‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard’ (Matthew 20: 1) … at work in a vineyard in Platanias near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Ninth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IX, 17 August 2025). The calendar of the Church of England in
Common Worship today (20 August) remembers Saint Bernard (1153), Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher of the Faith; and William Booth (1829-1912) and Catherine Booth (1829-1890), founders of the Salvation Army.
I hope to be involved in a choir rehearsal in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, later this evening. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right’ (Matthew 20: 4) … vines in the vineyard at Aghia Irini Monastery, south of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Matthew 20: 1-16 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 20 ‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; 4 and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. 5 When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6 And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” 7 They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” 8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” 9 When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11 And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” 13 But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’
Covid, a stroke and personal problems meant I was missed my regular visits to Greece … not just for the blue skies and blue seas, but also the vineyards and the olive groves, and especially my friends there. So, after an absence of more than two years, it was good to get back to Crete last year and once again this year.
Of course, it was sad to see a small vineyard I have known for almost 10 years in Platanias, east of Rethymnon, has been uprooted and turned into a site for a development close to the beach. On the other hand, it was good to meet old friends in Rethymnon, Platanias, Panormos and Iraklion this year.
Last year, I also went to meet Manoli, who I have known for 30 years. When my sons were small children, he was like an uncle to them. Early one summer, he was excited when he rang me and realised I was returning to his village in the hills above Hersonissos, to the east of Iraklion. Gushing with enthusiasm and delight, he told me how I must come and see what he had done with the ‘graveyard’ in Piskopianó.
‘The graveyard?’
Now, I am interested in visiting churches and churchyards, and graveyards and gravestones provide rich material for social, local and family history. But a graveyard is not the first place you think your friends want you to visit on a holiday in the Mediterranean.
I asked again: ‘The graveyard?’
‘Yes, you’re going to be delighted to see how the vines are growing with new life. You remember how I trimmed back the vines and the branches and how I built new trellises. Now there is a rich crop in the grapeyard this year.’
The grapeyard! Of course. Now it makes sense.
I had shown an interest in his vineyard and his grapes … and a healthy interest in wine.
Now a new lesson awaited me on how to grow grapes, how to trim the vines, and how vines, like people, only make sense in clusters.
We are all workers in the vineyard, and Christ even refers to himself as the true vine. But unless we have worked in a vineyard, some of the illustrations in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 20: 1-16) may not fully resonate with us. And this helps to understand how some of the people who are depicted in today’s parable, and many of the people who first heard it, may have missed some of the subtle points Jesus was making as he told it.
This Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, despite being well-known, is found only in Saint Matthew’s Gospel.
As the story unfolds, the landowner (οἰκοδεσπότης,
oikodespotés), the head of the household or the owner of the land, is revealed to be not merely the owner of the vineyard, but as the Lord (ὁ κύριος,
ho kyrios).
The labourers (εργάτες,
ergates) are called at five different times in the day: early in the morning, at 9 o’clock, at noon, at 3 and at 5.
There are different tasks in the grapeyard, in the vineyard. Those who come early in the morning, at sunrise, can suffer from literal burnout later in the day as the heat of the sun becomes intense.
A variety of skills is needed: those who look after the soil; those who look after other plants such as the olive trees or lemon trees that help to protect the vines; those who watch the roses for the first signs of any disease that might hit the vines; those who prune the vines; those who pick the grapes and sort them out; those who tidy up in the vineyard at the end of the day – each and everyone plays a role in producing that bottle of wine as it makes its way to the shelves of shops and to our tables.
To some of the workers – and to us, at our first reading – the landowner appears to be unfair in the way he rewards those who work on his behalf. But did you notice how this passage begins ‘… the kingdom of heaven is like …’ and that the wages stand for God’s grace?
God chooses to give the same to all: the landowner pays ‘whatever is right’ – there is no social discrimination or class distinction in the Kingdom of Heaven.
I was living in Askeaton, in Co Limerick, for five years. For those five years I was there, although I was a late arrival, I was a ‘blow-in’, although the term was used for me affectionately, and I knew I was welcome. People understood I had arrived there late in the day, and I understood the parishioners had been there far longer than I ever knew.
Good partnerships mean mutual understanding, and can produce good fruit, not just in the vineyard, but in every aspect of life.
As people are more mobile these days, moving from city to countryside, and from provincial towns to the city, the term ‘blow-in’ may be beginning to die a slow death in many smaller towns and communities in Ireland. But I wonder whether the attitude it encapsulates is still prevalent in other aspects of Irish life.
Are newcomers to the Church equally as welcome as long-standing members of the Church, whose parents were regular parishioners before them?
How difficult is it for new churchgoers to find an invitation onto church committees, to read lessons, to be counted in, and to be seen to be counted in?
Sorcha Pollak’s column in
The Irish Times, ‘New to the Parish,’ has shown how new arrivals are regularly treated rudely, from the moment they show their passports at the airport, to taking up jobs, constantly being asked, ‘But where are you really from?’
Over the past two years or so, we have seen far-right riots and protests across England, in Belfast, Ballymena and Dublin, the fear that has been created in the Indian community in Dublin, and the shocking attacks on places housing and sheltering asylum seekers and refugees, and there have been deeply disturbing reports of racist abuse suffered by people throughout these islands.
How early do you have to have arrived in the vineyard before your labour is valued fully?
God is generous to all. This is God’s free choice. As the Lord of the vineyard asks in this morning’s Gospel reading, ‘Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
Jesus begins this morning’s parable saying, ‘For the kingdom of heaven is like …’
The kingdom of God is like a place where all are welcome, where no-one is treated rudely or abusively because they are new arrivals or treated favourably because they have been here since the early days.
In the Kingdom of God, there is no discrimination, no racism; in the kingdom of God, there are no late arrivals or blow-ins.
Grapes past their harvesting time at the Hedgehog Vintage Inn in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 20 August 2025):
The theme this week (17 to 23 August) in
Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Tell the Full Story’ (pp 28-29). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections from Dr Jo Sadgrove, Research and Learning Advisor, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 20 August 2025) invites us to pray:
Lord God, inspired by the work of abolitionists from around the world, we pray that those of us who have been able to sit in positions of comfort and privilege may be moved into places of discomfort to reflect on our own agency for change.
The Collect of the Day:
Merciful redeemer,
who, by the life and preaching of your servant Bernard,
rekindled the radiant light of your Church:
grant us, in our generation,
to be inflamed with the same spirit of discipline and love
and ever to walk before you as children of light;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
God of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with Bernard to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
Grapes on a vine in Aghios Georgios in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Scripture quotations are from the
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
http://nrsvbibles.org
Grapes ripe for harvesting in Panormos, east of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
