Matthew 20:1-16
May 27, 2012
It is kind of hard to work everything into one
Sunday and today is one of those kinds of days.
First of all, in the church calendar, it’s 50 days after Easter or
Pentecost. Today is the birthday of the
church, the day the Apostles who’d gathered in the upper room in Jerusalem were
filled with the Spirit as it appeared as tongues of fire and set them off
preaching and the world has never been the same.[1] On the secular calendar, it is Memorial Day
weekend, a time we’re to remember those who have given their lives for their
country. When I was a kid, it was a day
to go to the cemetery and spruce things up.
Somewhere since then it’s become a day most people celebrate as the
beginning of summer and a time to get away for a long weekend. And finally, for us, today is also graduation
weekend, a time we recognize those among us who have completed their high
school studies. Our congratulations go
to our graduates and I have chosen this passage for today’s sermon with them in
mind. It is the parable of the
workers. As graduates, they’re now legally
adults (or will soon be) and are getting ready to go out into the world: some
to more schooling and others into the working world. It is a good time to remind ourselves that we
are created to work. God, the Creator,
made us in his image and when we work, we become co-creators. Yet, we have some definite thoughts about
work and fairness, which makes this parable hard for us to understand and/or
accept. Read Matthew 20:1-16.
###
This
is a haunting passage that bothers me as I’m sure it bothers many of you. Yet, if there is any good news in scripture
for the unemployed and those looking for work, this is it! But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a hard
time with this parable. We believe we
should be rewarded for our hard work. It’s instilled in us from an early age
that if we do well and work hard, we’ll be rewarded. Such beliefs give us the incentive to work;
it’s the foundation of a capitalistic economy.
You work hard and you get ahead.
Hopefully there are other reasons as to why we work, whether it is for
pay or as a volunteer. We want to make a
difference in our world, which is why many go into the teaching, medical,
social work, ministry and other such fields.
But even in such fields, we want to be treated fairly, which makes this
parable from scripture hard to accept; it runs against the grain of how we
think things should be.
As
Americans living in the 21st Century, we have a hard time imagining
the scenario Jesus creates in this parable.
It’s a scene that we’d expect to find in Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath or described in a
Woody Guthrie ballad. Of course, in many
parts of the world, such scenes are played out daily as it is in our country
for those within the migrant community.
You’ve got a group of workers—maybe better described as laborers—waiting
around in the market place. They have no resources; they are totally dependent
on those who own the fields and who, during the harvest, need a few extra
hands. When the landowner or their agent comes, looking for laborers, they
stand up straight and try to look strong, hoping they’ll be chosen to work and
thereby have the money to feed their families…
It
must be at the height of harvest… The fruit ripens quickly and needs to be
picked before it rots on the vines, so the landowner comes again and again into
the town square, each time picking up new workers. By five o’clock, it’s only a
few hours before dark (remember, Jesus lived a
little closer than we do to the equator and his summer days were not as
long as the ones we enjoy). As the hot
sun cools and becomes a large red ball sinking quickly toward the western
horizon, it’s time to pay off the workers. They line up; those who have only
worked an hour in the front, those who have worked the whole day in the back.
This seems odd; you’d think you paid those who began earlier first. But that’s not the case: Jesus is telling a
story and he wants to make a point. The foreman begins by paying the
short-timers. They receive a Denarius,
or the equivalent of a day’s labor. Seeing this, the men whose skin are red
from having worked all day in the sun and whose clothes are stained from the
fruit, think they’re going to make out well. “He’s paying the short-timers a
day’s wage, certainly we’ll receive two or more denarius,” or so they think.
When
those who had worked all day, twelve hours in the sun, get to the foreman, they
too are paid the same. They begin to grumble and complain. They don’t think
it’s fair, and neither would we. But the landowner, the one who had hired them,
addresses them as “friends,” and reminds them that they received the wages for
which they’d agreed to work.
By
paying those hired on at the end a day’s wages, this gracious landowner ensures
that all the workers and their families will have bread for dinner. If they’d only been paid for an hour’s work
in a society where food was expensive, they and their families would have gone
to bed hungry. The landowner is
compassionate.
This
is a parable essentially about the kingdom. There is a benefit of working all
day in the field, for by doing so you have security and the peace of mind that
you’ll have something for dinner. It is disheartening to have to wait till the
11th hour to obtain work, for you don’t get to enjoy your time waiting, instead
you spend it worrying. Those who labored all day need to remember that there
are worse things than hard work; having no work is one of them…
In
his two volume commentary on Matthew, which I’ve often praised and is a treat
to read (something I wouldn’t say about most commentaries), Dale Bruner
provides several suggestions to help our understanding of this parable. First
of all, the parable is bookended with that little saying Jesus often repeats,
“The last will be first and the first last.” It comes at the end of the 19th
Chapter and again at the end of this parable. The parable demonstrates this,
reminding us that Judgment Day will be a day of surprises.[2]
Secondly,
the parable is also Jesus’ way of responding again to Peter’s question back in
19:27 (“Lord, we’ve left all for you, what will we get?”). Although Jesus
promises the disciples rewards at the end of the 19th chapter, he now
emphasizes that they must not think of their sacrifices as so great that they
look down on others who are also a part of the kingdom, but have not made the
same kind of sacrifices. Likewise, it’s a warning to Jewish Christians who, as
we know from early church history, looked down upon our ancestors, Christians
who had been Gentiles. Furthermore, it is a warning for us not to look down on
others who have not or cannot make the same sacrifices as we have.[3]
Within God’s economy, we’re to do the work which we’ve been called, and to do
it without grumbling.
Finally
and most importantly, “the parable teaches us the amazing grace of a Lord who
lifts the lasts—the seemingly less effective, less fruitful little people and
spiritual latecomers—into places of honor.” These workers are honored not
because they have done enough good works, but because they have a good Lord.[4] We
depend on God’s graciousness, not on our work, so whether we labor all day or
receive our honor at the end like the thief on the cross,[5]
we’re to be thankful for we couldn’t do it on our own!
God
has called us and instead of worrying about our pay, we need to be concerned
with whether or not we are doing the master’s work. Instead of hoping we’re the
person who gets hired on at the 11th hour, we should ask ourselves this
question: “Why would God even give me a chance?” We could be left in the
marketplace, kicking cans and going home at the end of the day with empty
pockets.
In a
way, we’ve all been hired on at the 11th hour… We all owe a debt to those who’ve gone before
us. Think about the witnesses that have
gone before us: The Hebrew people who suffered in slavery and exile, the early
Christians who struggled as they strove to get the message out, the brave
Reformers who insisted that the Bible was the sole authority within the church,
the early believers in Barry County who, in the 1840s, started this
church. They’ve all helped pave the way
for us and we enjoy the fruits of their labors.
It’s
Memorial Day weekend, a time when we remember those who died in service of
their country. We know the freedom we
enjoy, even the freedom of religion, has been secured for us by a price often
paid in blood. Again, we’ve been hired
on at the 11th hour. We benefit
from the struggle of others.
And to our graduates… We honor you today, but you also need
to remember that you stand in a long line of people who’ve gone before you,
who’ve paved the way. Now it is your
turn to go out into the world and part of your duty is to pave the way for the
next generation. This passage reminds
there are things more important than just getting what we feel we deserve. In this case, the landowner demands the right
to pay on the basis of his compassion, not on the merits of his workers.[6]
When we consider that this is a parable about the kingdom and what God has done
for us, I think we’ll be glad that God deals with us with compassion and not
merit. Although we often disappoint God,
in his eyes we are all precious and worthwhile, worthy of his lavish
grace.
We shouldn’t waste much time worrying about what others are
paid; instead, worry about whether or not we’re doing God’s will. Are we?
Amen.
©2012
Jeff Garrison and First Presbyterian Church, Hastings, MI
[1] Acts
2:1-4
[2] F. Dale
Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 13-28
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 317.
[3] Bruner,
317-318. Bruner has four summaries from the passage, but I combined his second
and fourth together to create three.
[4] Bruner,
319.
[5] Luke 23:42-43
[6] Douglas
R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretations, A Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
(Louisville, John Knox Press, 1993), 230
