Matthew 20:1-16
J. J.
May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts, be acceptable in Thy sight,
O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. (Ps. 19:14)
“All in a day’s work”
There was a cobbler who lived in a small town. He was good at making shoes, and made them for all the people of the village. One day, a shoe factory came to town. The big factory hired many people, and they worked for the factory and they made shoes. The cobbler did not go to work for the factory. But he saw the kind of shoes it was making. He said, “I know how to make those shoes. I can do that.” He heard that the factory was paying nice wages to the people who worked there, and it had a good pension plan, too.
The cobbler wanted the nice wages and the retirement, but he did not go to the factory to work. Instead, he got busy in his shop. He made shoes just like the factory shoes. Boxes and boxes and boxes of shoes. When he had made many shoes, he loaded them all up, and he went to the factory with his shoes. He showed them to the owner of the factory. “See all of these shoes I have made for you. Now pay me the wages and enroll me in your retirement plan.” The owner said, “These are good shoes. You may have thought you were making them for me, but you were not on my team. I did not ask you to make these. I do not owe you anything.” The cobbler was angry, but he was speechless. So he gathered up all his shoes and went back to his shop.
Jesus told a story about workers to his disciples. But instead of working in shoe factory, they worked in a vineyard. The owner of the winery went and hired worker in the morning, to harvest the grapes. They agreed to work for $100, about $12.00 an hour. They were busy, but he needed more workers. So he went to town and found more workers. The day was already moving on, so he told them, I will pay you what is fair. These workers came and worked in the grapes, too. Now, it was after 4 o’clock, but there were still more grapes to be picked, and they needed to be picked today. So the owner found more workers. “Why are you drinking coffee and playing cards?” he asked. “Because no one has given us a job.” “Jump in your trucks and get up to my vineyard.” And they did.
Now, it was quitting time. He had his office secretary to pay all the workers, and to start with the card sharks. To each of those coffee drinkers the secretary handed a Benjamin, One Hundred Dollars. They were surprised and joyful. The lunchtime workers were next in line, and for them, too, a Franklin. “He promised to pay us what was fair, this,” they said to one another, “is more than fair.” Now the breakfast crew had seen what was happening. They thought, “It must be a bumper crop. Surely there will be a bonus for us, since we have been here all the live long day.” But when it was their turn, the secretary peeled off one, exactly one, crisp, clean hundred dollar bill.
“What?,” they complained. “Only a hundred. We have done more work. We deserve more. You have treated them equal to us.” “You did agree to work for a hundred dollars, didn’t you? I have done you no wrong. Take your money and go.”
What was the problem for the shoemaker? Did he not make enough shoes, or good enough shoes? No, he had many shoes, and even the factory owner said they were good shoes. But he wanted to do it his own way. The cobbler was not part of the factory team. Sometimes we want to cobble together our own deal with God. We want to stay in our own shop, our own world. Live life our own way. It’s a deal that looks fair to us. But it’s not the deal that God has offered. God is God, and He comes to us on His terms, not ours. Someone which said to me that he was just going to try his best, and that he thought that should be good enough. I told him that when he builds his own heaven, then he can make his own rules. But if he wants to go to God’s heaven, then it’s God’s rules.
What was the problem for the early workers? They were focused on the wrong things. First, they were focused on themselves and what they had done. They missed the fact that the owner had come to them, the He had hired them, and that it was because they had been hired and were in His vineyard that they were being paid. We see the answer in the coffee drinkers. What did they say as to why they were just hanging out? “No one has hired us, no one has given us a job.” Likewise, at pay time, what did the owner say, “I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you.”
Their pay was actually the result of the generosity and giving of the vineyard owner. He paid them, and the lunch time crew and the card players, not because of what they did, but because they were on his team. As Christians, we have work to do, but we do not work to get into the kingdom of God. We work because we are already in the kingdom, we are on God’s team. The early workers forgot this. They did not focus on what the owner had done for them.
We can lose sight of what God has done for us. How Christ has born our sin, our punishment. He did not say, “Take what is yours – our sin, our wreckedness, our death – and go.” He said, “Let me take what is yours, I will bear your load,give you what is Mine, and you come to Me.” The vineyard owner kept his promise to the early workers. He paid them exactly as he promised. Christ keeps His promises to us.
But the workers did not focus of the promise of the owner. They focused on the other workers. They compared themselves to them, what they had done to what the others had done and not done. Now, it was not “fair.” Ever hear someone say, “I don’t see how they could make it heaven, what all they did.” Or, “God, it’s just not fair,” after something untoward has occurred. Perhaps you have heard those words from your own lips. Yet, is fairness what we really want? It’s certainly not what we need. We need the generosity of Christ, lest too, we hear on that Last Day, “Take what is yours and go away.”
As Christian we have work to do. Not work to get into the kingdom, but work because we are citizen of Christ’s kingdom. What is that work? Ordinary things. Making shoes, picking grapes, cooking supper, mowing lawns, washing cars, brushing our teeth, and doing homework. Doing whatever God has put before us to do. Because we are part of the best, the winning-est team ever.
For Christ has died. Christ is risen. And Christ shall come again. Amen.
S. D. G.
