Matthew 20.1-16 The Workers in the Vineyard
“Its just not FAIR!”
How often do you hear this complaint? How often are you the one saying it? Whether as employees, as children, as students, as sportsmen or fans, as taxpayers … we all have a strong sense of justice, of what is right and fair – especially when we see ourselves as the victim of unfair treatment. And surely God is concerned with fairness and justice too, especially for his beloved children, right? Well yes, but do we really understand justice as God sees it?
This is the subject of today’s parable, usually called “The Workers in the Vineyard”, although a better title might be “The Generous Employer”, because it is all about God and his unusual generosity. The parable is given in response to Peter’s question “We (unlike the rich young man) have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”
Eccentric Employer
• Jesus uses a familiar scenario to make his point, but the story has a twist because he is actually showing how different the kingdom of heaven (the reign of God) is from the kingdoms of the world.
• Landowner with vineyard / pool of unemployed men hoping to be picked up as casual labourers = a familiar scenario then (and now, even in Barcelona). But this landowner behaves in a highly unusual way, displaying eccentricities which would be obvious to the original readers and which seem to us like naive business practice. Bear in mind that being unemployed then (and today in countries with no social services safety net) was a far more desperate matter than it would be for most of us…
• FIRST eccentricity is that this landowner goes down to the market-place in person. This is a wealthy man who has staff (v8), yet he goes in person (Risk? Inappropriate to his social status? Hard work?)
• SECONDLY, he keeps going back for more workers – five times in all. Why so many unnecessary journeys? Could he not judge how many workers he needed at the start? Were there insufficient men there to begin with? Was he waiting to see if others would employ people? Did the earlier workers taken on not work hard enough to get the job done?
• THIRDLY, he instructs his manager to pay each worker the same as all the others; a full day’s wages, regardless of whether they have worked 1, 3, 6, 9 or 12 hours. This not only seems unfair (as the spokesman of the first group of workers complains) but is the kind of business practice which would soon lead to bankruptcy (you won’t get taught this method at Business School!).
• FOURTHLY, he insists the workers are paid in reverse order (the last are paid first and the first are paid last). This reverses the normal, accepted order of payment, and is not just a matter of custom, but apparently calculated to deliberately shock and offend those who’d worked longest. (Think about it; if they’d been paid first and left, they would not have known what the latecomers got…) Why offend your most loyal workers?
Generous God
The parable is of course not really about an Eccentric Employer but a Generous God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). So what do we learn about God here?
• God is EXTRAVAGANTLY generous
• God desires all people to be workers in his vineyard (= in his kingdom, under his reign).
• God comes in person, in vulnerability amongst the broken, the hungry, the sick and the angry – and has power and desire to save them all from futility and fear and hunger.
• God keeps on coming back until he gets everybody into his vineyard.
• God is always fair and just, even though it may not look that way to us.
• God values all people equally and values the “work” of seeking work and the pain and anxiety and stress of searching for purpose, just as much as he values active work in his service.
• God is especially concerned for the vulnerable. Who do you think the last group of workers to be taken on were? Those who were too weak to push themselves to the front of the queue, the disabled, injured, malnourished. Victims of prejudice including those whose skin was the wrong colour. Those who knew they were “unemployable” … yet God does not see them as unemployable!
These are all beautiful aspects of God, which clearly demonstrate that “God is love” in God’s essential nature. we are reminded of that beautiful refrain which comes up over and over again in the Old Testament:
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love” (Psalm 103.8).
But not everybody is pleased. A complaint comes from those who have worked longest:
Grumbling about Grace
“These men who were hired last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.” (v12) (= “Its not fair!”)
It seems a reasonable complaint from a human perspective but not from the perspective of grace. It reveals an attitude which many of us often have, when we want to dictate to God how he should treat others.
Ken Bailey explains “This is not the cry of the underpaid. No one is underpaid in this parable. The complaint is from the justly paid who cannot tolerate grace!”
The reply of the landowner is telling. “I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own things? Or are you envious because I am generous?”
(Aside: That last verse has been tragically been used in the foundational documents of many churches - e.g. the Canons of Dort - to “prove” that Christians should not question the false and unbiblical doctrine of everlasting punishment in hell. What a terrible perversion of a Bible verse!)
The complainers had forgotten that they themselves had been chosen (by grace) and had even been given the security of an early end to their unemployment anxiety and the security of knowing they were going to get a full day’s wages. So they’ve had the easiest rather than the hardest day!
Perhaps they have fallen into the trap of coasting through the day (taking advantage of the employer’s absences?). Perhaps the ones who have really “worked hard” through the heat of the day are the unemployed, increasingly stressed and anxious as the chance of anyone employing them slipped away - and the landowner himself, travelling to and from the market?
Why is it that we can sing “Amazing Grace” when God’s mercy applies to us and yet grumble how infuriating and undeserved that same grace is, when it applies to others? This is a very old problem which crops up a number of times in the Bible. Think about the attitude of the prodigal son’s elder brother (Luke 15.25-30). And remember Jonah and his complaint when God forgave the Ninevites:
But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry… “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” (Jonah 4.2-3)
The landowner (God) is challenging the grumbling workers to be like God, whose justice is always merciful and whose mercy is always just. We may claim the right to decide how God should treat others, but only God can decide and he tells us that the deciding factor is mercy.
How the Story Ends
Sometimes we look at the benefits of being accepted by God (eternal life, our fair wages) and we grumble “Is that it? Is that all I’m getting? I don’t know why I bothered. Its just not fair!” We bleat about God’s merciful justice which has made these “worthless ones” equal to us… We, who were fortunate enough to receive the security and comfort of a whole day’s work.
But God does not say “Yes, you’ve got a point there. Its not fair that I should pay the same wages for one hour as for twelve hours.”
God does also look at the world and say “Its not fair!” but for different reasons. He looks at the poverty and sickness and oppression and violence and says “Its just Not Fair…
… but it WILL BE. I’ll see to that! In my kingdom I will have fairness and justice for ALL my precious ones.
And like a firefighter, God keeps running back into the burning building until he has carried every last person out, safe in his arms.
And God calls all those who hear or read this parable to see justice his way and to join him now in his saving work. To fight his fight. To love as he loves. God is building an army of people who will fight for justice for all the vulnerable and all the slaves of sin.
The call is to work with God every day for the rest of our lives, fighting against prejudice and fear and hunger and disease and bullying and dishonesty – the things which God hates and which will not prevail in God’s kingdom.
Because those who are least and last will be first.
How does the story end? How did the workers respond? Did they repent of their hard-hearted attitude or keep on arguing and complaining?
We don’t know … Jesus leaves the ending open and we are not told – exactly the same as at the end of Jonah and also the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
The reason all three stories are left open ended is to challenge us, the readers (and the original hearers) to MAKE OUR OWN ENDING.
Let’s end by saying together a famous prayer of St Ignatius of Loyola:
Teach us good Lord to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to head the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labour and not to ask for any reward,
save that of knowing that we do your will.
Amen.
