Workers in the Vineyard

November 15, 2015

Matthew 20:1-16
Rev. Dr. Jerry Deck

Rev. Jerry Deck November 15, 2015

Matthew 20:1 – 16

Parables

The Laborers in the Vineyard

As I mentioned last week it’s always important for us to remember the context in which these parables are being told. Jesus doesn’t tell these parables in a vacuum, but rather they’re usually in response to something that’s going on around him. At this point Jesus has been discussing the Kingdom of Heaven or, to be clearer, he has been helping to describe how God’s kingdom is different than the kingdom of this world. So, he has tough words to say to a rich man and then he has to answer Peter who wants to know what kind of reward they as disciples are going to get. On the other side of the parable is the story of James and John’s mother who asks if her sons can sit to Jesus’ left and right at his kingdom. The reasons for these questions, of course, is because of the fact that it is hard for us to understand God’s Kingdom because it is so radically different than our own. Which, of course, is exactly what this parable illustrates.

A landowner goes out early in the morning to find workers for his vineyard. In Chicago and California I would often see this type of thing where a group of workers would gather in parking lots and wait around for someone in a truck or van to come by and pick out a few folks to come work for them for the day. As you can imagine it’s a fairly vulnerable feeling not knowing each day whether or not you would get a job and be able to provide for you and your family. And so, the workers who were picked in the morning had to be delighted, and after receiving notice that they would receive a denarius, knew that for at least that day they would have food and shelter. Of course, as excited as they were, those who were not selected were, in equal measure, dismayed. What would they do, what would they tell their families? And so they waited around, not going home both because they hoped to find work and perhaps not wanting to face their families with this bad news.

At noon the owner came out again and his presence excited the hopes of those who had not previously been hired. He selected more, promised them a fair wage and left the others probably even more depressed then they were before. The owner comes out again at 3:00 and the surprised men got their hopes up again, and some were selected and some were not. At this point those who were left behind had to be feeling utterly helpless. Work typically ended around 6:00 and who is going to hire someone for such a short time. But, at 5:00, just one hour before closing time, the landowner comes out again and says, “Why are you just standing out here idle?!” And so they said, perhaps with anger and sadness, because no one (you included, mister) hired us. And so the landowner hires them as well.

The end of the workday has come, a long day for some of the vineyard workers and short day for others and so the landowner talks to the steward and tells him with great explicitness to do the opposite of one would typically have done. Instead of paying those who had come first he tells the steward to pay those who had been hired last and then work his way to those who had been hired in the morning. The steward hands the ones 2

who had only been working an hour or so a denarius and this, of course, made everyone happy. The ones who had just been hired were happy because they got paid for a whole day even though they’ve only worked an hour. It’s a bit like being a pastor! Of course, the workers who had been selected in the morning also would be elated because they figured that if these one hour workers got paid a denarius then geez they might make 12 denarius. Which is why, not surprisingly, they were outraged when they were paid merely a denarius. There they are, hot, sunburned, and exhausted, while these one hour workers are looking fresh and jumping up and down about their denarius. It simply did not feel fair.

The landowner looks at them and asks, “Isn’t this the amount I told you you’d be paid?” “Can’t I do whatever I want with what belongs to me?” And then he hits them with this powerful question that has echoed in the minds of Jesus followers for two millennia, “Are you envious because I am generous?” “Are you envious because I am generous?”

It is another remarkable parable and it paints a vivid picture of God’s Kingdom. The question, of course is what does it teach us about this kingdom and how does it force us to change our understanding, our paradigm, for how we understand God, ourselves, and one another?

Let’s begin by taking a look at the landowner. One of the interesting things about this parable is that typically the landowner would not be the one who is going out and trying to find the workers, it would be the steward. But this is not some distant landowner who has more important things to do, instead it is he who goes out and invites them to be a part of his work. It is this great image of Jesus, right? That God did not simply send someone else to invite us to be a part of his work. No, in Jesus Christ, God comes down himself in order to invite others to join him. It is powerful to realize that God does not seem to have more important things to do then to be with us, but that, remarkably, he believes we are the important things for him to do.

Not only that, but we receive this beautiful image of who Jesus is when he goes out repeatedly at noon, at three and even up to one hour before the workday is over, in order to bring people to him. It is, as Dale Bruner points out, an image of God’s great love for humanity. He goes out himself and, he goes out repeatedly. He goes out until the end because of his love for all. Jesus is not a faraway taskmaster, but someone who is close, involved, relentless in his love.

Not only is God close, involved and relentless in his love, he is also abundantly generous. Piggybacking off of what we talked about last week in the parable of the rich fool, this parable revisits the idea that we serve a remarkably generous God. This is a God who dispenses of his love and grace, near and far, with what may seem to us like reckless abandon. God doesn’t think like us or give like we do, instead he gives freely and without thought as to what it might cost him. It is simply who he is. In fact, he gives so generously that it makes many of us uncomfortable. As someone has suggested we are oftentimes uncomfortable with generosity because it is so antithetical to the world around us where we anticipate a quid pro quo situation. You give me this and I’ll give you that. The 3

generosity that is a part of God’s Kingdom is difficult for us to accept and receive, just as sometimes it is difficult for us to accept and receive the generosity that God gives to others.

Which brings us to something else this parable teaches us which is that not only is Jesus a God who does not send people on his behalf but comes to us in the flesh and with great frequency, and not only that God is an extravagantly generous God, but also that in God’s Kingdom, our relations with one another must look different. That a community pursuing the Kingdom of God will (or at least should) look different than those communities that are not.

Jesus clearly wants that highlighted which is why he forms the parable as he does. As I mentioned earlier he goes against normal protocol of paying the morning workers first with great specificity. Because, of course, if he had begun with them then he would have given them their denarius, the amount they had originally agreed upon, and been on their way none the wiser, content, happy. But, when they were aware of what the others had made all of a sudden what they had became well, less than savory. All of a sudden what would have been fine became a grave injustice in their mind, unfair, disgusting even.

Which brings up a video that a staff member sent me this week. A video that, in remarkable ways, tells this parable. (Some of the audio may be hard to understand, so just remember it deals with a cucumber and a grape.)

[Show Video]

Isn’t it nice to know that humans aren’t alone in wrestling with these things?! How awesome was that and how freakishly true to the parable and to our lives. And Jesus, in this parable, wanted his disciples then, and now, to confront that head on. We are incredibly tempted to live our lives by comparing ourselves to others and deciding whether we are happy or content by whether or not we covet what others have or, whether we think they probably covet what we have. Again, the early morning workers would have been content with what they had except for the fact that they saw what others got and their sense of injustice and unfairness kept them from focusing simply on what the landowner, or Jesus, had given them. And this ancient parable is just as real today, isn’t it?

A while back now, though not as far back as I’d like, I was feeling pretty good about things. I was here at Zionsville (so that tells you it wasn’t that long ago) at a church I really enjoy pastoring, with a wonderful wife who is beautiful, four girls whom I enjoy, in an area that my whole family has loved. The point is that things were going great. I was content. And then I logged on to Facebook. And as I’m going through FB I came across a picture of a guy with whom I went to seminary. He’s a good guy, a really good guy, and he’s at a church he really enjoys pastoring, he has a great wife and, just like me, 4 great daughters. He’s in an area he really enjoys. Wonderful, right? Except for the fact that the picture that was on Facebook was a picture of my friend with my mentor on a stage in front of, I’m sure hundreds of people, talking about church things and the like. And I’d love to tell you that I just thought to myself, how wonderful to see them doing the work of God, but really I was thinking, “Man, why isn’t it me up there with my mentor.” That doesn’t seem right, that 4

doesn’t seem fair. And it was fascinating that when I got off of Facebook I was in a completely different mood than when I got on even though nothing in my situation had changed at all. I was still the pastor of a great church with a great family in a great area, but well, I just thought it wasn’t quite fair that my buddy was up there and I wasn’t. All of a sudden I was disgruntled.

This is the problem when we live our lives comparing ourselves to others, rather than simply being grateful for what we have received from God. Because, as one commentator puts it, when it comes to fairness and justice, most of our impression comes from a fairly self-centered perspective. If you’re married, think about how you inevitably will begin to think that you are really the one doing the bulk of the work around the house. The problem, of course, is that you always see what you do and what the other person has not done and so, not surprisingly, you end up feeling like things aren’t really fair, that they’re not equal, that you’re pulling more of the weight. Or if you had siblings growing up, when you get together and think about when your were kids my guess is that you talk about how the other one got the benefit of the doubt, that they got more than you did. Why, because so often what is fair or just comes from this self-centered perspective.

And so we have to be aware that when we live our lives comparing ourselves to others and what they have, that inevitably we will be less content, then if we simply focus on what God has given us. It is human nature to see what we’ve done and think that it’s not getting the recognition it should or that we aren’t getting what we deserve. I think we see this even in the way we view this parable. Barbara Brown Taylor makes this point when she suggests that 99% of us, when we think about this parable, picture ourselves as who? Yes, as the ones who have been working all day. Most of us naturally assume that that is who we are in the parable. But what if we reframed this and began to see ourselves as the workers who were hired at 5:00?

Because really, that’s probably where most of us are, right? There will always be pastors who pray more than I do, who give better care and who preach to more people. There will always be the Mother Theresa’s who put most of us to shame. There will always be those early morning workers for whom loving neighbor is what they want to do as soon as they arise. And for the rest of us, those of us who are trying, but who may struggle, those of us who love our neighbor one day and hide from him the next, who promise to pray more and then 3 days later have forgotten, there is Jesus, making his 5:00 hiring and we are delighted to see him.

If we started looking at things like that then perhaps we might start seeing everything differently. We might start to simply focus on just how generous God has been to us, so much so that we spend less time focusing on what others have received because we are too eager to give praise for what we have. Might we not be in a place then to celebrate, and not envy, God’s generosity to others? Looking at ourselves as 5:00 workers allows us to live into God’s generosity with joy, not trying to figure out how others seem to get the breaks we don’t. 5

Because, make no mistake about it, God’s kingdom will be known through a community that rejoices with what they have received, not one who is continually convinced that they haven’t gotten enough. God’s kingdom will be known through a community that is excited by other’s successes. God’s kingdom will be known through a community who delights in its’ denarius, who heartily chews its’ cucumbers and who celebrates one another as fellow workers in the harvest, a bunch of morning, afternoon and evening workers who are journeying together towards the same incredible mission. Stop comparing and start celebrating, for God has done much for you and for me. Hallelujah. Amen.