The key idea of this chapter is to educate us about the many parables Jesus told and the miracles he preformed. We now understand that the miracles are the healing presence of God made very clear though Jesus. The parables are moral and religious lessons. The parables reveal a greater truth of how we are supposed to live. The "Called to be Dreamers" means that we are called to dream about what these things mean to us.
I would like to be able to do a first level interpretation on any parable in the Gospels. This course has brought me to realize how little I truly know about the bible. I think that I am now going to pay more attention to the Gospel at mass. Becoming older people will challenge my faith more often and I need to be able to support my position.
I want to remember truly how important Jesus' death, resurection, and acsension. Not just as important to our church's main beliefs but that those were miracles too. Even if Jesus was not the leader of a religous movement that alone would have been amazing. What would I havwe thought if I was a Jew at that time? I think that I would have thought like Mr. Sciuto always says "Either Jesus is a nut or he is the real thing."
What would today's church be like if women had a more active role in the beginning of the church? Would they have a good or bad effect?
Did God realize the overall effect that men would have and say it was greater then the effect that women would have?
Laborers in the Vineyard
"1 For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
2"When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.
3"And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place;
4and to those he said, 'You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.' And so they went.
5"Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing.
6"And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, 'Why have you been standing here idle all day long?'
7"They said to him, 'Because no one hired us.' He said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.'
8"When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.'
9"When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius.
10"When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius.
11"When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner,
12saying, 'These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.'
13"But he answered and said to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius?
14'Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you.
15'Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?'
16"So the last shall be first, and the first last."
Matthew 20:1-16
This is my favorite parable partly because it leaves us all thinking. I think that we all get a different message out of this parable. For me in general I see God going out and offering people in the world a place in his kingdom. He goes out a lot and at different times. So no matter how long we are in the Kingdom of God (aka his vineyard) we will still receive the same amount as long as we work or hardest.
