Grace: The Vineyard Workers

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The Parable of The Workers in the Vineyard

Matt 20:1-16 "For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who was the master of a household, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. He went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. To them he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise. About the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle. He said to them, ‘Why do you stand here all day idle?’ "They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ "He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is right.’ When evening had come, the lord of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.’ "When those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius. When the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise each received a denarius. When they received it, they murmured against the master of the household, saying, ‘These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’ "But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius? Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you. Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’ So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen." (web)

Discussion Questions
What is the labor and who are laborers equivalent to?
How is this different from Romans 4:4,5?
Is the landowner being unfair? Unjust?
What applications can you infer from this parable?
What expectations should we have concerning heavenly rewards?

Comments
Note that the first set of laborers had a contractual agreement to get paid at a certain rate. Some have compare them with the Jews who under the law of Moses had a contractual agreement with God. The other two sets of laborers were not promised a set wage. Their relationship with the master was one of trust. He promised to give them what was right, but while they worked they simply had to trust the master to give them what was right. Some have likened them to Christians who rely upon God's good character to do good by them and are not under the law or regulations of a contractual agreement.

It is not surprising that those arriving earlier and doing more work would envy those who did less, yet receive the same pay. They were just concerned for issues of law and justice, for so was their contractual relationship with the master. They were jealous of the grace give the latter workers. For not being under a "law", the master was free to practice graciousness with regards to them. So those who view their relationship with God as a legal one envy those who are under God's grace.

Those who view themselves as God's employees demand fairness. But those who view themselves as God's slaves don't grumble over the disparity with which He dispenses His grace, as the parable of the unworthy servants as teaches, "When you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’" Lk 17:10

Furthermore, in terms of doing what is right, the rewards that we are storing up in heaven are not proportional to the total amount of time we practiced the Christian life. If someone becomes a Christian early in life he may spend decades diligently practicing the Christian life, but in the end receive the same as one who became a Christian later in life and practiced it for a short time before his death.

Similarly, if two became Christians at the same time, but one lived shorter than the other, then the one who lived shorter, and therefore may have done less total labor, would nonetheless have come to enter the rest first and enjoyed the treasures before the one the other who would labor longer, and entered last.

The phrase, "Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?" reminds us that we are operating under God's grace. Indeed, being servants of God, we shouldn't require God to pay us at all, if we truly call Jesus Lord. But He rewards us as His own graciousness dictates.

One other aspect to this is to consider the precarious position of those who were looking for work all day and only got hired in the last hour. If anyone has been unemployed and spent many months looking for a job as your savings decrease, you know difficulties and pressures you can face. In this case it seemed such men were just victims of circumstance, and the landowner, being a gracious man wanted to help these victims of circumstance by paying them the same as others whose circumstances allowed them to go to work earlier. People who are successful in this life often congratulate themselves and despise the unfortunate, but often don't consider that much of their success was simply due to circumstances not under their control.

Consider the precarious position of those who become Christians late in life. Barring Calvinistic philosophy, if they had died earlier, they would have gone to hell. Given a choice, after having come to know Christ, I suspect most of these would have preferred to have been saved early in life, though they may have had to labor longer.

Rap

There once was a man who owned a vineyard
And needed some men to work very hard
He hired some men early in the day
And told them a denarius would be their pay
And every few hours he hired more men
Telling them the same again and again
Then in the evening he gave them their wage
But the ones who came early expressed outrage
"We worked harder than anyone here.
Aren't you being just a bit unfair."
"I'm not being unfair to you.
A denarius was what you agreed to."
Now take your pay and go.
Even though you thinks it's low.
For I'll be gracious to whom I want.
I'll be generous even though you aren't.
For many who are victims of circumstance.
And hiring you early was a matter of chance.
There are Christians who live quite a long time.
Laboring all day taking care of the vine.
But some get saved after they are old
Or live a short while after entering the fold
But nonetheless on judgement day
Both may end up receiving the same pay
For the point is not simply doing his biz
But rather revealing how gracious he is.
The Berean Christian Bible Study Resources

 

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Workers in the Vinyard

Our culture has a long history of blaming the victims, and siding with the perpetrators. We are so used to blaming the victims, that when we are confronted with a Bible story which unmasks the power of oppression, we turn it into a condemnation of the poor.

When we become aware of this bias, it enables us to look at our basic beliefs in a whole new way. When I was packing up my books to move here, I actually threw out a number of my old textbooks. They just were not accurate descriptions of what we find in the Bible. One of the biggest changes facing the world of Biblical studies is the realization that the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, was written from the perspective of a persecuted people who were in the minority. The Bible was not written by powerful people who were in control of their destiny.

The Bible writers saw the world differently from most people. Most world religions describe the greatness and strength of the hero when he first finds God. Moses was a prince of Egypt who was wanted for murder. He was on the run from the law when he met God for the first time. Moses ends up leading his people out of slavery.

His story is written from the runaway slave’s perspective, and not the perspective of their powerful Egyptian masters. The first time the stories of the Bible were collected into one book happened while the people were enslaved again, this time during their exile in Babylon. They collected these stories, so they could remember who they were, so they could survive their captivity. By the time Jesus was born, the nation of Israel had not existed for over 150 years. They were a conquered people. The Greeks and later the Romans had occupied the land and ran it for their own benefit. All of Jesus’ stories were told from the perspective of the underdog, and not the master.

But this is not how you and I were taught to read the Bible. Since the Protestant Reformation in Europe, we’ve been taught to read it from the point of view that we are the Empire. We are the powerful ones. We are the colonizers. We are culturally superior. We are the economic elite, destined to rule the world.

Let’s look at the parable of the workers in the vineyard. When I went to seminary they tried to explain this story as if God was the landowner. To identify God as the landowner is to treat this parable as if it was an allegory. With an allegory you can say God is the landowner, Jesus is the Steward, and the day labourers are the Jews. But a parable is not an allegory. A parable is an extreme, exaggerated example of what God is like. A parable is an open-ended story, which seeks to turn your expected ideas upside down. From the landowner’s perspective, this is an allegory about judgement on those who reject the grace which is offered to them. Those who are ungrateful will be punished in the end. But does that sound like good news to you?

But what does this parable say from the servants’ point of view? A day labourer in those days was a member of the expendable class. The best comparison today is a homeless person living on the street. The career options for an expendable person was to work as a day labourer during harvest time, to beg when things were slow, and to become a thief when things were desperate. An expendable person had lost his land and his trade. Once you hit being an expendable, the average life span was only five to seven years. Their life was, as Thomas Hobbes puts it, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

The wage that the landowner offered them was just enough to keep them alive. Most peasants in that culture lived on only five hundred calories a day. They were always only a day away from starvation. The wage was just enough to keep them alive for one more day. It wasn’t much, but it mattered a lot. This landowner is not being generous when he calls the workers. He tells them he will decide what to pay them. His order to go and work is not to be questioned. They will take what he decides, because they have no bargaining power.

Jesus has created a powerfully dramatic scene. The rich ruthless landlord, who gets what he wants, was normally never seen in public. His steward would do all the dirty work for him. In this case, the rich man steps out from behind the polite mask, and is revealed for all to see. He has a huge labour pool to draw from, so he can dictate the terms of employment- there will be no negotiations here. He is offering a subsistence wage. The workers are so desperate they will take anything so they can survive just one more day.

This all sets up the key confrontation in the story. At the end of the day, the landlord tells his steward to pay them all the same wage, starting with those who started last in the day. This is a slap in the face to the workers. This was a culture of honour and shame. He should have respected those who had put in a full day’s work. By putting the last workers at the head of the line, and paying them the same, he has shamed the workers. He is saying that the quality of the full day’s work was of no more value than the single hour of work. These day labourers have nothing, except their ability to work. They aren’t begging or stealing here. And the landowner has insulted their ability to work for an honest day’s wage. He has deliberately shamed them.

If they were to say nothing at all, they might as well be dead, because then they would have no honour what so ever. The landowner responds to their complaint by singling out the one worker who dares to raise his voice. The owner is going to make an example of this upstart. He says “Friend, I am doing no wrong here.” His use of the term ‘friend’ is condescending, because wealthy landowners were never friends or brothers to expendable day labourers.

He claims to have bargained fairly with them for the wage, even though there was no bargaining. He has all the power. They have none, and they both know it. The owner shames the worker, and sends him away. This day labourer will never find work here ever again.

The punch line of the story comes when the landowner says “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?” As a society of free market capitalists, we don’t hesitate to answer his question with a resounding Yes! We are free to do what we want with our own money! But if we are people of the Bible, people of God’s covenant, the answer to the rich man’s question is a resounding charge of “Blasphemy!”

It is blasphemy, because God gave the people of Israel the Promised Land that they were to be the stewards of forever. Debts were to be forgiven every seventh year. If the land was lost, it was to be restored in the year of Jubilee. The rich were to care for the poor.

If I was to say "If the shoe fits..." you'd respond "wear it!" We are all familiar with call out lines that have a standard response. We are all familiar with Jesus’ saying “You will always have the poor with you.” What we usually overlook is the fact he is quoting a line from Deuteronomy 15:11 which has a very specific response, which everyone in his day would have known.

“There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be open-handed toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.” This rich landowner is clearly violating one of the Torah commandments he is supposed to be living by.

The parables of Jesus are meant to contrast how life is lived under the Kingdom of Rome, with what the kingdom of this world would be like if God sat on the throne. The kingdom of God is in stark contrast to the Kingdom of this world. This parable exposes the power of oppression, and shows how it has wandered away from the power of God. Oppression silences us. Divided we fall.

Despite how badly the rich landowner treats the day labourers, he still needs them. What will he do if no one answers his call for workers in the market place tomorrow morning? Would you be willing to work all day for him, or would you only answer the call at the end of the day? The landowner can’t pull this stunt a second time. He is no longer trust worthy. He only hurts himself when he hurts others like this.

In God’s kingdom, justice is not about punishing ungrateful people. In God’s kingdom, we seek a just and fair distribution of wealth which respects the true value of each person’s gifts. We need to be just, loving and respectful in how we treat each other, regardless of our economic station in life.

In God’s kingdom, those this world calls First, shall be Last, and those this world calls Last, shall be First.

Source: William Herzog “Parables as Subversive Speech” Westminster-John Knox Press 1994

 

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See also The Denarius Rap Video