The Parable: The Hired Laborers

LET GOD BE GOD

Today's Sermon, from Matthew 20:1-16, presents us with a story that flips our expectations of fairness and justice on their heads.

In the previous Chapter, we find Peter stating that “We have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?”

Jesus gave the disciples a marvelous promise of rewards in this life and in the next. Whatever they had forsaken for His sake would be returned to them a hundredfold. In other words, they were not making sacrifices...they were making investments. But not all the dividends...all the goodies would be received in this life.

This parable has nothing to do with salvation. The denarius does not represent salvation, for nobody works for his salvation. Nor is the parable talking about rewards, for we are not all going to receive the same reward.

In this parable, Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven as like a vineyard owner hiring laborers throughout the day—some early in the morning, some at midday, and some just an hour before the workday ends. When evening comes, the vineyard owner pays all the workers the same, causing confusion and grumbling among those who worked longer hours.

Let us open our hearts and minds to the lessons Jesus imparts through this story, and consider what it means for us as we seek to align our lives with the values of the kingdom of heaven.

As in most of his parables, Jesus was teaching something about the kingdom of heaven—the way things work under the rule of the Messiah-King.

Here he introduced the main characters: the landowner (representing God) and the hired laborers (representing believers).

The landowner needed men to plant, tend, and harvest his crops.

Early in the morning is important, because time is an important feature of this parable. A typical workday for field workers in the ancient Near East began at approximately 6 A.M. (sunrise) and ended at around 6 P.M. (sunset). The average workday was likely ten-plus hours. So the landowner of the parable was scouting for workers before 6 A.M. The men whom he hired to begin twelve hours of work at 6 A.M. formed the first and most prominent of five groups he would hire throughout the day. They agreed to work for the customary rate of one denarius for a full day’s work, and then they started work in the vineyard.

Such interpretations distract us from Jesus’ main point—that God’s way of compensating for righteous working may differ from what we expect. God’s sense of “fairness” is not the typical self-serving human perspective. He does not compare us to one another but to our fulfillment of our own stewardship (see 1 Cor. 3:3–5). The landowner needed still more workers, so three hours later (the third hour was 9 A.M.) he went again to the marketplace (where most commercial transactions took place, and where men hoping for work would gather) and found more laborers available. He hired them, promising, I will pay you whatever is right. Because these men would be working only nine hours (three-fourths of a workday), they would have expected three-fourths of a denarius as their wages at the end of the workday.

He did the same thing at noon (the sixth hour) and 3 P.M. (the ninth hour). These groups of workers would be working six hours (a half-day) and three hours (a quarter-day), respectively, and so would have naturally expected proportionately less pay than those who started at 6 A.M.

At 5 P.M. (the eleventh hour), with only one hour of the work-day remaining, the landowner hired yet a fifth group of workers—the second most prominent group in Jesus’ parable, because they stood in the greatest contrast with those hired at 6 A.M. These laborers he also sent into the field to work. The point is clear. These “last” workers, for whatever reason, were “last” by normal human performance standards. Jesus was about to challenge normal human reasoning and standards when it comes to kingdom rewards.

The word evening means sunset at 6 P.M., when the workers could no longer see to work. The owner of the vineyard is the landowner of 20:1. The foreman is mentioned only to give a sense of reality to the story, since the landowner himself would not have gone out into the field to call in the workers at the end of the day. The landowner specifically instructed the foreman to pay the workers in reverse order (beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first). The landowner wanted those who were hired first (who insisted on a contract) to see how much he paid the workers who were hired later. It was one way the owner could show those workers how really generous He was.

The last group hired—those who worked only one hour—were paid first, before the eyes of all the workers hired earlier in the day. To everyone’s astonishment, these one-hour workers were paid a full denarius—twelve times what they would have considered justly earned! The three-hour, six-hour, and nine-hour workers are not mentioned here, but we are to assume that they also received a denarius.

The twelve-hour workers were encouraged by what they had observed, assuming the landowner had decided to be disproportionately generous to all the workers. They certainly expected more than one denarius, which, to their disappointment, was exactly what they were paid.

[LESSON AND CONCLUSION]

We can surely identify with their disappointment.

The lesson for Christ’s disciples is obvious is it not? We should not serve Him because we want to receive an expected reward, and we should not insist on knowing what we will get.

Can we all agree that God is infinitely generous and gracious and will always give us better than we deserve?

Now we can better understand Peter’s question at the beginning of this sermon. For one thing, we must not suppose that we will getsomething more if we really do not deserve it. Is it possible to do the Father’s work and yet not do His will from our hearts?

“What shall we have?” Peter states. The parable warned him, “How do you know you will have anything?” Beware of overconfidence when it comes to the rewards God will give, for those first in their eyes (and in the eyes of others) may end up last!

For most people in this world who have never learned the reality of God’s grace, everything is based on human merit. And when someone senses that another person is getting something they didn’t earn or don’t deserve, the grumbling begins. “That’s not fair” becomes a mantra that can easily grow into a battle cry.

So they grumbled to the landowner: You have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day. The full-day workers perhaps looked down on the one-hour workers because they had been passed over as unworthy in the early hiring,

Where do we stand in Jesus’ parable? As believers, we are the laborers, but which camp do you find yourself? Are you among the grumblers, with your eyes fixed on what others have?

It’s time to realize where your battle really lies and who you’re really struggling against.

It’s not the person who was given something we think was undeserved. We are having trouble letting God be God. We are being critical of His mercy, generosity, and goodness.

Jesus revealed here the way we as humans think about what is fair and just. When we see rewards handed out in heaven, we are sure to be in for some surprises.

Some of the people and ministries that we have deemed insignificant will be celebrated, while many of the more prominent people and their ministries will receive little recognition.

If we are grumblers, we need to get our nose out of God’s business. We need to forget about the have and have nots of this world.

We need to place our hands on the plow, and continue laboring in God’s kingdom. So what if you’ve been a faithful believer since childhood and some recent convert gets all the glory? That’s God business not ours. Let us be reminded in the Book of Hebrews. “For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name.” (Heb. 6:10) We see the worker and the work, but God sees the heart.

Jesus made the point that heaven’s rewards are based upon: God’s standards and our faithfulness to our calling in both attitude and action .

As a final reflection. It is towards God’s glory we labor not to our own. Amen.