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Matthew 20:1-16
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you.15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
In today’s reading, Jesus tells a parable about a subject that’s absolutely central to the way we understand our relationship with God in Jesus. That subject is grace, which is defined theologically as the un-earned favor of God. Using this parable, Jesus illustrates the difference between the grace of God and our human idea of fairness. Most of us think the world should operate according to what’s fair.
In this parable, a vineyard owner goes out to hire people to help out with his grape harvest. Then he goes out again at noon and in the afternoon, and even at the end of the day, to hire all the workers he can find to help get his grapes harvested.
Then of course, the vineyard owner pays the last workers hired first. Each gets a denarius, which was the standard daily wage for a blue-collar worker in the ancient world. The workers hired at the end of the day were no doubt delighted to get a full day’s wages, since they hadn’t worked a full day. But the ones who had worked the whole day are furious when they just get a denarius. too. They got the same wage for a whole day that the last guys hired got for a couple of hours’ work.
From the perspective of fairness, this story makes no sense. And that’s probably just what Jesus intended.
I’m pretty sure Jesus wants us to understand the vineyard owner in this parable to represent God. So the parable confronts us with a basic truth that flies in the face of our standard way of thinking: the truth is that God is not fair.
I think Jesus knew that his followers would have trouble wrapping our heads around the idea that God is unfair. I say that because there are other parables in which Jesus makes the same point about God being unfair. The other one that comes immediately to mind is the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
We’re taught as kids that the Parable of the Prodigal Son is about how willing God is to forgive us when we sin. But when you look closely at that parable, if the father in the parable had really been fair, he would have punished the Prodigal Son when he came home – or at least made him be a servant to the rest of the family.
But that’s not what the prodigal son’s father did, is it? He threw a party. And the older brother hated it. When that parable ends, the older son is standing in the road, refusing to go in to the party the father was throwing for his brother.
It seems to me that both of these parables challenge us to examine another of our default human ideas, which is that if God is fair, we will get into heaven. From the time we’re little kids we’re taught that if we’ll just be good, then we’ll get into heaven. And the typical idea of ‘being good’ we get as kids is a pretty low bar, isn’t it? Don’t fight. Don’t steal. Don’t do drugs. Don’t be sexually immoral. Go to church once in a while. And if you meet that standard, you’re in – you’ll go to heaven.
But in Jesus, God says, it’s not enough not to murder someone, we can’t even let ourselves think violent thoughts. It’s not enough not to be sexually promiscuous, we can’t even look at someone for the purpose of lusting after them. It’s not enough to be good to the people we like – we have to be good to the people we don’t like. It’s not enough to forgive people once or twice – we have to forgive seventy-seven times. It’s not enough to be no worse than others. We have to be willing to sacrifice ourselves in service to the kingdom of God, and to other people.
So when we really face up to what God is asking of us, when we really hold ourselves up to the standard of Jesus, a very unsettling realization strikes us:
If God is really fair, we’re not going to heaven.
But strangely enough, if you really think about the point Jesus is making, this Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard becomes a story of very good news. Because what Jesus is telling us in this parable is that God is unfair – but that God is unfair in our favor! God doesn’t give us what we deserve; he gives us more than we deserve. God gives us his un-earned favor. God give us new life as a gift out of his grace.
Those of us who follow Jesus, who commit ourselves to live by his teachings and in imitation of him, we believe that we’re saved by grace alone. Our new life as followers of Jesus – our hope of eternal life in his heavenly kingdom – it all comes to us, not because it’s fair, but as a gift out of the grace of God.
And of course, it has to be said that if we’ve been given new life as a gift out of God’s grace even though we don’t deserve it, then we have an obligation to extend grace to others, too. We don’t have the option of giving others only what they deserve. We’re obligated to extend them more favor – more patience and forgiveness and love – than they deserve. More than could be considered fair.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you that by your grace, you have offered us the gift of faith and new life in Jesus. We thank you for giving us that great gift we do not deserve – for being unfair in our favor. Amen.
Blessings,
Henry
(The other listed readings for today are Psalms 101 and 102; Zephaniah 3:1-13; I Peter 2:11-25. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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