Earlier in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, realizing that they had given up so much to follow Jesus, Peter asked the Lord, “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?” (Mt 19:27) Then, through the concluding verse of the parable of the workers in the vineyard, Jesus answered Peter’s question, “…the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Mt 20:16a).
In many ways, this verse encompasses much of the right attitude required of being a disciple. When it is applied consistently and reflectively, the verse’s implications would encompass those who take seriously the way of life that Jesus has called for His disciples to abide by. Being to be a natural servant to all automatically translates into dying to self or putting our selfish concerns after the concerns of all others. This parable has multiple interpretations: the variability in regard to when faith becomes real or when the spread of the Church is understood as reflecting the broadening of her mission from its beginning with John the Baptist, to Christ’s focus primarily on the “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” on to Pentecost with the descent of the Spirit and, finally, the mission to the Gentiles. However, amid those possible interpretations, this week’s Gospel is best understood as a parable about grace and reward.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and eternal life. Grace is a participation in the life of God.” (CCC, nn.1996-1997—emphasis in original). While the disciples could expect to be rewarded, they should also not be surprised if, when those rewards are distributed that God will reward others in unexpected ways. The final verse, then, is the key. The essence of divine grace, whenever God rewards and blesses any disciple according to His will and pleasure, it does not happen based solely upon what is deserved. Legal justice is predicated upon either getting what is deserved or upon righting some wrong (or tort). The heavenly system of grace is foreign to a human understanding such as that: God deals with us according to who He is, not according to who we are. T
he landowner did not treat anyone unfairly, though he was more generous to some than he was to others. It is divinely-assured that God will never, ever be unfair to anyone, though He may – for His own purpose and pleasure – bestow greater blessings on someone else who seems less deserving. The point is that God rewards on the principle of grace, and we should therefore expect surprises. He will never be less than fair, but reserves the right to be more than merely fair as it pleases Him to do so. God’s grace always operates righteously. Living under grace, then, is much like a two-edged sword. Under grace, we cannot come to God complaining, “Don’t I deserve better than this”; because God will reply, “Does this mean that you really want Me to give you what you deserve?”
A Better Understanding of Grace
Not the fact of grace itself, yet, the question of the means of grace has been called “the watershed that divides” Christian denominations. Starting at the beginning of the Catechism’s definition of grace cited earlier, note that when understood as a gift, grace is free and undeserved. Currently, the American cultural predisposition is to maintain that people deserve to have anything they want, whenever they want it, simply because they want it or think they have earned it in some way. So, to hear that God is giving us a free and undeserved gift might sound rather shocking to the modern mind.
The truth is, that due to our sinful nature, no one actually deserves this gift of grace that God freely offers to them. The sins that we commit every single day are the same sins that nailed Jesus to His cross for our sake (another freely given and undeserved gift) which, by human standards, is a pretty unforgivable thing to do. By offering this gift of undeserved grace, God is demonstrating His unconditional love for us and His deep desire for sinners to return that love to Him.
The second part of the above definition says that the gift of grace allows us to participate in the life of God, which is Trinitarian and thus includes the life of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It means we can be yoked into the family of God and draw from that wellspring of familial love, affection, and assistance. It also means that every single human experience we could ever have can be yoked to every human experience that Jesus ever had. Then, in each of these moments, we can tie in the third part of the definition; we can see how God intervenes for us and works with us and for us in everything we experience.
Now, with that better understanding of the meaning of the word “grace” try and imagine what St. Thérèse of Lisieux meant when she said, “everything is grace.” Later on, when exhausted, she added, “What a grace it is to have faith! If I had no faith, I would have inflicted death on myself without hesitating a moment.” For practical purposes, consider adding the word “opportunity” to her saintly declaration – everything is [an opportunity for] grace – because we need to be unimpeded in order to receive that divine gift in its fullness. If you willfully choose spiritual blindness and refused to see the work God was doing in your life, then any grace you might receive in any situation would be limited by your own obstinacy. Therefore, every moment of every day – good or bad – is an opportunity for God to fill you with His grace and allow you to be drawn into His Trinitarian familial life with your entire self.
Nature and dignity 