At times, different people call our parish office asking if they could do some community hours service work, or they may need some volunteer credit hours for some projects at school. All of these require a certain number of those hours of service or community work. You just need to have that number. Similarly with learning how to drive a car or fly a plane -- you need to have enough hours of practice before you can get your license. And because of that, we can mistakenly think that this is how it would be with our salvation too. For example: you may think that because you were baptized as an infant, received the other sacraments, a religious education and you go to church each Sunday, you will enter the kingdom of God before someone who made a conversion at the last moments of his or her life. The parable from today’s gospel clearly states that for God it is different and that He doesn’t care about our credit hours of being good and faithful Christians. His repayment is the same for those who have been faithful all their lives and for those who made a conversion at the last minute in this world. So, instead of being angry and judgmental, we all should care and pray for the salvation of all of our brothers and sisters. Those who worked in God’s vineyard all day will receive the same daily wage salary as those who worked only one hour. Again, God doesn’t repay us for the hours of being good and faithful.
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