18th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 20
Matthew 20:1-16
"Grace"
1* ¶ "For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
2* After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.
3* And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place;
4* and to them he said, ’You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went.
5* Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same.
6* 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?’
7* They said to him, ’Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ’You go into the vineyard too.’
8* And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ’Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’
9* And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius.
10* Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius.
11* And on receiving it they grumbled at the householder,
12* 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.’
13* But he replied to one of them, ’Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius?
14* Take what belongs to you, and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you.
15* Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’
16* So the last will be first, and the first last."RSV
Grace and Peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the Christ. Amen
As you heard the gospel lesson being read this morning, it the feeling of unfairness come into your mind and soul. Did you say to yourself, that farmer was being unfair, paying each person the same wage for different hours of work.
Pastor Steven Simala Grant says this about his childhood:
Growing up with an older sibling, one of the frequent cries out of my mouth was one some of you parents hear on a daily basis: "no fair!" You know, "How come he gets to stay up later? How come he gets to choose what to watch on TV? How come he gets to be in charge when we are home alone? How come we have to share the last piece of cake?" The most frequent, and least satisfying, response I heard to my heartfelt cries against the grave injustice I experienced was: "You’re right. It isn’t fair. Neither is life, so be quiet and live with it." The most Solomon like response was to the sharing the piece of cake complaint &endash; my mom always made one of us split it and then the other one got to choose which piece they wanted.1
At first blush, this story seems to be unfair. Let us look at it more closely:
In Jesus’ day, those who wanted to work, would be in the market place ready for someone to come and hire them. It was not unusual for a farmer, landlord, to go and find help for the harvest of his vineyards. So, early in the morning, he goes to the market place and hires some workers for the day. Notice what he tells them, the text says: "After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into the vineyard." They had agreed upon a wage for a day’s work. It was a fair wage, a common wage for that day, a just wage.
But then the third hour, 9 o’clock, he goes back to the market place and sees some more men still waiting to be hired. He says to these men,"’You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went." He does this again the 6th hour, 12:00 noon, and the ninth hour, 3:00 in the afternoon, and even at 5:00, the last working hour he goes to the market place and hires workers to work in his fields.
Please, please, notice an important point here with these men, the householder tells them he will pay them whatever is right, they trust him and go into the fields. They do not know how much they will receive. They go, they trust.
At 6:00, work was over, the foreman calls the workers together and begins to pay them. But a strange thing happens, he begins with the ones hired at 5:00, and he pays them a denarii for their hour work, the agreed upon price for a whole day’s work. Each worker comes and receives his pay. The ones hired at 3:00pm, at 12:00, noon, at 9:00am and at 6:00am all receive a denarii. Those hired at 6:00 am, when their turn came, hoped they would receive more, because they worked the hardest, they had been in the field the longest, working under the hot sun all day long, but, they also received the agreed upon price for their labors, a denarii.
They grumbled at the householder 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." This wasn’t fair, this wasn’t just. They worked harder and longer than the johnnie-come-latlies, they deserved more money.
But the householder turned to them saying, "Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for us denarius? Take what belongs to you, and go;" The householder was saying, "We agreed upon the wage you would receive for a whole day’s work. You agreed, it is an honest and just wage, so don’t complain. I did not cheat you, I paid you the agreed upon wage!!"
The final statement of the householder sums up his feelings and thoughts about this matter. He says: "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?"
The key for understanding this parable lies in the first verse where Jesus says: "FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN". For the kingdom of heaven that is the key, we are not speaking about things of this earth, we are speaking about the kingdom of heaven, we are speaking about God, and there, things are different. This parable speaks about the way of God with human beings, not the way of human beings with other human beings. This parable is about God, period. This parable speaks about God in many different ways.
Here is the simple truth: since we have rebelled against God, the only thing we deserve is death and separation from God. Everything else &endash; absolutely everything else &endash; is a generous, pure gift from God, of which we are to be good stewards. It is grace.2
This parable is not about how to run a business. It is not so much about how we are to treat each other, but it is mainly a parable about how God through Christ treats us. He treats us with grace, period. No matter when we allow the grace of God into our lives, it is there in its fullness. If we allow that grace come on our death bed, it is still the same grace that some allowed into their lives at the age of 10. Grace is Grace, period.
Jesus was addressing not only His disciples as He told this parable, but also the Pharisees, who had gotten the notion that the kingdom of heaven was their possession. As Richard Hoefler says in his book "The Divine Trap" on pg. 79 saying:
"The Pharisees had forgotten this. The kingdom of God belongs to God, period. Jesus met them head on. He said in effect,"You are good men. Right? Everybody knows this and respects you for it. That is the wage you bargained for. That is what God gives you. As for these others, the sinners and the poor, they have their own unique relationship with God. He will do with them as he wants, for you are all only workers in His vineyard. And of this vineyard, God is master. He has absolute authority to establish wages, and pay rewards according to His will and His will alone."
But, aren’t we the modern day Pharisees by saying, "How can a person on their death bed receive the same rewards of heaven as me who has been working with Jesus my whole life?" or, "How can that bum be allowed in the church, he smells bad, looks bad, surely he cannot be a believer?" or, "How can that person maintain, he is a believer when he shows no fruits of his faith, he is poor, there is trouble in his life, and he is even deaf. Surely God wants something more for his kingdom!!!"
We want God to be just, righteous, fair, by our standards. God has to judge the way we do. But if God really did what we want him to do, think about what would happen??
Michael Sherer says this about a just God on pg. 51 in his book, "And God Said....Yes!!",
"A just God would have started over or just folded up creation and gone fishing."
A pastor to be wrote:
I left work early so I could have some uninterrupted study time right before the final in my Youth Issues class. When I got to class, everybody was doing their last minute studying. The teacher came in and said he would review with us for just a little bit before the test. We went through the review, most of it right on the study guide, but there were some things he was reviewing that I had never heard of. When questioned about it, he said that they were in the book and we were responsible for everything in the book. We couldn’t really argue with that.
Finally it was time to take the test.
"Leave them face down on the desk until everyone has one and I’ll tell you to start," our Prof instructed.
When we turned them over, every answer on the test was filled in! The bottom of the last page said the following:
"This is the end of the Final Exam. All the answers on your test are correct. You will receive an ’A’ on the final exam. The reason you passed the test is because the creator of the test took it for you. All the work you did in preparation for this test did not help you get the A. You have just experienced...grace."
He then went around the room and asked each student individually, "What is your grade? Do you deserve the grade you are receiving? How much did all your studying for this exam help you achieve your final grade?"
Now I am not a crier by any stretch of the imagination, but I had to fight back tears when answering those questions and thinking about how the Creator has passed the test for me.
Discussion afterward went like this: "I have tried to teach you all semester that you are a recipient of grace. I’ve tried to communicate to you that you need to demonstrate this gift as you work with young people. Don’t hammer them; they are not the enemy. Help them, for they will carry on your ministry if it is full of GRACE!"
Talking about how some of us had probably studied hours and some just a few minutes but had all received the same grade, he pointed to a story Jesus told in Matthew 20. The owner of a vineyard hired people to work in his field and agreed to pay them a certain amount. Several different times during the day, he hired more workers. When it was time to pay them, they all received the same amount. When the ones who had been hired first thing in the morning began complaining, the boss said, "Should you be angry because I am kind?" (Matthew 20:15).
The teacher said he had never done this kind of final before and probably would never do it again, but because of the content of many of our class discussions, he felt like we needed to experience grace.
Have you thanked your Creator today because of the grace you have experienced?
Remember the first verse of this story of the laborers and the owner
"For the kingdom of heaven is like a"
The kingdom of Heaven is different that the kingdom of this earth, in the kingdom of heaven grace is given freely and unexpected to all, the deserving and the undeserving.
Amen
Written by Pastor Tim Zingale September 12, 2005
1 2 Pastor Steven Simala Grant Sermon found onwww.sermoncentral.com
3 SOURCE: MikeysFunnies.com. This happened 04/30/02 in a youth ministry class at Hannibal-LaGrange College.
Contributed by: www.sermoncentral.com
