Matthew 20:1-16
And Jesus told them this parable.
The kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard….
In this way, Jesus begins a story like so many of the stories that he told in order to create a worldview that we are invited to take residence inside.
I have heard that with his parables or stories, “Jesus creates a ‘house’ in which listeners/readers are invited to take residence as they make the worldview of the parable their own.” i
Our theme for the fall is “Room for all.” If Jesus is creating a ‘house-like’ worldview with his parables, maybe this week our theme could be rooms for all.
Let’s enter.
The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard.
After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.
Throughout the day, at nine, noon and three o’clock he returns to the market-place, hires labourers at each of these hours, and tells them that he will pay them whatever is right or just.
At about five o’clock, (the 11th hour) he goes out again to the marketplace and asks the labourers, “why are you standing here idle?” and they tell him, “Because no one has hired us.” He tells them “you also go into the vineyard,” this time with no promise of any wage.
At this point we reach the middle of the story – which contains three surprises.
First, the landowner calls his manager.
What is the surprise in this? If he had a manager to take care of his affairs, why did he go to the market himself to look for labourers?
Second, those hired about five o’clock are paid first.
The surprise in this is of course the order in which the labourers were paid. The last were paid first.
And the third surprise; each of them received the usual daily wage. What? That’s what the ones who were hired at the beginning of the day said. “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But he replied to them, “Mister, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’
Among other things this parable is a remarkable example of a prophetic rhetorical template that by the time of Jesus had been in use in that culture for 1000 years.
The template of the parable is a clue to the parts of it that are significant and this template is a clue to its interpretation when it was first heard and now. However, whether we know about this template or not which I’ll explain a bit about in a moment, this particular parable tends to grate on our sense of fairness and justice.
It wouldn’t be hard to resonate with the folks who worked all day in the heat and dry wind who say, “What? When we saw that you gave those you hired last, the daily wage you promised us, our hopes went up. We thought for sure, that if one hour of labour was worth a daily wage, our 12 hours of labour would be worth at least double if not 12 times more. We thought our stock had just gone up.”
And this is where the parable takes a particularly harsh turn when the landowner says, “take what belongs to you and go.” We might find ourselves asking, is this parable simply about bizarre justice or is something else important going on here?
The prophetic rhetorical template of this parable may give us a clue. This template divides the parable neatly into seven sections or stanzas. The themes of these stanzas also demonstrate what’s called a ring composition. There are similarities between the first and last stanza, the second and sixth, the third and fifth until you reach the important fourth stanza which lies in the middle.
The first and seventh stanzas are both about the landowner who makes an agreement in the first one and keeps his agreement in the last one,
The main theme in the second and sixth stanzas – if we work our way from each end towards the middle – is about justice. In the second stanza the landowner says that he will give what is right or just. In the sixth stanza, the workers who were hired first call the landlord’s justice into question.
In the third and fifth stanza, again working our way towards the middle, we find the theme of the workers of the 11th hour. In the third stanza the 11th hour workers are hired and in the fifth stanza the 11th hour workers are given the daily wage.
This brings us to the middle of the parable where the main point of the parable and the three surprises lie. First, there is a manager of the vineyard, so why is the landowner the one who goes to the marketplace himself? Second, all of the workers are paid a living wage and third, the ones who worked the least are paid first.
Kenneth Bailey, a New Testament scholar who has spent 40 years in the Middle East helps us understand the cultural context of this parable. In Palestine/Israel then as now if a landowner has a manager, then at most the landowner would give the manager instructions in the morning and receive a report at night but it would be highly unusual for the landowner to go himself to the market to look for laborers. Even in recent history near the Damascus Gate of East Jerusalem each morning unemployed mostly Palestinian men would gather in hope of finding work for the day. As vans of prospective employers drive up (in recent history mostly Israelis) the men sprint into the street hoping that their eagerness will improve their chances of earning their daily bread. The men will stay alert and repeat this behaviour like runners at starting blocks throughout the morning. By noon if no employment has materialized the unemployed will go home disappointed and humiliated likely having to face families who had depended on them and who likewise would be deeply disappointed.
It is hard to imagine that the landlord in this parable didn’t know first thing in the morning how many workers he needed for the day, whether the vines needed pruning or it was the time of harvest. Bailey suggests that it is more likely he was hoping that the other workers would also be hired and his regular trips back to the market demonstrate his personal concern and compassion for those who were anxiously eager to work. And as the story unfolds the landowner’s compassion compels him to return again and again to see if there are others who need work. By the middle of the afternoon and certainly at the end of the day he may have hired these men as a reward for the raw courage it takes to anxiously wait the entire day, beyond reasonable hope, before either receiving a bit of something to take home to their hungry families or going home humiliated in the dark.
In the end the actions of the landowner reveal that he has taken it upon himself to demonstrate a costly compassion. He has not asked another to do it in his place. He incarnates his deep concern by going again and again to the marketplace – among the unemployed and hurting poor. In the culture of the Middle East this type of behaviour by the master/landlord would have been unheard of.
And what do we make of the complaints of those hired first? They were simply operating under a universal sense of fairness that says one should receive “equal pay for equal work.” But the rules in this house, the house created by a kingdom of heaven worldview say something else. In this house, justice goes beyond an equal application of the law. In this worldview, “justice includes respect for the dignity of those in need and a concern for their welfare.” ii
And the response of the landowner to those who would complain about his mercy, justice and extravagant compassion is very harsh,
“You have no real complaint, justice has been served, I have paid you what I said I would, now take what belongs to you and go!
Then the parable stops with a question, “Are you envious because I am generous?”
And with that the story stops rather than ends. We don’t know what the workers who feel they have been unjustly treated chose to do next. We don’t know how they respond. Stopping the story without ending it functions to invite the listeners/readers onto the stage of the drama that the story created.
Just like the story of the compassionate father who had two sons – often known as the prodigal son story, we don’t know what the older brother decides to do at the end when he is angry about his father’s compassionate embrace of the son who had been as good as dead to them. In the prodigal son story the question remains, “Will the older brother choose to enter the house?”
In today’s story, will the workers who perceive injustice allow their sense of what is right to be stretched and molded to include unmerited mercy, compassion and costly love by the landowner. The first listeners of this story would have known as they listened to this parable that Jesus was speaking of himself as a defense of his incarnated love for the least of these and he was speaking to his disciples who in these pages in Matthew argued among themselves about who was greatest.
And today, are we able to allow our own sense of justice to be stretched and molded to include unmerited mercy, compassion and costly love by the landowner and by doing so will we enter the worldview of the “house” that Jesus creates with his stories where there is room for all? Jesus creates a “house” where dignity, worth, love and compassion are available to all without merit.
If we choose to enter this house our first question might quite naturally be who will our roommates turn out to be? That’s a common and important question in any new living arrangement. But I think this question may change if we look very briefly at the other texts that were read this morning.
If we look briefly before I conclude at the other scripture readings for today, Exodus and Jonah, we see that the common thread among them is complaint and provision. The children of Israel complain about life and probably justly about their fear of death in the wilderness. God hears their complaint and responds by providing them with manna and quail and water – all that they need for daily sustenance. In the Jonah story, Jonah complains about God’s mercy for the Ninevites, persons who lived in the largest city of his enemies. Jonah is asking how could God have mercy for people in the heart of the Assyrian empire; a people and nation that threatened to and eventually did overthrow his own country. In some sense this complaint too seems justified. In Jonah’s distress about God’s seemingly unfair kindness, Jonah finds himself wishing he were dead. Despite Jonah’s direct disobedience and complaints, God preserves him, although having him be swallowed by a whale might also seem like a strange kind of mercy. And so, just as God preserved the complaining Israelites, and God preserves the complaining Jonah, might God also preserve the complaining workers?
These other passages shed light on the parable in question. A compassionate God is generous to whom God will be generous. In all these stories, the most consistent theme is simply God’s provision for everyone in the story. Was there anyone in any of these stories who deserved God’s compassionate provision more than anyone else in the end?
So if we choose to enter the house that our incarnated compassionate God creates maybe the question is not who might our roommates be but rather what kind of roommate are we?
And finally the most important question of all,
“Who is this God represented to us mostly clearly by Jesus who comes to all of us again and again with costly self-giving love and mercy.
This is a God of love and provision.
i Kenneth E. Bailey. Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels. p. 364.
ii Bailey p. 364