Monsignor Enrique Díaz Díaz shares with Exaudi readers his reflection on the Gospel of this Sunday, September 13, 2026,  entitled: “My thoughts are not your thoughts . ” 

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Isaiah 55:6-9: “ My thoughts are not your thoughts”      

Psalm 144: “I will bless the Lord forever”

Philippians 1:20-24, 27: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

Matthew 20:1-16: “Are you going to resent me because I am good?”

Today, the Word of God shakes our deepest human structures. It confronts us with a reality that we often struggle to accept because it shatters our commercial logic of merit and selfish effort. The parable we just heard, the laborers in the vineyard, presents us with a God who doesn’t calculate as we do. The prophet Isaiah already warned us of this with absolute clarity in the first reading:  “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” And how good it is that way! If God’s ways were our ways, we would be lost under the weight of our own pettiness.

The workplace is a place where injustices prevail because it values ​​capital and profits more than people’s dignity and basic needs. Schedules and wages demonstrate that people become mere numbers, cogs in a production machine that benefits only a few and leaves the majority barely surviving. Unemployment isn’t just due to a lack of work, negligence, or incapacity; it’s primarily due to a lack of opportunities in an unjust world dominated by money.

The countryside remains the same: hard work, high risk for farmers, and meager returns when the harvest is in. The profits end up in the hands of hoarders. The current concentration of income and wealth stems primarily from the unjust mechanisms of the financial system and an accumulation of goods and services that neither promotes the common good, nor benefits everyone, nor leads to genuine human happiness. If we add to this the rampant corruption at all levels, the links to the scourge of drug trafficking, human trafficking, and the drug trade, along with extortion payments, the social and economic fabric of communities is ultimately destroyed. This has serious repercussions for unemployment, underemployment, and dramatic situations of personal, family, and social hardship. It is no wonder, then, that many young people emigrate in search of better opportunities, abandoning their families, or, in the worst cases, becoming ensnared in the networks of drug trafficking and criminal groups. When profit is valued more than people, humanity always loses.

Faced with this world of injustice and unemployment, Jesus comes to tell us his parable. Does it have something to teach us? I imagine that if we put ourselves in the place of the first workers who worked all day and received the same pay as those who worked only one hour, we would be complaining and criticizing the employer presented in the story. But there is a deeper lesson, even on a purely labor level. The employer is not committing any injustice because the denarius, the agreed-upon fair wage, represents the amount necessary to survive with dignity. And it is the right prescribed by all laws: the right to a wage that provides for adequate food, education, healthcare, and housing. But this remains a dead letter because we submit to the laws of a ruthless capitalism. Christ proposes a true change, where all brothers and sisters are able to obtain their “denarius,” that is, a fair and sufficient wage for a family to live with dignity. The parable also has other meanings. It centers on Jesus’ teaching on fraternity, whose fundamental foundation is welcoming the weak. The response to differences it offers is very clear: the golden rule upon which the community is founded must be equality: everyone receives the same regardless of the work they have done. It will be necessary to break down the patterns that make the community a field where force and selfishness seem to be the norm. The new Christian community must recover its original vocation and dismantle the systemic structures that make the community easy prey for the powerful, where the weak are disregarded and the excluded have no access to the benefits of the Kingdom.

What would have happened if the other workers hadn’t been hired? Those who arrived first would have been happy with the denarius they had rightfully earned, but when comparisons and differences arise, it provokes anger. What Jesus proposes is an experience of community where there is respect and appreciation for all people, where communion is lived in welcoming those who are different and less fortunate. Before God, it’s not a matter of merit, nor of the quantity or quality of work. Both the call to participate in his vineyard and the reward are a gift, not a prize. The response and personal commitment are essential, but the reward is God’s free gift. God speaks of grace, of the joy of giving. We immediately speak of comparisons and entitlements. And comparison always produces a superiority complex or plunges us into the bitterness of envy. Isn’t it true that many sorrows and frustrations arise from comparing ourselves to what others have, what others do, or what others enjoy that we don’t? The workers have justly received their wages, but when they look at the others, they are saddened by what they are earning. Envy corrodes the heart when we compare ourselves to others and feel more entitled. Behind this story is also Jesus’ criticism of those who consider themselves righteous and despise others, those who close their hearts to the weak, those who judge others as sinners or wicked.

The parable seriously challenges our economic system, but also our religious and family systems, forcing us to think about those who cannot find work, about unfair wages, about despised migrants… about so many victims of our working world. How do I treat others who have had fewer opportunities than I have? How can I be faithful to Jesus, who teaches us that we are children of a Father who loves everyone equally? What can we do to change the unjust structures in the world of economics? What is my attitude toward those who cannot find work?

Our God, good Father, Father of all, who in love for You and our neighbor have chosen to summarize all Your law, grant us to discover and love You in our brothers and sisters so that, building a new community, we may attain eternal life. Amen.