The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
20 “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[a]
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.”
Matthew 20:1-16
People care about fairness. No one wants to work for eight hours while someone else works only one hour and gets paid the same amount. In Matthew 20, the vineyard owner is not being fair to his workers.
Jesus starts the parable with a vineyard owner going to the marketplace to hire some workers early in the morning, sunrise. The owner finds some workers and hires them for one denarius to do a full day's work on his field. This is fair and normal.
The owner returns to the workers' market and finds more men just standing around. The men are standing around because they have no work, so the owner hires them and agrees to pay them a fair wage. He makes several return trips to the market. In fact, he makes three additional trips throughout the day, hiring more workers each time.
The owner then has his supervisor pay the last ones to start work first. This means the one who came first to work would see what the later workers received. This was intentional.
Jesus shows us in this parable that God desires to save everyone. when you come to God or what work you have done is inconsequential. It also makes us in the church reflect on how we have done this with God. We feel God is not fair when we see immature or weak Christians being saved while others who have given up so much receive the same.
God's justice is a rescue system. It is about bringing all broken people back together, not about ranking or selecting who will be saved or who will serve in the Kingdom of God.
Much like the workers hired later in the day, there are many of us who want to be with God and are waiting for His invitation. We might have received our invitation later than others and are grateful for this. We might have received our invitation earlier than others and should be still grateful that we are saved.
There was nothing the workers could do but wait to be hired. It is the same with our salvation. There is nothing we could do to be saved. Isn't it enough that we are saved as well as countless others?
