I might be making progress on the parable that is really tough for a lot of Americans: “The Laborers in the Vineyard” of Matthew 20.1 – 16. You know how it starts:

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. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. (Matthew 20.1, 2, ESV)

The first thing I did was to convert “a denarius” into today’s dollars. All the footnotes say that a denarius was a day’s wage for a laborer. And the working day in this parable was 12 hours. So let’s say $10/hour x 12 hours = $120.00. And you know what happened. The master went out at 9am, noon, 3pm, and 5pm and hired more workers. Then this:

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. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. (Matthew 20.8 – 10, ESV)

Of course, this is where it breaks down for many of us. We think the last guys should have received $10, then $30 for the 3pm guys, $60 for the ones at noon, $90 for the 9am guys, and $120 for the original 6am workers. That would be “fair.”

So what’s the point? Let’s go back through it. What did Jesus say?

• The Kingdom of Heaven is like a master who needed laborers. That sounds a bit like, “The harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few.” (Matthew 9.37)
• Some folks jumped into the fray early and worked hard all day. These would be the original twelve disciples.
• Then others joined later, some much later. Of course, it’s just a story, but we have to ask, “Where were the latecomers at 6am?” The ones at 5pm who said, “No one has hired us” could have been out goofing off all day and just went to the pickup place near the end of the day so they could tell their wives, “We were there, but no one hired us!”
• Therefore, we have to conclude it’s yet another picture of grace. It’s hard for us to get past a merit mentality. It was hard for people in Jesus’ day too. This parable is preceded by:
  • The children: “The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19.14) But what had they DONE?
  • The rich young ruler: “What must I DO to inherit eternal life?” (Matthew 19.16)
  • The disciples who had just asked, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” (Matthew 19.27) Look how much we have DONE and GIVEN UP!

So what did the early birds get that the latecomers didn’t, if not more money? The joy of meaningful work. I might say more about that in a subsequent blog.

Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. (Ephesians 2.8 – 10, MSG)