Matthew 20:1-16

Posted by DJL on Oct 16, 2014 in Daily Bread | 1 comment

“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 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 market-place; 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 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.”

There is so much in this parable that I could go on for pages, but for the sake of brevity I will contain myself to just two things it points out. The first is about God: God is unfailingly, surprisingly, and indefatigably generous. The landowner in this story keeps going out, keeps looking for more people, keeps engaging them for a full day’s compensation no matter what part of the day they work. This landowner is unbelievably generous.

Perhaps, more to the point, we might even say that this landowner is offensively generous. At least that’s the way it seems to those who worked all day. Which leads me to the second point of this parable: we can get so easily trapped by our own patterns of counting and assessing and evaluating that we can altogether miss God’s generosity. Perhaps the initial workers – those who labored all day – are disappointed because they, having just seen that those who worked just an hour received a full day’s wage, assumed they would receive so much more. Or perhaps, given what the parable reports they actually said, they are just angry that the playing field has been leveled, that there is now no way to distinguish their efforts from those who worked so much less, and that everyone is suddenly treated the same. How, after all, do you know who you are if you are not compared – favorably or unfavorably – with others?

And that, it seems to me, is the plight of being human. We desperately want and need to be in relationships with each other, relationships that are equal, healthful, and guided by love and respect. And yet we can seem to make no sense of our own lives and have no standard by which to measure our own worth apart from comparing ourselves to others. And so we do, validating our existence on the backs of others.

In response, God sends God’s own Son to demonstrate once and for all that we need no measure, that God has established us as beloved by divine fiat, and that God’s mercy and goodness – God’s generosity – extends to all, including us.

Trapped by our need to compare, and surprised and perhaps suspicious (nothing else in life is like this!) by God’s profound embrace, we are all too often offended by God’s invitation, refuse to give up the false security that we control our own destinies, and not only reject God’s offer but put the one through whom God offers it to death. This parable isn’t just a story, it’s a widow into the human soul. Thank goodness it’s also a window in the life and mystery of God, who will finally not surrender to our self-destructive ways but raises God’s Son to life and grants mercy and generosity to all.

Prayer: Dear God, surprise us, shake us, offend us, but ultimately save us through your generosity, grace, and love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

 

Post image: “Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard,” Cesare Roberti, ca. 1590.