Inversione: gli ultimi avanzino, i primi facciano posto

Marco Staffolani of RomaSette reports on the parable from the Gospel of Matthew regarding a landowner and his vineyard workers. In the story, a landowner hires various groups of laborers at different times throughout the day, including at dawn, nine in the morning, noon, three in the afternoon, and five in the evening.

The landowner agrees to pay each worker one denarius per day. When the time comes to pay, the landowner instructs the foreman to pay the workers starting with those hired last and ending with those hired first. Although the workers hired earliest in the day expected higher pay because they endured the heat and the full day's labor, they also received one denarius. The report notes that the early workers complained about this, but the landowner maintained that he had fulfilled his agreement with them and possessed the right to be generous to the latecomers.