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The Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 20:1-16, Jesus pulls from the rich literary background of the Old Testament in order to teach us eternal truths about his salvific work and the Church he is establishing.

In Psalm 80, Israel is depicted as the vine that was brought out of Egypt and planted in the Promised Land. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “The vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel” (Is 5:7). Hosea the prophet describes Israel like this: “Israel is a luxuriant vine whose fruit matches its growth” (Hos 10:1).

Throughout Salvation History, God has worked to form a family united to him through the covenant, and through successive stages, this family grew in time from a single married couple consisting of Adam & Eve to the vast kingdom of Israel ruling over other nations.

In the final, new, and everlasting covenant, the culmination of Salvation History is found in the last, final, and greatest King of Israel: Jesus the Christ. This king, who is eternally begotten by God the Father, intends to increase the family of God from a national kingdom to an international kingdom. Thus, God’s family will now include – on an equal measure – all peoples, including the Gentiles: the nations other than Israel. God’s family will be universal, or, catholic.

With the advent of Jesus, God’s vineyard (i.e., Israel) is increasing both in size and shape by its very ethnic makeup. In this parable told by Jesus, the laborers hired in the cool of evening are the Gentile converts who join the family of God late in the game.

This continuity of the family of God from the Old Testament into the New Testament explains why Saint Paul feels such freedom to call the Catholic Church in the very end of the Epistle to the Galatians “the Israel of God” (Gal 6:16). It also sheds light on how in the Epistle to the Romans, Paul describes the unbelieving Jews as “branches [who] were broken off” of the olive tree and the believing Gentiles as “a wild olive shoot [who] were grafted in their place and have come to share in the rich root of the olive tree” (Rom 11:17).

It is important to understand that God does not have two families: the Jewish people today and then, on the other hand, the Catholic Church. Rather, the Catholic Church is the very continuation of the family of God and has for her head, the King of Israel: Jesus. She first consisted of faithful, believing Jews: Mary, Jesus, Joseph, the 12 Apostles, and all the rest. All peoples – whether Jew, Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim – are called to salvation through Jesus Christ in his one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church: God’s covenant family. Jesus wishes to bestow his grace and life upon every single human person, regardless of their nationality.