Pentecost 19 A, Matthew 20: 1-16, September 21, 2008

“Fair Wages for a Days Work”

Introduction:  In this world we have been given an understanding of what is fair and what is not. This is especially true of the work place. We expect to get a proper wage for proper work. If we work more we expect to be paid more. With our length of service, with our dedication, we expect to be paid a better wage, have more benefits, privileges, and rights as employees. This is the way it is done in our world. We have a human understanding of what is fair and what is not fair. And so we work, sometimes being paid properly and sometimes not but still we have to work. With all this in mind I want to ask you a couple of questions? How many hours do you have to work each week to keep a house over your heads? How many hours do you need to work so that you can put food on the table? How many hours do you have to work to afford a few small luxuries? They say, in America, the average living work week, to afford all these things is a 40 hour work week times two. Even then it seems hard to make ends meet for most people. Is this a reasonable answer? Maybe it is or maybe it isn’t. So we work 80 hours a week for a roof, some food and some trinkets. …80 hours of work per week! This is what most of us would consider somewhat fair.

            The Parable. A landowner went to town to employ men in the harvest of his vineyard. First he went at 6:00 in the morning and he promised the men a days pay for a days work. It was a fair wage. Still needing more workers the man went to town three more times in the course of the day, the last time 5:00pm with one hour of the work day remaining. To these men, the landowner only promised to be fair. Then it came time to pay. First, the man paid the men hired last. He paid them the full days pay that had been promised to the men who worked from the start of the day. Indeed, he was very generous. The men who started early in the morning thought that if these men received their full days wage surely they, having worked the whole day in the heat of the sun, would get so much more. After all, it’s only fair, they thought. The landowner paid them the wage that they had agreed upon. They couldn’t believe it and they were upset. Seeing their jealousy and dismay, the landowner chastised them. What right did they have to complain about His generosity?  After all, He was generous to all of them.

            It is natural to sympathize with the first workers. It only seems fair that they should receive more than the last workers. But this is human thinking. It is precisely the point that Jesus is making. In our gospel lesson Jesus turns that understanding upside down. God operates differently in respect to what He think is fair. Like our Old Testament lesson of Isaiah where God tells people to come and buy without money, Jesus makes it clear for us that God’s ways are not like ours. His thoughts are not like our thoughts. They are as distant as heaven is from the earth. While we demand a fair and just wage, God freely gives the wages of grace. God is so generous that we have difficulty accepting it. The point of the parable is that the landowner, God, is generous with all His workers. He is generous beyond our understanding.

            In the parable, the guys that worked the full day worked a regular work week. The rest of the laborers definitely worked less than a full day. The last workers hired worked only an hour before the bell sounded for them to cease their labor. What are the wages that these men deserved? Could they live on them? Most of them could not. It is really hard to keep a roof over your head and food on the table with one hour of work, wouldn’t you say?

            I want to shift gears now. Eternity is coming, heaven is our home. This is our ultimate destination. Based on your labor here in this life for God’s Kingdom, what kind of home could you afford in heaven? What kind of food and how much could you afford to put on your tables? Think about it! Property values in heaven must be sky high…don’t you think. The food…it’s the finest of everything…every delicacy you can imagine. Small luxuries, what would those be…I mean the streets are paved with gold, they are paved with gem stones. Heaven is a high falutten retirement community. Based on our work for God’s kingdom what can we expect to get…what would be fair? Let’s see… some Christians put in one hour a week, four hours a month regarding their spiritual life and work. Some people put in an hour a month…a couple hours a year. Hmmmmm! Lets see! If it takes 80 hours here on earth for a living wage, I guess that wouldn’t be much of a living wage for our heavenly home. How about some of the people that put in a few more hours…Connie puts in quite a few hours each week. The Principle and the teachers work full time. Some Pastors put in sixty, seventy and even eighty hours a week. Perhaps these people could manage some kind of heavenly down payment. Then again, maybe not!    

            In his life, plagued by the weakness of the flesh, we are concerned about ourselves. We are concerned whether we have been treated fairly according to what we have done. Often our focus is not on God’s grace but on a fair wage for ourselves, getting what we think we deserve. Many of you have worked very hard for this church, faithfully given of your time and talent. Many of you have faithfully and generously supported this church with financial gifts. In doing so we can easily be caught up with pride in our own work. As you look at what you have done and what others are doing, you may feel that you are bearing the greatest burden. You may question whether other people are enjoying the benefits of your hard work and whether it is fair. We all do it. Instead of looking to Jesus we look at the work and spiritual lives of other people and then compare ourselves to them. Then we think about the fairness of it all and what we deserve.

            At this point it is important to remember what is really fair and what we really deserve. It is important to remember who we all are and what we truly deserve. Then we are able to understand God’s grace and are happy when he extends it to all people, those that work the whole day and those that do not. As workers in God’s vineyard we may feel that we deserve more or less from God according to what we have done. As sinful people the scriptures tell us about the wage we really deserve. It says that for sinners the wage of sin is death. It says that those who depend on their works are not in grace but are in debt to God. Our work for the kingdom of God, be it many hours or only one, our acts of giving to this church, be it many thousands of dollars or be it one, is not enough to make up for the debt of sin that we have incurred. When we approach the pearly gates and the heavenly estates we are bankrupt. We can’t afford even a van down by the river or a little grass hut. We approach God with empty hands…as if we hadn’t worked at all. But for the person that believes and trusts in Christ alone, they are rewarded with the wage that He alone can provide. By God’s grace He has called us to be His people and invites us to work in His kingdom. And for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ, and His death on the cross, He gives us the wages of grace. That wage was not earned by how many hours we have worked or not worked. That wage was earned by Jesus Christ, who has purchased us with His own blood. The wage of grace cannot be counted in gold or silver. The wage of God’s grace in Christ is beyond measure.

            In Jesus Christ we receive the fairness of God, a fairness that is beyond our comprehension, a fairness based on grace and the forgiveness of sins. This strange fairness of God is a result of God treating His Son in what appears to be an unfair way. I say that because God is always fair. But when I look at the cross and I see the Holy Son of God, Jesus Christ dying in our place I can only see with my eyes that He has received our fair wage for sin. In exchange, because HE was paid the wages of death in our places, He gives us the wages of grace, forgiveness, life, now and always. Because of Him we receive the reward of heaven.           

            The disciples asked Jesus what their reward would be for following Him. Peter said, “We have left everything to follow you. Jesus answered them. He told them that they would be rewarded. Jesus said, everyone who gives up brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers, houses and fields to follow Me will be given a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. There are rewards for following Jesus Christ. Right after this Jesus says that they will be rewarded He tells the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. In this parable He warns His disciples and us to focus on God’s grace rather than our own labor and the rewards to come.

            We do not have to wait for the rewards of heaven. We have begun to receive God’s fair wage. We to receive them here and now on earth as we serve Him in His kingdom. Just working for the Lord is a reward in and of itself. To be a Christian is a privilege, not a wearisome duty but a happy service for as long as God lets us serve. There is no richer or fuller life then that of a disciple of Christ.

Conclusion:  Life is often unfair. We don’t always get what we deserve, but sometimes we do. One thing is for certain, Christians aren’t getting what they deserve either, but that is a good thing. Because of God’s grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, he gives us what we don’t deserve, forgiveness of sin and rewards beyond compare as he has made us heirs of eternal life. We thank God that His ways are not like our and His thought are not like ours that the person who comes late, works less is just as important as the one who comes early. As servants called into the service of His kingdom we don’t have to be worried about unemployment. And we know that the wages are good.