2020-09-20_Notes
General Notes on the Text:
On “the kingdom of heaven is like” formula (v. 1), see on 13:24.
What is Fair?
Notes on Mt 20:
From this one, found only in Matthew, we learn how “the last” person can become “first” (19:30)—by free grace (Schlatter; see esp. 20:15).
The point is not that those who work just an hour do as much as those who work all day (unlike a Jewish parable c. A.D. 325 that tells of a man who on those grounds is paid a month’s wages for a few hours’ discussion), nor that the willingness of the latecomers matches that of the all-day workers (contra Preisker, TDNT, 4:717 and n. 91), nor that Gentiles are the latecomers in contrast to the Jews (the context knows no such distinctions), nor that all men are equal before God or that all kingdom work is equal. Still less acceptable is Derrett’s lengthy explanation (NT Studies, 1:48–75). He rightly holds that the entire parable portrays working conditions in the first century; but the eleventh-hour men, entitled to a certain minimum wage, actually get more. But Derrett’s view depends on late sources for minimum wage laws; and he assumes that the grapes were urgently in need of harvesting and that, it must have been Friday afternoon—none of which the text implies.
Correct Interpretation:
Huffmann (pp. 209–10) is right. The parable begins with a typical scene and introduces atypical elements to surprise the reader and make a powerful point. “Jesus deliberately and cleverly led the listeners along by degrees until they understood that if God’s generosity was to be represented by a man, such a man would be different from any man ever encountered” (p. 209).
Also, Barclay’s Interpretation
THE Jewish scholar C. G. Montefiore calls this parable ‘one of the greatest and most glorious of all’. It may indeed have had a comparatively limited application when it was spoken for the first time; but it contains truth which goes to the very heart of the Christian religion.
First, the “limited application” in Jesus day:
(1) It is in one sense a warning to the disciples. It is as if Jesus said to them: ‘You have received the great privilege of coming into the Christian Church and fellowship very early, right at the beginning. In later days, others will come in. You must not claim a special honour and a special place because you were Christians before they were. All men and women, no matter when they come, are equally precious to God.’
There are people who think that, because they have been members of a church for a long time, the Church practically belongs to them and they can dictate its policy. Such people resent what seems to them the intrusion of new blood or the rise of a new generation with different plans and different ways. In the Christian Church, seniority does not necessarily mean honour.
(2) There is an equally definite warning to the Jews. They knew that they were the chosen people, nor would they ever willingly forget that choice. As a consequence, they looked down on the Gentiles. Usually they hated and despised them, and hoped for nothing but their destruction. This attitude threatened to be carried forward into the Christian Church. If the Gentiles were to be allowed into the fellowship of the Church at all, they must come in as inferiors.
‘In God’s economy,’ as someone has said, ‘there is no such thing as a most-favoured-nation clause.’ Christianity knows nothing of such a conception of superiority. It may well be that we who have been Christian for so long have much to learn from those younger churches who are late-comers to the fellowship of the faith.
Comfort of God
(3) These are the original lessons of this parable; but it has very much more to say to us.
In it, there is the comfort of God. It means that no matter when people enter the kingdom—late or soon, in the first flush of youth, in the strength of the middle of the day, or when the shadows are lengthening—they are equally dear to God. The Rabbis had a saying: ‘Some enter the kingdom in an hour; others hardly enter it in a lifetime.’ In the picture of the holy city in the Book of Revelation, there are twelve gates. There are gates on the east which is the direction of the dawn, and whereby people may enter in the glad morning of their days; there are gates on the west which is the direction of the setting sun, and whereby people may enter in their age. No matter when they come to Christ, they are equally dear to him.
May we not go even further with this thought of comfort? Sometimes people die full of years and full of honour, with their day’s work ended and their task completed. Sometimes young people die almost before the door of life and achievement has opened at all. From God, they will both receive the same welcome; for both, Jesus Christ is waiting, and in neither case, in the divine sense, has life ended too soon or too late.
The Compassion of God
(4) Here, also, is the infinite compassion of God. There is an element of human tenderness in this parable.
There is nothing more tragic in this world than men and women who are unemployed, those whose talents are rusting in idleness because there is nothing for them to do. One great teacher used to say that the saddest words in all Shakespeare’s plays are the words: ‘Othello’s occupation’s gone.’ In that market place, men stood waiting because no one had hired them; in his compassion, the master gave them work to do. He could not bear to see them idle.
Further, in strict justice, the fewer hours a man worked, the less pay he should have received. But the master knew perfectly well that one denarius a day was no great wage; he knew that if a workman went home with less, there would be a worried wife and hungry children; and therefore he went beyond justice and gave them more than was their due.
As it has been put, this parable states implicitly two great truths which are the very charter of all those who work—the right of everyone to work and the right of everyone to a living wage for that work.
The Generosity of God
(5) Here also is the generosity of God. These men did not all do the same work; but they did receive the same pay. There are two great lessons here. The first is, as Robert Browning said in ‘Pippa Passes’: ‘All service ranks the same with God.’ It is not the amount of service given, but the love in which it is given which matters. A wealthy friend may give us a valuable gift, and in truth we are grateful; a child may give us a birthday or Christmas gift which cost only a small amount but which was laboriously and lovingly saved up for—and that gift, with little value of its own, touches our heart far more. God does not look on the amount of our service. As long as it is all we have to give, all service ranks the same with God.
The second lesson is even greater—all God gives is of grace. We cannot earn what God gives us; we cannot deserve it; what God gives us is given out of the goodness of his heart; what God gives is not pay, but a gift; not a reward, but a grace.
Barclay: The Parable’s Supreme Lesson!
(6) Surely that brings us to the supreme lesson of the parable—the whole point of work is the spirit in which it is done. The servants are clearly divided into two classes. The first came to an agreement with the master; they had a contract; they said: ‘We work, if you give us so much pay.’ As their conduct showed, all they were concerned with was to get as much as possible out of their work. But in the case of those who were engaged later, there is no word of contract; all they wanted was the chance to work, and they willingly left the reward to the master.
We are not Christians if our first concern is pay. Peter asked: ‘What do we get out of it?’ Christians work for the joy of serving God and others. That is why the first will be last and the last will be first. Many in this world, who have earned great rewards, will have a very low place in the kingdom because rewards were their sole thought. Many who, as the world counts it, are poor, will be great in the kingdom, because they never thought in terms of reward but worked for the thrill of working and for the joy of serving. It is the paradox of the Christian life that those who aim at reward lose it, and those who forget reward find it.
Parable Nuts and Bolts
The normal working day was ten hours or so, not counting breaks. The landowner in the parable finds his first set of men at about 6 A.M. (hama prōi means “at dawn”; NIV, “early in the morning”: on the construction, see Moule, Idiom Book, p. 82) and agrees to pay each worker a denarius (20:2)—the normal wage for a foot soldier or day laborer (Tobit 5:14; Tacitus Annales, 1.17; Pliny 33.3).
3–7 There were twelve “hours” from dawn to sundown. The third hour (v. 3) would be about 9:00 A.M., the sixth about 12:00 P.M., and the eleventh about 5:00 P.M. The marketplace would be the central square, where all kinds of business was done and casual labor hired.
The third-hour men are promised “whatever is right” (v. 4); and, trusting the landowner’s integrity, they work on that basis (v. 5). The last group (v. 6) were standing around (“idle” [KJV] is a late addition) because no one had hired them (v. 7).
The men who were standing in the market place were not street-corner idlers, lazing away their time. The market place was the equivalent of the job centre or employment agency. A man came there first thing in the morning, carrying his tools, and waited until someone hired him. The men who stood in the market place were waiting for work, and the fact that some of them stood there until even 5 pm is the proof of how desperately they wanted it.
These men were hired labourers; they were the lowest class of workers, and life for them was always desperately precarious. Slaves and servants were regarded as being at least to some extent attached to the family for whom they worked; they were within the group; their fortunes would vary with the fortunes of the family, but they would never be in any imminent danger of starvation in normal times. It was very different with the hired day labourers.
they were always living on the semi-starvation line. As we have seen, the pay was one denarius a day; and, if they were unemployed for one day, the children would go hungry at home. For them, to be unemployed for a day was disaster.
Payment (the twist):
The foreman is told to pay each man (lit.) “the wage”—the standard day-laborer’s wage. Who gets paid first is crucial: it is only because the last hired receive a day’s wage (20:9) that those first hired expect to get more than they bargained for (v. 10).
They “grumble against” (v. 11) the owner because he has been generous to others and merely just to them. They have borne “the heat of the day” (v. 12) either direct sunlight or hot wind [BAGD, s.v. kausōn], which could drive workers from the field; and, though fairly paid, they feel unfairly treated because others who worked much less received what they did.
13–15 “Friend” (v. 13) suggests that this rebuke is only a mild one. “I am not being unfair to you”—I am not cheating you, defrauding you (cf. M. Black, “Some Greek Words with Hebrew Meanings in the Epistles and Apocalypse,” in McKay and Miller, pp. 142ff.). The owner has paid the agreed wage (v. 14). Should he want to pay others more, that is his business. Provided he has been just in all his dealings, does he not have the right to do what he wants with his money (v. 15)?
NIV translates “is your eye evil” (lit. Gk.) by “are you envious,” because the “evil eye” was an idiom used to refer to jealousy (cf. Deut 15:9; 1 Sam 18:9; see on 6:22–23).
These rhetorical questions (vv. 13b–15) show that God’s great gifts, simply because they are God’s, are distributed, not because they are earned, but because he is gracious (cf. W. Haubeck, “Zum Verständnis der Parabel von den Arbeitern im Weinberg [Mt. 20, 1–15],” in Haubeck and Bachmann, pp. 95–107, esp. pp. 106f.). Jesus is not laying down principles for resolving union-management disputes. On the contrary, “the principle in the world is that he who works the longest receives the most pay. That is just. But in the kingdom of God the principles of merit and ability may be set aside so that grace can prevail” (Kistemaker, pp. 77f.).
16 God’s grace makes some who are last first. The point of the parable is not that all in the kingdom will receive the same reward but that kingdom rewards depend on God’s sovereign grace (cf. v. 23). For the inclusion around the parable, see on 19:30.