We throw the word “scandal” around a lot in our culture today so just for the fun of it I Googled that term earlier this week and, not surprisingly, got a number of hits on recent events that have been labeled scandals by the news media – the IRS scandal, the Benghazi scandal, the “Fast and Furious” scandal and of course the latest scandal involving Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey that has been labeled “Bridgegate” by most and “Fat and Furious” by at least one commentator. I guess the best way to tell if something is truly a scandal is to see if someone has coined a term that ends with “gate.”
So perhaps I should have titled my message this morning “Gracegate”. But I decided instead to stick with “The Scandal of Grace.” In his book What’s So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey wrote these words about grace:
Grace does not excuse wrong, but it treasures the wrongdoer. True grace is shocking, scandalous. It shakes our conventions with insistence on getting close to evil and touching it with mercy and hope. It forgives the unfaithful spouse, the racist, the child abuser. It loves today’s AIDS-ridden addict as much as the tax collector of Jesus’ day.
True grace is indeed shocking and scandalous and the parable that we’re going to look at this morning demonstrates that quite well because the parable itself is quite shocking and scandalous. I’m going to warn you right now that most of you really aren’t going to like this parable because it offends our sense of fairness. Perhaps that is why this seems to be among the most ignored of all Jesus’ parables.
In order to get a proper understanding of this parable, we need to place it in its proper context so go ahead and turn to Matthew chapter 19. There we will find the account of the event that occurs just prior to Jesus telling the parable that will be the focus of the message this morning.
Beginning in verse 16, we see that the rich young ruler had just refused to follow Jesus because he wasn’t willing to give up his material riches and Jesus had just commented on how difficult it was for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. This apparently caught the disciples off guard, so, as he often did Peter spoke up and asked a question on behalf of the entire group:
Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”
(Matthew 19:27, ESV)
In essence the disciples were saying to Jesus, “We’ve followed you from the beginning. We’ve remained faithful to you even when others have turned away. What’s in it for us?” And if we’re honest, most of us have probably asked a similar question from time to time. I’m going to come back to Jesus’ answer to that question a little later as we look at the parable. But for now let’s skip ahead and look at the event that occurs right after Jesus tells the parable.
Turn over to Matthew chapter 20. Beginning in verse 20, we find the account of the mother of James and John who come to Jesus to ask Him to give her sons a place of prominence in His kingdom. We read this account today nearly 2,000 years after it occurs and because we can see the big picture much better, we bristle at what this woman was asking for. But again, in light of the values of this world what she is asking for isn’t all that outlandish. Her sons have been faithful to Jesus and she just wants them to be rewarded for their faithfulness.
It is between these two events where Jesus’ followers are asking to be rewarded for their faithfulness that Jesus tells the parable that is the subject of today’s message. As I think you’ll see this is one of those places where the Bible translators have probably put the chapter break in the wrong place, so I’m going to begin reading this morning in Matthew chapter 19, verse 30.
Here’s how I’m going to approach this passage this morning. We’ll read a few verses at a time and I’ll make a few comments on each section of the parable that will provide us with some needed background. Then we’ll draw some conclusions about why grace is in fact a scandal. And finally we’ll close by looking at some implications for our lives.
But many who are first will be last, and the last first. “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
(Matthew 19:30-20:1, ESV)
We need to keep in mind that this is a parable about the kingdom of heaven. This parable is not about business practices or workers rights. Jesus is describing how His kingdom operates and more particularly how grace operates. We can’t take this parable out of that context and try and use it for some other purpose.
After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’
(Matthew 20:2-7, ESV)
The situation in Israel in the time of Jesus wasn’t all that different than you might find if you went down to South Tucson today. There were a group of day laborers who would gather each day in hope that one of the landowners in the area would need some help in their vineyards. These were certainly among the poorest and lowest class members of the community. They counted on being hired to work each day just to earn enough to feed their families.
So when the landowner came along and offered the first group of workers a denarius to work a 12 hour day, they quickly agreed to those terms. A denarius was the amount that a Roman soldier was paid for one day’s work. Being a Roman soldier was not the most glorious or prestigious job but it was certainly higher up the social ladder than being a day laborer. So the landowner’s offer was quite generous.
The landowner came back three hours later and hired another group of workers and offered to pay them “whatever was right.” Having observed the generosity of the landowner earlier, they, too, quickly agreed to work the rest of the day, trusting that the landowner would pay them fairly. The same thing happened again six hours and nine hours into the 12 hour workday.
Finally an hour before quitting time the landowner found some workers still waiting to be hired. Notice that with these workers there is no agreement at all concerning their pay, but these men were so desperate to earn whatever they could in order to provide for their families that they just trusted in the generosity of the landowner as well. You’ll also note that the reason these men are still in the marketplace is not because they are lazy. In fact, they have been persistent enough to remain there figuring even an hour’s work would help provide for their family.
So far there is really nothing scandalous going on here. The landowner has hired whatever workers he needed and agreed to pay them at the end of the day. That was the common practice in Palestine in the first century. But the story is about to take a surprising turn.
And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius.
(Matthew 20:8-9, ESV)
We learn for the first time that the landowner has a foreman. While this in itself is not remarkable, what is surprising is that the landowner hadn’t earlier sent his foreman in to the marketplace to hire the workers. He had done the hiring himself.
Because of the fact that these men were depending on their pay to meet the immediate needs of their families, the Jewish law required that these workers be paid at the end of the work day rather than having to wait until pay day:
“You shall not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and counts on it), lest he cry against you to the Lord, and you be guilty of sin.
(Deuteronomy 24:14-15, ESV)
But as he begins to pay the workers, the foreman does something very unusual and he pays the last men hired first. What is even more shocking is that these men receive a denarius, the same amount the landowner had promised to the men who had worked the entire 12 hour day.
When all the other workers saw the generosity of the master, they obviously figured that this was really good news for them, because certainly they were going to get much more than a denarius for their work. In fact, Jesus reveals to us that is their mindset as He continues with the parable.
Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘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.’
(Matthew 20:10-12, ESV)
Here is the “scandal” in this parable and the reason that frankly most of us probably really don’t like it. I’m pretty sure that most of us not only identify with the workers who worked all day, but we’re eager to jump in and support their cause. Why should the workers who only worked 1/12 of the time they worked get the same pay? They had labored in the fields during the scorching heat of the day and these other guys had only worked for an hour in the cool of twilight. And yet they received exactly the same pay. We want to shout, “That’s not fair.”
But as Jesus brings the parable to a close He encourages His listeners to see this situation from a different perspective.
But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last.”
(Matthew 20:13-16, ESV)
When the master addresses one of the workers with the word “friend”, he uses a term that doesn’t indicate that he had some kind of relationship with the man. The word that he uses would be similar to using the word “buddy” or “dude” today when addressing someone that we don’t really know.
The master points out that the workers who had worked all day got exactly what they were promised – a generous wage for their work. They had not been cheated in any way. They only felt like they had been cheated when they saw what the others had received.
Since the landowner owned the vineyard and the money he used to pay the workers was his, he had the right to determine how much to give to each worker. And his choice was to make all the workers equal regardless of how much they had worked.
The first group of workers knew from the beginning that the landowner was generous, and that was fine as long as he was generous with them. But when he was even more generous with the others, instead of thinking about what they did have, they began to focus on what they felt they should have received in comparison to what the others had received. To them that was a scandal.
While it is true that the other workers had done nothing to deserve the amount of pay they received, it was also true that this first group of workers had done nothing to deserve their job. But by focusing on what the others had received they lost sight of how they had been blessed by finding work that would allow them to feed their families.
This parable reveals the scandalous nature of God’s grace. So let’s take a few minutes to summarize…
WHY GRACE IS SCANDALOUS
1. Grace gives us what we need, not what we deserve
The first group of workers was focused on what they thought they deserved. If the last group of workers worked only one hour and received a denarius, then it followed that they deserved 12 of those coins – I’m not sure if the proper term is 12 denariuses or 12 denarii. And even those workers who had only worked a part day – anywhere from 3 to 9 hours – figured they deserved more than the workers who had only worked for an hour.
But the landowner, who represents God in this parable, wasn’t focused on what those workers deserved. He was focused on what they needed. And all the workers had the very same need – enough money to support their family for one day. And that is exactly what one denarius provided for every one of those workers. So that is what the landowner provided for each worker without regard to what they had earned or what they deserved.
And that is exactly the way God’s grace works in His kingdom. Certainly not everyone deserves His grace. Even though from our perspective it seems like some people deserve it more than others, the truth of the matter is that no one deserves God’s grace.
But obviously everyone needs it. So Jesus has made that grace available equally to all by laying down His life to purchase that grace on our behalf. Although that grace costs us nothing and we do nothing to deserve it, it cost Jesus everything.
And certainly in light of our culture, this idea that grace gives us what we need rather than what we deserve is a scandal because it flies in the face of the conventional thinking of our culture.
Richard Brand, a Presbyterian Minister who writes a monthly column for the Huffington Post, authored a column last February titled “What Do We ‘Deserve’”. In that column he enumerates many of the ways that our culture leads us to believe that we deserve certain things – everything from the tax preparation company that promises to “get back all the money we deserve” to the fast food commercials that tell us “we deserve a break” to the students who believe they deserve good grades just because they showed up to take the test.
I know that Brand didn’t particularly have this parable in mind, but his conclusion in that column is certainly a fitting commentary on it:
The idea that we are entitled, that we deserve what we get, that we deserve even more than what we have already has a horrible impact on our ability to be grateful and thankful for what we have been given.
I want to ask you to read those words again and apply them to God’s grace in your life. And as you do that I want you to consider whether you’ve forgotten the scandalous nature of God’s grace to the point where you are no longer grateful and thankful for what God has given to you. Or perhaps you have never accepted that grace in your life because you feel like you don’t deserve it or haven’t earned it. But if you could earn it, it wouldn’t be grace.
So first of all, God’s grace is scandalous because it give us what we need, not what we deserve. Secondly it is scandalous because…
2. Grace makes us all equal
Every spring the Amphitheater School District holds a track meet for 4th and 5th grade students throughout the district that is called the “Everybody Wins” track meet. So everyone who competes gets the same ribbon and certificate that documents their participation.
However, I have to tell you that based on my own observation of a few of those track meets and what I’ve learned from Mary, even though the meet is billed as “everyone wins”, the kids certainly know that isn’t really the case. Let’s face it, if you’re going to hold a race, everyone knows that only one person finishes first and that correspondingly there is also one person who finishes last.
And certainly much of the recent attention on income inequality in our country makes it clear that economically not everyone is equal either.
My point in bringing up these examples is not to argue about whether these inequalities are right or wrong, but merely to remind us that they are a fact of life here on earth. And while we talk a lot about “equal rights”, I think we would all agree that equality always has some qualifiers. For instance, the first group of workers in our parable would be very happy to know that in 1963 the U.S. Congress passed the Equal Pay Act that requires that all employees receive equal pay based on equal work. But even that law limits the equality to those who do the same work but there is still the implication that some work has more value than other work and so not everyone is going to be paid equally.
But the economy of God’s kingdom works a little differently. You’ll notice that the complaint of the first group of workers in verse 12 was that the landowner had made those who had only worked one hour equal to them even though they had worked 12 hours. But the problem is that the first group of workers wasn’t satisfied with being equal with the others. They thought they deserved to be superior to the others. And as a result, they grumbled and complained.
There are two important spiritual implications that we can draw from the fact that the landowner made all the workers equal:
• First, God’s grace is made available equally to all. God doesn’t discriminate based on sex, race, social status, religion or any other factor. Everyone has an equal opportunity to obtain eternal life because it is given as a gift as a result of the working of God’s grace and not based on ability or performance in any way.
• Second, those who have accepted God’s grace are all equal in the eyes of God. In God’s eyes there are no separate classes of Christ followers. That doesn’t mean that we won’t receive different rewards or have different levels of responsibility within the kingdom of God, but it does mean that we all have equal standing in that kingdom. So in the kingdom of God we truly can say “everybody wins”.
God’s grace is scandalous because it gives us what we need, not what we deserve and because it makes us all equal. Finally it is scandalous because…
3. Grace is its own reward
Remember earlier I said I would come back to Jesus’ answer to Peter and the other disciples when they basically asked Jesus what reward they were going to get for being faithful to Him. We find that answer near the end of Matthew 19:
Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.
(Matthew 19:27-28, ESV)
We see here that there is clearly a future reward for the disciples. One day Jesus will put them in positions of authority in which they will judge the 12 tribes of Israel. But what is less apparent in Matthew’s account is that there is another reward. In order to see that more clearly, we need to look at Mark’s account of the same event:
Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.
(Mark 10:29-30, ESV)
Notice that there are two rewards that the disciples are going to receive. One is future – in “the age to come” they will experience the complete fulfillment of all aspects of eternal life. And as Matthew’s account indicates part of that reward in the future will be the authority to judge.
But there is also a reward that they are going to receive “now in this time” – a hundredfold return on their investment in the kingdom. Now obviously Jesus is not promising that they are going to literally receive 100 times more relatives and houses than they currently have. But in light of our parable that Jesus tells immediately after these words, what we can conclude is that we have a generous master who doesn’t wait until the end of the day to reward us.
You see that first group of workers had a reward that the last group of workers never received. They got to work side by side in the vineyard with the generous master all day long. But at the end of the day, they robbed themselves of the joy of that experience by focusing only on what they got paid at the end of the day and by comparing it to what everyone else received.
Again, grace is scandalous because it violates the norms of our culture. For most people, the main reward we receive from our work is the paycheck that we receive after we complete that work. But when it comes to God’s grace, living under that grace is its own reward. When we live in a grace-based relationship with Jesus we don’t have to wait until we die and go to heaven to get our reward.
That’s why the most joyful people I know are those who are in a vital relationship with Jesus in which they work side by side with Him each day to serve the needs of others. That work is not always easy. Sometimes we have to work through the burdens of the heat of the day. But even if we don’t get a tangible reward at the end of day, living under God’s grace is a reward in itself.
Why is grace scandalous? It is scandalous because…
1. Grace gives us what we need, not what we deserve
2. Grace makes us all equal
3. Grace is its own reward
So what does that mean for us? Most of the time I try to leave all of us with some practical ways to apply the message. But this week I’m going to enlist your help with that. You’ll notice that I’ve given you some space on your sermon outline to jot some ideas you might have about how to apply what we’ve learned today. Here’s what I want you to do with space.
In just a moment, the worship team is going to come up and we’re going to spend some time focusing on God’s scandalous grace. And then after that I’m going to give you some time to pray about how God might desire for you to apply what we learned today. And then I’m going to ask those of you who are willing to share some of those ideas before we close our time.
