Day Laborers

Gospel: Matthew 20: 1-16

Day laborers are common throughout the world, even here in the United States.  They are a very vulnerable population, for they are often given low wages or sometimes not paid at all.  They work in the hopes of salary for themselves and their families, but they are often exploited and abused by those who would profit handsomely from their labor.  Jesus tells this parable to teach us how to treat day laborers as God would - with dignity and respect, providing for them and their families.

At this point someone will object: is this story not about finding God at different times in our lives and finding salvation regardless?  Yes, but we find God in the poor and exploited day laborer and others.  Our salvation is not in attending novenas but in the care we give to those who are poor and abused as these men in the story.  As we will discover in a few chapters of the Gospel, our salvation is utterly dependent on our deeds of mercy alone, mercy to those like these poor day laborers.

It is curious to see someone object to treating the poor with dignity in this story.  Why such an objection? It is perhaps because our entire history and economy has been predicated on the exploitation of cheap labor and the degradation of the poor, that we are convicted by that reality when confronted with it in this story.  Today is a good day to do something about it.  Today is a good day to do deeds of justice and mercy.