Sermon text: Matthew 20:1-16
I have a question. Who was it that decided to name the parables? I mean, I know there’s nothing official about the names that have been given to these stories of Jesus, but my goodness whoever decided what they would be called did a really horrible job of it.
Truly, they did and we, at least in part because of these bad titles, have been misunderstanding Jesus’ intent in these stories ever since. Probably the best (worst?) example is the Prodigal Son. Given that the parable is really about both sons and both of their interactions with their father, it’s title should be more about dad than the one kid. The father is the unifying the element of the story and it is his actions that Jesus wants us to understand the most. But, instead, we’ve always thought this to be the son’s story because of that title someone somewhere slapped onto this parable.
Tonight’s parable from the Gospel of Matthew is another example of this horrid misnaming. This story is known as the parable of “the workers in the vineyard.” And again, it’s not about them. They’re not all that important to the story. Jesus isn’t telling this tale to talk about them and how they act or what they think or what they believe. Instead, he really wants us to look the landowner himself, what he does, and why he does it.
So, tonight’s message comes to us from the parable of the generous landowner. There! That’s much better.
This is one of a handful of parables that only Matthew records for us and it fits in large part with some larger themes in his Gospel. Matthew is the only Gospel that is specifically and deliberately addressed to what we might call the “first Christians,” those people of the Jewish faith who have become disciples of Jesus and converted to Christianity.
Like so many people of all stripes, these folks carry with them their prejudices and their privileges. (We today are certainly guilty of similar biases.) Matthew makes a strong argument throughout his Gospel that their place as the first to hear Jesus’ message gives them no special standing. Elsewhere in his Gospel, Matthew points out that “rain falls on the just and the unjust,” that Jesus calls “tax collectors and sinners” to be a part of his kingdom, and here in this parable he records that Jesus tells a tale where the last and least of the kingdom receive the same reward as everyone else.
How dare he!
When you really think about this though, it’s really unfair. Come on. Isn’t God good? Isn’t God determined to rid the world of sin and evil? Why then doesn’t he do something about it? How dare he! You mean I, who have been a Christian all my life, who have done my best to live a moral and upright life, am going to be hobnobbing in heaven with those horrible sinners who waited until the last minute to repent of their evil (and maybe not even then)? I’m a good person. How dare he save the bad and the rotten along with me? You mean I potentially get to stand side by side before God’s throne with Nazis, and ISIS soldiers, and that high school bully that I still despise all these years later?
Yep, that’s exactly what it means.
When Jesus tells the truth of God’s kingdom, he usually ends up offending people in some way. He unsettles the Pharisees all the time, but we don’t mind that since we’re not them (or so we think.) But this parable offends EVERYBODY.
The landowner’s question to the angry workers then becomes Jesus’ question to us. “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” God is generous, extravagantly so. But the piece we always miss is how much we benefit from that.
The simple fact of the matter is too often, when we read this parable, we presume (for a whole variety of reasons) that we are the laborers who started the work at the beginning of the day, when the truth is we’re those who’ve only worked the last hour. In terms of history, there are a hundred generations of Christians who have come before us. In terms of morality, there are many who do a far better job at this whole Christian thing than we do. In our own analysis, we love to overlook or excuse our own sins while condemning others for theirs. We often presume in our own arrogance a place of primacy that we do not deserve.
But in the end, it’s not about morality or time or dedication or church attendance or piety or anything else that we use to puff up our spiritual bona fides. It is not our delusions of grandeur that win for us the kingdom of God. It is the generosity of the one who holds salvation in his hand. Heaven is God’s alone to grant. He is the one who chooses who’s in and who’s out and, if this parable is any indication, his choice is far more expansive and generous than we could ever realize.
God chooses to be generous. In the end, if we look at things from his perspective, we see that is good and that is fair. Justice is about equality and fairness and when God looks out over the vast sea of humanity what he sees is a whole lot of desperate sinful hurting people. Some worse than others, but none of us perfect or whole. All of us prone to mistake and vice in some way. And if God holds one to account for their sins, he must hold all to account.
But that’s not the path God chooses. He chooses instead the path of grace and forgiveness, the path of generosity. Rain falls on the just and the unjust and all are paid the usual daily wage because of this. This is extravagant grace at work. God’s choice. God’s decision. God’s generous giving of his gifts and blessing to all. We who come late to this party, we who have done only a fraction of what others have done, we are those who benefit. Heaven is ours because God chooses it to be ours. That is grace. Amen.
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