Matthew 20:3 — Community Reflections

MATTHEW 20:3 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,”

And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace. The third hour (about 9 AM) finds more unemployed workers in the marketplace. The idle standing is not laziness but unemployment: they are available for work but have not been hired. The master who goes out repeatedly through the day is the landlord who is maximizing his vineyard's productivity by hiring whoever is available.

Church Fathers on Matthew 20:3

To establish the truth of this saying, 'There are many first that shall be last, and last first,' the Lord subjoins a similitude.
Remigius · 9th century

The Master of the household is Christ, whose house are the heavens and the earth; and the creatures of the heavens, and the earth, and beneath the earth, His family. His vineyard is righteousness, in which are set divers sorts of righteousness as vines, as meekness, chastity, patience, and the other virtues; all of which are called by one common name righteousness.
Pseudo-Chrysostom · 5th century

Or; The Master of the household, that is, our Maker, has a vineyard, that is, the Church universal, which has borne so many stocks, as many saints as it has put forth from righteous Abel to the very last saint who shall be born in the end of the world. To instruct this His people as for the dressing of a vineyard, the Lord has never ceased to send out His labourers; first by the Patriarchs, next by the teachers of the Law, then by the Prophets, and at the last by the…
Gregory the Great · 6th century · Hom. in Ev., xix, 1

Read all 47 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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