Matthew 20.1-16
Jesus spoke this parable to his disciples. “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, 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 labourers 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 the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 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 the usual daily wage? 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.”
“Are you envious because I am generous?”
That problem is even clearer in the Greek text which literally reads, “Is your eye evil because I am kind?” It is an evil eye, a messed up worldview, a way of looking at the world only from a worldly, human point of view, that leads to problems.
God views things differently.
It is an upsetting parable – especially if you look at it from the point of view of someone who believes that those who work harder and longer deserve more than those who work for less time and without as much difficulty.
If we are honest with ourselves, that is likely the way we view the world. As a worker. As a parent. As a student. The harder we work, the more we receive. It’s a worldview that we all have, and may be not even aware of.
But its a worldview. Not a GodView.
Lets take a few minutes to look at that way of seeing …
When someone who works for only an hour gets the same pay as those who worked all day long in the heat of the sun …… Is it fair? Our first answer would probably be “No”. We look at it from the perspective of those who laboured all day under the hot sun.
So, let’s look at this parable a little differently. Let’s look at the parable from the point of view of those who were hired last.
The men of the village gathered around the market square hoping to get some work that day. Lest we think this is ancient history, I am reminded of stories my father told me about my grandfathers. How they would head out early in the morning to gather at the factory gates, and hope to be picked as a day-labourer that day.
So, all day the men stood around waiting, landlords came and went, but they were not hired. At home they had family and nothing to feed them with, and they had started to day with hope that they would find work. But, as the sun began to disappear in its journey through the sky,
so too their hopes begin to disappear. They longed to be in the fields under that hot sun working for someone and at the end of the day being paid a wage which would feed and cloth their family. But it appeared that it was not to be. And finally, just as their last hope is about to set with the sun, someone comes and hires them and tells them that they will receive whatever is fair. So they go, and they work with the hope of bringing home a small something, a little portion of a day’s wage, enough – just maybe – to survive another day.
It’s tough being an outsider, being one who has no hope – or very little hope. And so you can imagine just how those hired last felt when the time to be paid came. They didn’t feel very good at all, they knew they were going to get something but – would it go around? – would it really help them all that much? – would it be enough to feed their wife and their children?
But then – the landlord does something completely crazy, completely wild, completely unexpected, completely and totally generous, something beyond their wildest dreams…
He gives them a full day’s wage
He gives them a full day’s wage even though they haven’t earned it. He gives them enough to live on,He gives them their families, their homes, their very lives. That’s incredible isn’t it.
So what is really the problem with the parable? Why are some people so unhappy with it?
Why do the workers who worked all day grumble and complain?
I think it is because they forgot just how blessed they are. They forget what being “outside”, being unchosen, is like. They forgot, and they begin to complain, I’ve worked harder, I’ve been here longer, I’ve done more. I had to go through this – so should you.
All sense of their own blessedness disappears. How sad it was for them.
And how sad it is for us, for all too often, you and I think the same way those hired first thought. We forget how blessed we are. We forget that the kingdom of God works on the basis of God’s love and not on the basis of what we deserve. It’s a GodView, not a WorldView.
And to drive this point home even further, let’s look at this parable another way –
Sometimes a person dies at an older age, full of years and life experiences , with their days work ended and their life-tasks completed. But sometimes a young person dies, before the doors of life and achievement have been barely opened. Do we think that the young person shouldn’t get to heaven? That somehow it isn’t fair that they only were around for a small portion of years, but get the same reward??? Of course not. And that’s my Point. And the point of the parable. Both will receive the same welcome from God.
For the question in God’s mind is not ‘how much do these people deserve?’, but rather,
How can I help them? How can I show them how I feel their pain, know their fears, sense their loss of hope. How can I show them how much I love them?
And I, for one, am glad that God sees in God’s ways, not in human ways.
And so, we come back to the question we stared with. Are we envious when God is generous?
I hope, and pray, that we are not.
So when, in the days to come, we see others who seem to have more, who seem to have been around a lot less time, or done a lot less work, and we start to feel some resentment inside,
a feeling that something isn’t fair about that, or isn’t right about that, then may, just maybe, this parable will come to mind and remind us that we are called
– not to the worldview, but to a GodView.