Scripture Matthew 20:1-16
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more;
but each of them also received a denarius. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Sermon
All over the country it is common knowledge by people looking for day labor that they can go to Home Depot early, say, six in the morning, and someone will likely come by who needs workers on a construction project. For people who don’t have access to the internet, or to dwindling local newspapers, this is their best bet. Some days everyone gets hired. Some days, only a handful will be the lucky ones. And by lucky, of course, I mean, able to feed their families for a couple of days, maybe even get the antibiotics needed for a baby’s ear infection… if they have the good fortune to have health insurance.
Jesus says, The last will be first, and the first will be last. This is not the first time in this gospel when Jesus has told his followers this disconcerting and, in many ways, upsetting news. Jesus is talking about the “kingdom of heaven,” God’s realm—that day when God will have everything exactly as God wants it. Things will be more or less upside down—upside down from the way the disciples expect things to be, and upside down from the way most 21st century people expect things to be, as well. In the previous chapter, Jesus has reminded them this in two different situations. First, he tells his followers that children are the ones to whom God’s realm belongs—not adults, not disciples, not fancy religious people with degrees and honors. And then, when Peter steps forward to ask, directly, “Then, what’s in this for us? What will we get?” Jesus summarizes it all for him by saying, many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. For those who are among the first to hear and heed Jesus’ message, and to follow him faithfully, this does not feel like good news.
This parable feels unfair. So unfair. The people who have been there the longest, the ones who have been tending the grapevines since 6 AM, are being paid the same as those who showed up an hour before quitting time.
It all starts at the marketplace, the ancient middle eastern version of Home Depot. Those looking for work show up at daybreak. And those looking for workers show up,
too. This landowner wants workers for his vineyard—a place that is the starting point for delicious grapes, sweet raisins, and, of course, wine, that item that figures so prominently in scripture as a sign of abundance, and God’s blessing. And he hires those who are there first—all of them, from what I can tell. He offers, and they accept, a denarius for their day of work. A denarius is the usual wage for a day laborer in that day and time. A denarius means the worker can support his family for three days, maybe four. i The winemaker dispatches the workers to the vineyard.
But wait a minute, he comes back three hours later. At nine he’s there looking for laborers. Again. And there they are—our translation says, “standing idle in the marketplace.” The original language says, standing there by the marketplace, without work. Which sounds different from “idle.” Idle sounds like a judgement, doesn’t it. The vintner again hires all the workers he finds. And he sends them, too, to pick the grapes, and trim the vines, and do their work. He says, “I will pay you whatever is just.”
The same thing happens at three-hour intervals until 5 pm—that’s a two-hour interval, and it’s one hour before quitting time. This time, the vineyard owner asks a question. He asks, why are you standing there without work? Because no one has hired us, they answer. These, too, he sends to the vineyard.
At 6, it’s time to knock off—a good 12-hour workday is finished. The landowner tells his foreman to pay everyone, starting with the last to arrive. When they are each paid a denarius, a little rustle of excitement goes through the crows of laborers. Wow, they think. WOW! We’re going to get more than we bargained for! But that’s what happens. In their disappointment, suddenly, the denarius that had seemed like a good and fair wage for the work they would do, now feels like less. It’s lost its value to them. It’s not enough.
And they murmur and they grumble, and the vineyard owner doesn’t just walk away—as he could do. He’s the Big Man. He doesn’t owe anyone an explanation, by the rules of power in their day and in ours. But he chooses one man in the crowd—maybe someone whose words he actually heard. “Cheapskate. You made us equal to those who did only a twelfth of the work we did.”
You made us equal to those to whom we were sure we were superior.
I shared with the Bible Study several interpretations of this parable that are out there, some traditional, some more modern.ii
One traditional interpretation is that the landowner is, indeed, entitled to do what he wants with his wealth—and his decision is to be generous. I like this interpretation. I
think it captures the spirit of the landowner in the story. One thing I think about is that three-days-living the denarius affords each worker—three days-worth of food, of fuel for the fire, of stability and assurance: we will be ok. I think that’s what the landowner wants to give these workers. An extension of this interpretation, maybe a more contemporary one, is, the parable emphasizes the importance of those with resources and wealth showing generosity to those in need of it. I don’t disagree that this is important. I’m just not sure it’s what Jesus was emphasizing.
Another traditional interpretation is that this is about the complicated situation of the early church at the time the gospel of Matthew was being written down. Here’s something to think about: every time we read the gospels, there are two timelines involved. The first is the first timeline: the time of Jesus’ ministry here on earth, when he went around preaching, teaching, feeding, and healing people. The gospels seek to tell us these stories. But the gospels also reveal things about the timeline in which they were being recorded. For Matthew, that’s about fifty years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, somewhere around the year 80 CE. The young church is changing, and one change is the fact that it’s no longer made up entirely of the next generations of Jews who were Jesus’ original followers. The Way of Jesus is also attracting gentiles, and we see glimpses of that in the gospel. So, what would that have to do with the laborers in the vineyard? Quite simply, the Jews’ legacy extends back not only to Jesus, but also to their entire history of being God’s covenant people, going back to Abraham and Sarah. Gentiles were the newcomers, the latecomers, if you will. John T. Carroll, professor of New Testament at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Virginia asks, “…is it a defense of Jesus’ acceptance of religious outsiders who have responded to his mission and message? Or is it… about the full inclusion of gentiles, though they arrive late to Israel’s salvation stage?”iii
The most improbable interpretation I’ve heard (which has to be fairly recent), is, the vineyard owner is a union-buster, turning the workers against each other. I’m… not buying that as Jesus’ intention in telling this story. Here’s what I do buy. There’s a wideness in God’s mercy that really ticks us off. This is a story of generosity that we sometimes notice is hard to take, when it comes to how God treats human beings. God loves us all. God loves us equally, early, mid-day, and late to the party. God does not make the same distinctions we do.
God also knows us more intimately than we know one another. God knows what held the laborers up, so to speak. God knows about the abuse that broke this one’s faith, and about the poverty or systemic injustice that embittered and angered that other one. God knows how we got where we are, whatever that looks like. God knows who among us started out on third base, and who among us had to fight even to get into the dugout.
Jesus says, the last will be first, and the first will be last. At the end of the day, the landowner gives to all, and it doesn’t feel fair. But the vineyard reminds us, this is about the sweet abundance of God’s realm. It may not feel fair, but it does feel like love, that overwhelming, overflowing love that the apostle Paul (or someone writing in his name) prayed we would all come to know. He wrote,
I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ~Ephesians 3:18-19
Thanks be to God. Amen.