Sermon Tone Analysis

Read Matthew 20:1-16

As we turn the page into Matthew 20 this morning, we come to another one of the great Parables of Jesus Christ, and this one, again, has to do with the Kingdom.

We saw several of these when we studied Matthew 13.

You probably remember, the parable of the Sower, the parable of the Wheat and Tares, the parables of miraculous growth, the parables of the Hidden treasures, etc.

Parables, again, are analogies or illustrative stories intended to shed light on one main point.

We spoke before, how you cannot make up a doctrinal system around parables, and you cannot search deeper and deeper until you’ve found the hidden meaning in every single detail of the story.

All the important details shine light on one facet of a diamond, and in this case, the diamond is the Kingdom of God again.

All throughout Jesus’ teaching he is holding up, as it were, the bright and shining diamond of the Kingdom, and with each teaching and miracle and parable like this, he is pointing to another facet of that gemstone and explaining.

We had a lot of help last week when we saw several terms used in the same way in the same context

Salvation

Eternal life

Kingdom of God

Kingdom of Heaven

Based on last week, we saw that all these things were, at least in some ways, able to be used synonymously.

We saw that, unlike we would naturally assume, they all are experienced both now and in eternity.

We saw that entrance into them or gaining them is impossible with man.

That was the big point of the story about the rich young ruler.

The most qualified person on earth is no closer to entrance to the kingdom, gaining salvation and eternal life, than the littlest child who can’t even offer the strength of his own arm.

With man, this is impossible.

But with God...

Well, Jesus ended last week’s teaching with one sentence.

That sentence, ties these two chapters together.

Though we have a chapter heading and number in between, we can read them right through, because as Matthew writes, he wants us to see them together.

The story Jesus is about to tell us is a story that is meant to show us what he meant by that statement - that the first will be last and the last will be first.

Just before Jesus made that statement, though, Peter had asked a question.

He asked, “Lord, we have left everything in this life in order to follow you.

What will be ours because of that?”

In other words, Peter saw he and his friends, and he rightly understood that they had really done what Jesus was saying would be true of those who enter the Kingdom - they would be willing to give it all up.

They would hold their lives and possessions with an open hand, and when God asked for whatever was in their hand, it would fly from them freely as it came to them from God’s hand also.

But Peter’s question, at least on the surface, has a bit of tinge of “God must owe us something for what we have done.”

But God is no man’s debtor.

God doesn’t “owe” anyone.

Jesus started to illustrate how that isn’t the way God’s economy works by saying, “you will be exalted to the place of a judge and ruler.”

and “he who has given up will receive 100 times what they have lost.”

But in order to keep the disciples, again, from thinking that it’s all about wages - it’s all about time and earnings accounting, Jesus made that statement - many who are last will be first.

And that is what we are to understand more deeply by today’s story.

You see, in our mindset, maybe like Peter, we are conditioned into thinking in terms of wages.

We are used to thinking in terms of cause and effect, of direct correlation.

Peter was a fisherman, a hard working laborer who knew the price for each fish he caught.

He had given up fishing to fish for men.

What would be the wages?

God is not man’s debtor.

God’s Kingdom does not work in wages, like we think, but in Grace.

Wages can be measured against time and effort, but Grace can only be measured in terms of God’s character to give it out.

The statement “the last will be first” is very much a statement of grace without using the exact word.

For what is grace but to show kindness, to show favor and give lavishly?

That is exactly what God does for each person in His Kingdom, and though he calls for and requires us to be willing to give up much, his grace is not weighed on the scale against what we were able to give and do.

A Story to Illustrate a Saying

Much like the parable of the sower and the parable of the wheat and tares, the Kingdom is pictured in a setting of agriculture.

Now, grapes, beside the basic staple of wheat, were probably one of the chief agricultural products of the fertile region that Israel was in.

Do you remember when Moses sent out the 12 spies into Canaan?

One of the most amazing parts of the story was when the spies came to the region of Hebron, into a place they called the valley of Eschol, which was about 12-13 miles south of Jerusalem, they cut off a cluster of grapes that was so large that two men had to carry it!

Later on in Numbers 14, the report would be that the land was “flowing with milk and honey.”

Now, the land wasn’t actually flowing with milk and honey, but the picture was that it was a blessed land, a fertile land, and a joyful and sweet land.

And for a group of people who had been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, eating manna and the occasional quail with water, a 100 pound cluster of grapes was a sign of blessing for sure.

Grapes are used all throughout scripture to illustrate God’s work.

In Isaiah 5, the prophet illustrates God’s displeasure with his people by comparing them to wild grapes in God’s vineyard.

In Isaiah 32, to prophesy a time of curse and captivity, Isaiah said “the vintage has ended, and the harvest will not come.”

That refers to grapes, and no harvest is an illustration of no blessing.

In Psalm 80, to illustrate God placing his people in their land, the psalmist says this

Again, God speaks of his people as grapes in Hosea 9:10

We’ve even see Jesus use the imagery of grapes to talk about true and false teachers

So, put simply, the image of grapes and vineyards was not only strong in the Disciples’ minds because of where they lived, but God has described himself as the owner of a vineyard and people in his vineyard all throughout the Bible.

So, then, we can safely say that Jesus is talking about God here, and he is getting workers for his vineyard - God is the master of the vineyard, as he is the King of the Kingdom.

And his kingship is over the vineyard, and especially those who are in it.

We might even say, like the parable of the sower, that the vineyard is the world, as the field was the world.

But that’s less important for the story.

God is looking for workers.

The disciples were clearly those, but based on the context, really everyone who enters the kingdom is a worker.

And some workers have been there all along - he went out early in the morning.

Probably 6 or 7 in the morning, and agreed with some for a day’s labor.

One denarius was simply one day’s labor rate.

At the very least, we see then that the master of the Vineyard is just.

He makes an agreement, he makes no extortion.

He will provide for these workers a day’s wages for a day’s labor.

So, some have been there all along, but other workers come along later.

And there is much work to be done, and plenty of room to do the work, so gladly they are hired also.

Some at the 3rd hour, which we would think of as 9:00 AM - so they got to sleep in a bit!

Some at the 6th hour, not until noon!

Again at the 9th hour, which is 3:00.

And finally again at the 11th hour, 5:00, he found some who had not been working all day.

They were standing idle, and he asked them, “Why aren’t you working?” “Nobody has hired us!”

He hired them too.

Now, we could have fun making a point about all the people hired at all the different times.

The people at the 9:00, well maybe they just slept in and missed the first round.

the people at noon?

Maybe they had a dentist appointment that morning and couldn’t get there any sooner.

The 3:00 crowd, well, that might have been a happy accident!

Maybe they didn’t want to get hired and just happened to cross paths with this really convincing master of a vineyard.

But the 11th hour people, the 5:00 people.

I mean, if they had been standing there all day waiting to be hired, and nobody hired them, that means one of two things.

Either there wasn’t enough work to go around, which, in the story we know is not true because when it’s time to work the grapes, there is work for everyone.

Or, another possibility, is that nobody wanted to hire them.

Maybe they had a reputation of laziness.

Maybe people thought they were dishonest.

Maybe they weren’t as strong or useful as some of the other workers.

Maybe they looked funny.

Who knows.

But they were left all day waiting, until finally this gracious vinedresser comes and says, “i’ll hire you too.”

Now we could illustrate this with our own story as well.