Isaiah 55:6-9; Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a; Matthew 20:1-6
What is the Kingdom of heaven like? What is God’s way of salvation like? What is the Christian life like?
Once upon a time, a householder set out to hire labourers for his vineyard. Our Lord tells us this story, which may perhaps strike us as somewhat bizarre, then he leaves us without any sort of explanation. So that gives us rather a lot of freedom to interpret or apply it as we can.
The 1960s compilers of our current lectionary offer us a series of readings these Sundays from 2 Corinthians. There are 7 little snippets or extracts, given for the second reading at Mass, for Sundays 7 to 14. We missed the first 3 in the series because of Pentecost, then Trinity Sunday, then Corpus Christi. So we’re starting now today, on the 10th Sunday, with a little passage from the end of 2 Corinthians Chapter 4.
The Gospel today begins immediately with an urgent request from the apostles to Jesus: Increase our faith! (Luke 17:5) It is their response to Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness, which is not included in today’s passage: that we are to rebuke our neighbour if they sin against us and forgive our neighbour as many times as they sincerely ask our forgiveness - literally “seven” times, which in the Jewish terms of the day meant without limit.
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