Matt 20:1-16 | A Fair Wage

Well this is the last sermon in our No Fair series. If you’ll remember 4 weeks back, we kicked off a new series not just for this month, but for the year called, “Enriching Tradition” where we’re spending the year following the Church Calendar and the Revised Common Lectionary.

We are currently in the “Ordinary Time” of the Church calendar which is a time to focus in on what it looks like to live as followers of Jesus. So we’ve spent the last month looking more in depth at what it’s like not just to receive the grace of God but also to extend it to others, and hopefully you’re realizing that while receiving grace is an incredible gift and joy, offering grace to others can sometimes feel unfair!

That’s why it’s important that we know Jesus, because we need His strength to stay faithful even when things feel unfair!

The tag line for our mini series has been: the joys and hardships of grace and that’s just the sort of upside down statement that I want to focus in on today to land the plane in our miniseries.

We’ve talked about loving our enemies and forgiving those who do wrong to us and how grace should be compelling us to do these things. And while it’s important that we choose faithfulness in these things over fairness, if we do this long enough and we’re not careful we may begin to forget what grace is. Undeserved. And we might start to think that because of how we’re living and what we’re doing for Jesus and with Jesus, that we actually deserve more or are entitled to more than others around us!

And Jesus invites us to check our hearts on this type of thinking this morning.

Check your heart! You all remember a few years ago, the popular Christian Comedian, John Crist, he did a whole bit about this statement! Check your heart! He sort of gave viral life to this little phrase. If you’re not familiar with it, check your heart is a subtle and perhaps bit passive aggressive way for you to invite your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to examine their motives and behavior a bit closer.

For instance, I grabbed a few of these situations off of Facebook using the hashtag checkyourheart:

When your kid cries in the middle of the night, and you pretend to be asleep so your spouse has to handle it. 💁‍♀️#checkyourheart

When you show up to Bible study but haven’t done the assigned reading #checkyourheart!

When arrive at Church and realize that first time visitors have sat in “your seats” and now church is just ruined for the day.....#Check your heart!!!!

When you don't volunteer at church because you can't commit your time, but your kids are involved in 5 different traveling sports teams. #checkyourheart!!!

When you start counting planks in the church ceiling to survive another one of your pastor’s sermon. #checkyourheart… this happens to be why we choose to go with a blacked out ceiling instead of tongue and groove by the way…

and lastly, When you put the frozen food back on the bread aisle because you don’t want to walk all the way back to the frozen food section to put it away properly. #checkyourheart you sluggard!

You get the idea. Check your heart is a nice subtle and perhaps passive aggressive way to call someone on their questionable behaviors and motives as a believer in Jesus.

Well, this morning, Jesus gives us all a not so subtle check your heart, when we’re thinking about our standing in His Kingdom and before our Heavenly Father.

While there are some in here this morning that have no problem understanding they don’t deserve to be in or on team Jesus, there are others among us, the more religious and perhaps the more put together of us, who if we’re not careful can start to get pretty prideful about the work we do for God and the traditions we follow in the name of religion. And to all of those folks, Jesus tells this parable to illustrate how grace ought to set us straight and help us to check our hearts!

Let’s read it together and then we’ll talk about it.

As we read, I want you to be on the look out for how you can see our big idea being illustrated this morning. The big idea is this: If you're a member of Christ's Kingdom, you're only there because of His self-giving, generous love.

Matthew 20:1–16 (NIV)

1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went. “He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ 7 “ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ 8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ 9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ 13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Just previous to this parable. If you turn back a page in Matthew, you’ll discover that a very wealthy man comes to Jesus and tells him that he has kept all the law and done everything God has required of him. By all acounts this dude is a model citizen and active member in his church and now he comes to Jesus and wants to know what he should do to have eternal life and Jesus tells him, sell all that you have and follow Him!

The man we’re told was very wealthy and so he turns away quite disappointed with what Jesus has just told him. And then Jesus says, it’s very hard for rich folks to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. So hard, he says that it’s easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.

And His disciples are astonished by this statement.

Why? Well because presumable this wealthy man and others like him can do so much for God! They ask, if this guy can’t enter the Kingdom, than who in the world can? If someone who does so much for God. Who goes to Church every Sunday, and does all the Hail Marys and all the good works. He gives so much to missionaries, to his Church. He goes on mission trips and is just generally good and kind as he goes through his life, if someone like him can’t get in, who can, the Disciples want to know!?

And then Jesus makes this statement, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

The disciples don’t quite get it yet, but this statement is a statement of grace Church. It’s a statement about what your works are able to earn you. It’s a statement about the pay scale in God’s Kingdom, about the wage you’re able to earn!

Matthew finishes the section just before with the final sentence in vs. 30:

Matthew 19:30 (NIV)

30 But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

And because his disciples are quite dense like you and I can be, Jesus goes on to tell them a story that will help illustrate the point he was trying to make about how one enters the Kingdom of God!

And then he tells a parable about a scenario that would have been very familiar to them. He tells them about a farmer who requires more day laborers during harvest season. The farmers in here will understand this to a degree. A farm can run with just a handful of folks during the off season, but when harvest sets in, it’s all hands on deck.

And so Jesus paints them a picture of something they all know a bit about, but as he progresses through the parable, there are several things would have been very surprising to his hearers. As familiar as the story is, there is much about it that is total opposite of what is expected and contrary to the normal values of their day. Honestly as we read it, you may sympathize with those who busted their tails. Right, this story is no recipe for industrial peace, is it? If a rep from the the United Auto-Workers Union was with us, he’d be all riled up and calling for a strike immediately! But of course this story has nothing to do with industrial peace. Jesus intends it to show the principles on which God receives people into his kingdom.”

And so we need to look at the 3 surprising things about this story to better under stand grace and it’s wages or pay scale.

The first thing that is surprising is the employer and how He behaves. The employer goes out HIMSELF to higher the day workers. Surely this is a job and task that could’ve been delegated to someone lesser than Him, but He doesn’t delegate this job. No, He goes Himself, out into the dirty market streets to higher day laborers.

Why would a guy of his stature, do something like this? We must assume that he has a heart for these guys. Sure there is work to be done, but as evidenced by how he treats these workers, he pays them a generous wage and makes sure that everyone does not go home without enough to feed their families. This guy has a heart for these folks and a desire to help them and be generous to them. Sure he has work that needs doing, but they also have a need to make money so they can provide for themselves and their families.

It’s surprising that the farmer goes out himself to these folks and the fact that he pays them generously and keeps going out to higher more people shows us he has a heart of love to bless these workers. Imagine the guys who get hired at the very end of the day. They’ve been passed over repeatedly, they are hungry, unemployed and staring at the possibility of going home to their wives and families empty. It’s an increasingly hopeless situation, but the farmer keeps going out to these folks and offering them not just work but work with a reward.

This is surprising. It’s also surprising at the end of the story how he pays these workers. They all get the same wage! Everyone, whether they worked 10 hours or 1 hour everyone gets paid a generous wage for a days work. 1 Denarius. This isn’t just minimum wage folks, you can think of it as prevailing wage. It’s a generous wage. Now it’s not surprising that those who’ve worked longer get cranky about this. Right, we can sympathize with those who worked a fully day, they see the late comers show up and then get paid they fully days rate and instantly their minds do what all of our minds would do. We’d assume that if they go paid that, well then surely we’ll be getting more because we worked longer and more!

And this is a religious mindset Church. It’s a wordly mindset that thinks about earning salvation like one earns a wage! If we’re not careful, the longer you’re in God’s family, the Church, the longer you’re in Jesus as a son and servant, if you’re not careful you will inevitably begin to think about all the work you’ve done for God and if you’re not careful you may start to resent new believers! You might begin to become entitled before God because, he owes you! And it’s surprising here to find that the farmer rebukes this entitlement mindset!

You may know a bit about the story of the Prodigal son. I personally don’t love that title for the story. The story could more appropriately be called the parable of the for 2 lost sons. Yes the younger son is obviously lost because he goes off in a wild sinful drunken binge. But the older son is just as lost in his religious and service. He doesn’t love his dad in that story, he resents him for forgiving the brother who spent half the inheritance. The older son doesn't love his dad, he resents him and lives entitled in his house, thinking that after all he has done for him, his dad has persistently withheld from him.

Now I realize we’re getting a little abstract here, so lets connect these dots. Have you ever thought, God after all I’ve done for you, this is how you’re going to repay me?

Sure you have, who hasn’t thought this. After a miscarriage, or a bad medical diagnosis, some abuse, some trajectory, accident, crisis, in those moments our hearts are quick to jump to the world’s pay scale. After all I’ve done for you God! This is my wage! This is how you’re going to pay me!

Now there are two things that is wrong with this thinking, the first is with the thought, after all I’ve done.

Let’s think about that statement for a second. After all I’ve done, that’s what the workers tell the Farmer! After all we’ve done, after all the hours we’ve worked in the heat of the day, this is how you’re going to pay us.

To depersonalize it a bit, lets just focus on these workers for a second. What have they done? They did some work, yes, but for who? The Farmer. And they agreed to do the work for a denarius, that was the agreement. Before the farmer gave them a job, they were unemployed.

Did they deserve the job. No. Was the farmer obligated to hire them, or to pay them prevailing wage. No He wasn’t, but he chose them because he loved them! So yes they did some work, but only because the Farmer chose them!

Now apply this to yourself, and the statement “after all I’ve done.” Loved one, what have you done? Be honest in your heart? What good can you take sole credit for in your life. But for the grace of God, you and I, we can’t take credit for any of it! But for God’s generosity and love we can’t take credit for anything!

To quote the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 4:7

1 Corinthians 4:7 (NIV)

What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

If you’re good at sports, it’s because God gifted you physically with those abilities. If you can sing, God gave you that voice, if you’ve got a quick mind, God gifted that with you by His grace and generosity. If you have a job, a house, a family, friends, every good gift you have has come to you from God! You don’t have anything good in your life apart from God’s grace Church!

So be careful with this thinking, after all I’ve done! The reality is that you and I haven’t done anything worth anything eternally speaking apart from God’s grace!

So this means as Jesus says here in our parable, it ain’t right for us to resent others or become embittered or envious when God is generous to others, why, because he’s been just as generous to us in Jesus!

The principles of the Kingdom are not the principles of this world! To the world it may seem unfair, but in the Kingdom it’s know as grace! The last will be first int he Kingdom and the first in the world’s eyes will be last!

We’re in a series called enriching tradition. And I’m not against tradition Church, at it’s best tradition, especially rich religious tradition can help us remember and connect us to our past, but at it’s worst, at it’s worst Church religious tradition can turn us into these ungrateful unionized and entitled servants in this story! All the religious hoops we follow and jump through can start to make us feel entitled to something more than God has promised to us! It can make us forget grace and how we ever entered into the Kingdom in the first place!

Check your heart loved one. If you’re a member of Christ’s Kingdom you ain’t here because how much you give, the good you do, how often you attend Church, or the work you do for God! You’re only here because of God’s self-giving and generous love.

As has been said before, all ground is level before the foot of the cross! There is no rank in the Kingdom, and based upon this parable, many who have worked long and hard for Jesus will be last because they’ve done so with the wrong motives, while others who’ve done less will be first because they’ve learned simply to receive and rest in the undeserved grace of God!

Lord Jesus, make us like little children in regards to this! Prevent us from entitlement. Keep us humble and empower us to want nothing more than more of you! We have enough Church, because Jesus is enough. Amen and amen.