Wednesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

Optional Memorial of Saint John Eudes, Priest

First Reading: Ezekiel 34:1-11

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6

Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16

Daily readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081926.cfm

God speaks through Ezekiel in one of the most direct indictments in the Old Testament. Woe to the shepherds who have been pasturing themselves. You fed off the milk and wore the wool but did not pasture the sheep. You did not strengthen the weak or heal the sick or bind up the injured. You did not bring back the strayed or seek the lost. And so they were scattered, wandering over all the mountains and high hills, with no one to look after them. And then God turns the oracle on its own axis: Therefore I myself will look after and tend my sheep. The people who had been abandoned by the ones supposed to care for them will be cared for by God directly. That promise becomes Psalm 23 — the most beloved psalm in Scripture, the one people reach for at bedsides and gravesites and in the middle of the night. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.

The Gospel takes that same God and shows us how he works. A landowner goes out at dawn and hires workers. Then goes out again at nine. Again at noon. Again at three. And then at five o’clock — the eleventh hour, when the workday is nearly done — he finds more people standing idle in the marketplace. Why have you been standing here idle all day? Because no one has hired us. And he says: you go into my vineyard too. At the end of the day he pays everyone the same full wage, starting with the last. The ones who worked all day grumble. And the landowner says something that stops you cold: Are you envious because I am generous?

That is the question that lands on an ordinary Wednesday. Not just about the parable — about today. About the colleague who seems to get credit without the effort. The person in line who gets served first. The family member who wandered far and came back and got the celebration. Something in us keeps very careful accounts. And God says: I am not cheating you. But I am also free to be generous with others. Can you let me be?

A few questions to sit with tonight:

1. God says through Ezekiel: I myself will look after and tend my sheep. Is there a place in my life where I have been trying to be my own shepherd — managing everything myself — instead of letting God do that?

2. The landowner kept going out all day looking for workers no one else had hired. Has God found me at an unlikely hour — an unexpected moment of grace? When?

3. Am I envious because God is generous with someone else? Is there a person in my life whose good fortune I find hard to celebrate?

4. The psalm says: even though I walk in the dark valley, I fear no evil, for you are at my side. Is there a dark valley I am walking through right now? Have I told God about it honestly?

One small thing for tomorrow:

The next time you feel the sting of someone else’s good fortune — a promotion, recognition, a relationship, anything — pause before the reaction hardens. Say quietly: God is generous. Let him be generous with me too.

Lord Jesus, you are the Good Shepherd Ezekiel promised — the one who comes after the lost ones personally, who binds up the injured, who does not lord it over the flock but lays down his life for it. I have been that lost sheep more times than I can count. And you went looking. Help me to trust your generosity instead of measuring it against what others receive. Help me to walk through the dark valley without pretending it is not dark — but also without forgetting you are at my side. I want to live in the house of the Lord a long, long time. Amen.

If you’d like to share: has there been a moment when God found you at the eleventh hour — when you felt it was almost too late but he showed up anyway?