation, and we, too, are invited to the wedding banquet. We’re expected to wear a wedding garment. We’re expected to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus was an effective, simple teacher. His parables spoke to everyone, rich and poor alike, because his stories were based on everyday life. Today’s teaching uses the example of a wealthy landowner who made a big investment. He purchased a plot of land, planted a vineyard and set up a winery. He then leased it to a group of tenants and then left the country. Foreign investments like these were common in Jesus’ day.

The drama in the parable begins to unfold when vintage time came. That was when the rent was due. These tenants refused to pay. So, of course, the landowner sent envoys to collect the rent. The situation became heated when the tenants became violent. They even killed the owner’s son when he attempted to collect the rent. The conclusion to the parable was obvious. The landowner met violence with violence, reclaimed the vineyard, and rented it to more trustworthy tenants.

There was a crowd listening to this teaching, among them a group of religious leaders. The opening phrase of the parable immediately struck a bell. “There was a landowner who planted a vineyard.” The vineyard was a symbol of Israel. In fact, in the temple treasury there was a decorative wall depicting a vine filled with golden grapes. The prophets used the example of a neglected vineyard as a symbol of Israel’s rejection of the covenant it had made with God.

In the parable, the envoys are the prophets who took Israel to task for not giving God a return on his investment. Very personally, the son sent to the tenants is Jesus himself, God’s last attempt to restore the covenant made long ago. Sadly, God will “lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him his produce at the proper times.”

The parable is aimed at the religious leaders of the day. They were, as Jesus will say, “blind guides” leading the people to destruction. But as all of Jesus’ parables, there’s a universal teaching beneath the obvious. Here’s one to think about today.

We’re all developing a relationship with God that’s meant to be fruitful. God gives us the wherewithal to be productive, to grow, to develop. That relationship should make us inwardly happy because love is at the center of it. But a relationship with God is a curious thing; it can’t remain exclusive. Our love has to bear fruit in our relationship with others. It always comes down to love, doesn’t it. Love’s the payback. It’s the rent we’ve promised to pay to God.

Jesus was in the temple precincts when he posed a question to his audience by using a parable. A group of chief priests and elders had just interrupted his teaching. They challenged his authority to teach. “By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority? ” He shot them down by posing a clever question to them. He told them that he would give them an answer if they would tell him, and the crowd, if John’s baptism was of human origin or heavenly origin. This question stumped them because they had not supported John. If they said the baptism was of heavenly origin, Jesus and the people would question why the religious leaders didn’t believe in him. If they said his baptism was of human origin, they would anger the people because John was very popular among them. They declined to answer. So Jesus also declined to answer their questions. But then, looking straight at them, he asked their opinion on the parable he was about to relate about a man who had two sons.

It was a simple story. One day a man asked both of his sons to go out to work in his vineyard. The first son said, “No way!” But he had a change of heart and later went into the vineyard. The second son said, “Sure.” But he never went. Jesus ended the parable with this question to them. “Which of the two sons did the father’s will? ” The answer was a no-brainer. “The first.”

The religious leaders had no idea what Jesus was about to hit them with. “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you! When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe in him, but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds.” That punch wasn’t enough, though. Jesus followed his response with two more parables – the Parable of the Tenant Farmers and the Parable of the Wedding Feast. Let’s stay focused on this Parable of the Two Sons.

We have to acknowledge that neither of these sons was perfect. One gave lip service to his father’s request, but ended up disappointing him. The other son, at first, aggravated his father with a negative response, even though he eventually responded to his father’s request.

Jesus was pointing primarily at the religious leaders. They gave his Father lip service. They scrupulously followed all the religious laws but never had a conversion of heart. Jesus told the religious leaders that while sinners heeded John’s call to repent, they smugly rejected his message. In Jesus’ eyes, they were worse than the prostitutes and the tax collectors who were condemned by the “righteous” religious leaders. The “sinners” were lost but searching, and Jesus loved them for it.

As Christians trying to follow Jesus by taking on his values, it would be good for us to listen to his teachings. They’re perfectly clear when he’s fighting with the Pharisees. Matthew’s Gospel records many of these encounters, but they’re in the other Gospels as well. I’ll conclude this reflection with a few of Jesus’ statements from Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus’ attitude toward those who are self-righteous and condemn others is clear and uncompromising.

“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter. (Matthew 23:13)”

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside you are full of plunder and self-indulgence. (Matthew 23:25)”

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth. (Matthew 23:27)”

“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners. (Matthew 9:12-13).” Jesus calls everyone to a change of heart–a change of attitude. He calls us to his loving heart.

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and my burden light. (Matthew 11:28-30)”

Matthew begins chapter twenty with a parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard.” It’s always a good idea when reflecting on a parable to check the previous passage. It often gives an insight into what Jesus is teaching. Chapter nineteen ends with a scene in which a rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to attain eternal life. He said that he kept the commandments scrupulously but wanted to know what more he could do. Jesus shocked him by presenting him with a challenge. “If you wish to be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.” We’re told that the young man went away sad because he had many possessions.

Then Jesus turned to his apostles and delivered what was to be, perhaps, his most remembered comment, “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the

eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Peter, shaken by Jesus’ comment, immediately asked a serious question. “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?” Jesus gave this answer to Peter. “Everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life.” He ends with an odd saying. “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

To reinforce his teaching Jesus then delivered the parable that began. This chapter twenty of Matthew’s Gospel. “The kingdom of God is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard.”

The parable presents a landowner going to the marketplace at 6 am to hire day laborers to work in his vineyard. At the time there were many men who were unemployed. People were continually losing their businesses or farms because they were not able to pay the extravagant taxes the Romans levied on the population. The local marketplaces were continually filled with men looking for work. They weren’t lazy. They were desperate. They needed to work to support their families. The normal day’s wage was a denarius, which would be just about enough to buy food for one meal for a family of four.

Grape picking time was towards the end of September. The harvest was always a rushed experience. The grapes had to mature, but they also had to be picked before the annual rains came in October. The landowner started hiring at 6 am but returned again at 9 am because more men were needed. This group and the other groups he hired at noon, 3 pm and 5 pm were to be paid “whatever was right.”

6 pm came and the workday was over. The landowner called the men together to pay them. He began with the last ones who were hired. They only worked an hour but were paid a denarius! The men who worked twelve hours expected to be paid more since they worked the entire twelve-hour day, but he gave them what they had negotiated when he hired them, a denarius.

The first group of laborers protested to the landowner saying that it wasn’t fair for everyone to be paid the same. Here comes the challenge of the parable. “My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same usual wage? Or am I not free to do as I want with my money? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

If we link this parable to the story of the rich young man, we can understand better what mes-

2 sage Jesus was imparting to his apostles. Jesus’ invitation to follow him was demanding. One’s heart had to be free. The reminder that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God was a call for detachment. If worldly possessions were unimportant for the disciples, then the whole world would be theirs. This detachment included, however, the desire for power. Jesus knew that the apostles would have the temptation to see themselves as superior because they were the first to be invited to the kingdom of God. Call to mind the times the apostles argued among themselves about who would be first in this kingdom. When he heard them arguing Jesus was harsh with them. He reminded them that they were to be servants and not masters.

After his conversation with the rich young man, Jesus gave a pointed directive to his apostles. “Many who are first will be last and the last will be first.” Everyone is equal in the kingdom. Everyone is a servant. Jesus ended the parable of the workers in the vineyard in the same way. “Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.” No one is better than anyone else. Everyone is equal in God’s eyes. No one has a right to exercise power over another.

Saint Paul spelled out this teaching in a powerful statement. “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)” God is the master of the vineyard, and his generosity extends equally to everyone. This parable reminds us that we’ve been called to labor in the vineyard of the Lord, to be joyful servants without any prejudice.

It’s a challenge to follow Jesus because we can no longer think as the world thinks. We have to be free to clothe ourselves with Christ.