Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, To our God, for he will freely pardon. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, And your ways are not my ways,"says the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts.
Every day I will praise you. I will extol your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised! His greatness is unsearchable.
The Lord is gracious, merciful, Slow to anger, and of great loving kindness. The Lord is good to all. His tender mercies are over all his works.
The Lord is righteous in all his ways, And gracious in all his works. The Lord is near to all those who call on him, To all who call on him in truth.
According to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will in no way be disappointed, but with all boldness, as always, now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will bring fruit from my work; yet I don't know what I will choose. But I am hard pressed between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Yet to remain in the flesh is more needful for your sake.
Only let your way of life be worthy of the Good News of Christ, that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your state, that you stand firm in one spirit, with one soul striving for the faith of the Good News;
"For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who was the master of a household, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. He went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.'So they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise. About the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle. He said to them, 'Why do you stand here all day idle?'
"They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.'
"He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is right.'
"When evening had come, the lord of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.' "When those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius. When the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise each received a denarius. When they received it, they murmured against the master of the household, Saying, 'These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!'
"But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn't you agree with me for a denarius? Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you. Isn't it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?' So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen."
There's something almost uncomfortable about this parable — and that discomfort is worth sitting with. A landowner hires workers throughout the day, from sunrise to nearly sunset, and then pays everyone the same wage. The all-day workers are furious. And honestly? On a human level, we get it.
Notice how the parable doesn't actually say those early workers were wrong to feel the sting. What it does is invite us to examine *what* exactly is stinging. Is it injustice — or is it something closer to envy dressed up as fairness?
Isaiah gives us the key: God's ways are not our ways. That's not a dismissal of our feelings. It's more like a gentle recalibration. We build our whole sense of the world around ledgers — who worked harder, who deserves more, who earned their place. And then grace walks in and refuses to play by those rules.
Paul captures something of this tension from the inside. He's genuinely torn between living and dying, between staying useful and going home to God. What emerges in his honesty is a person who has stopped calculating his own worth and simply wants Christ to be magnified — in his body, in his choices, in whatever comes next. That's a radical freedom most of us only glimpse.
Consider how this plays out on an ordinary Tuesday at work, or in a family where one sibling seems to get away with everything. The late-hired workers in the parable didn't earn their denarius — but they showed up when called. And the landowner, who represents God, went looking for them. Multiple times.
The movement here is from scarcity to abundance — not of wages, but of welcome.
Something to carry through the day:
Where are we keeping score in ways that close us off from gratitude? Who in our lives have we quietly decided deserves less welcome — and what would it mean to release that judgment? And if God's generosity feels unsettling to us, what does that reveal about what we actually believe God is like?