Amazing Grace: The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

Matthew 19.27-20.16

Amazing Grace: The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

Geoff Colmer

Sermon preached at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone Covenant Renewal service, 18 September 2011

Amazing Grace is a very popular hymn, the favourite in the USA. Because of its popularity, familiarity, maybe our understanding of grace has lost something of its cutting edge. If that’s the case there’s nothing like the parable of the labourers in the vineyard to give us a jolt. In a vivid and even abrasive story, the radical and offensive nature of grace is depicted, inevitably leaving the hearer saying, ‘But that’s just not fair’ and maybe having some sympathy for those who’d worked all day.

The setting would have been a familiar one. It was about a vineyard and there were lots of vineyards in Israel. Israel herself was referred to as a vineyard in the Old Testament, Isaiah 5.7, ‘The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the house of Israel’.

And it was the harvest season. Because storms could ruin a crop there was a race against time. Many labourers were employed on a casual basis. They were like the migrant workers we have in our own country, without regular jobs and dependent on others for any sort of employment. The wage was typical if not generous for a twelve hour day’s unskilled labour. But those looking for work were often desperate and so they would wait even until 5 o’clock on the off-chance that there might be some work for even an hour or so.

When the vineyard owner arrives, he chooses some of those assembled for work. Just for the sake of illustration, let’s say that thirty labourers are there, and he chooses six and agrees to pay them the going wage. As an aside, there is an injustice of sorts done here, because out of thirty only six are hired. Yet there is no word of protest from those who are chosen at this point. They are more than pleased to have a whole day’s work ahead of them and the promise of payment.

The vineyard owner returns at nine o’clock and finds labourers still standing there so he tells six more of them to go to his vineyard and promises to pay them whatever is right. At twelve noon he does the same and also at three o’clock in the afternoon. At five o’clock with just one hour left there are still six labourers standing there, hoping against hope to get some work so that they can put something on the table. The vineyard owner asks, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They reply, ‘Because no-one has hired us.’ ‘You also go into the vineyard.’

I want you to notice that at this point everyone is partially satisfied. Everyone had received at least a portion of what he had wanted at the start of the day. No one was going away empty-handed.

Then at the end of the day, the owner says to his manager, ‘Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those who have worked just one hour are paid they discover to their astonishment that they are given the wage for a full day. When those who came at three, at noon, at nine, and at six are paid, they are given the same amount. And it’s at this point that there’s trouble. ‘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.’

The vineyard owner doesn’t hide behind his manager and let someone else clear up the trouble. Instead, he says, ‘Friend’, and that’s an interesting word when used by Jesus like this. ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

So let’s have a rain-check - how do we feel? I’m tempted to ask who thinks the owner was fair, and who thinks he wasn’t fair. It’s a natural reaction. Surely if the world operated like this people would sleep in, arrive late, and get paid for the whole day. The whole ‘equal pay for equal work’ principle would come unstuck. But it’s to miss the point, and to miss the question, which is, ‘What is the kingdom of heaven like? What is God like?’ Does he give us what we we’re due, what we deserve, what we earn? Or does he treat us in a manner which is of a completely different order? Such as gift, or as we call it, grace?

Jewish Parable

At the beginning of Jesus's parable we are told that this is what the king of heaven is like. And we know from the whole of Jesus's teaching that the king of heaven is in fact a very peculiar kingdom to our way of thinking. It is an upside-down kingdom. It sets the established order on it head. It constantly challenges our assumptions. And what God’s kingdom is like is a mirror of what God is like.

And the word that describes it is grace. But the fact is that our world doesn’t operate on grace. Instead, we are so used to things coming to us on the basis of merit, because we have worked hard and long and in tough conditions, and because we deserve them. And to show how deeply this is ingrained, if you don’t believe me just ask yourself how easily you receive something without having to pay for it, a gift, a favour, a compliment.

But God doesn’t operate like this. In his kingdom he gives us not what we deserve. This is called mercy. And on the contrary God gives us what we don’t deserve, forgiveness, acceptance, a relationship with him. This is called grace. And he gives us his grace in abundance. Ephesians 2.1-10. CS Lewis, ‘extravagant generosity’.

This means that we’re all on the same level. All are equally undeserving. There are no rankings. There is no first and last. No one can claim privileged status or special membership of the kingdom of heaven. In relation to God it does us no good to say, ‘My parents were Christians’, ‘I lead a good life’, ‘I’ve always gone to church’, ‘I’ve been a Church Officer for more years than I can remember’, ‘I’m a Baptist Minister’, ‘I’m a Regional Minister’.

Our personal connections don’t do it. And our worthy achievements, all that we do for God, doesn’t do it. God isn’t overly impressed, it doesn’t win his approval. The king of heaven, knowing God, begins with him, and his generosity to everyone.

God’s grace isn’t the sort of thing you bargain with, or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person has a lot of and someone else only a small amount. And actually the point of the story is that what people get from serving God and his kingdom, isn’t a ‘wage’ at all. It’s not a reward for work done. God doesn’t enter into contracts with us, as if we could negotiate a better deal. God makes covenants, in which he promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When he keeps his promises - which is what he does - he isn’t so much rewarding us, as doing what comes naturally from his extravagantly generous nature. And this is what you celebrate today on your Covenant Sunday. You make covenant with each other but only because God out of grace has made covenant with you.

This story wouldn’t have gone down a bundle with the Pharisees who were contemptuous of the common people. It wouldn’t have gone down brilliantly with the Jews in general. They’d spent two millennia punctiliously trying to keep the law and the thought of despised Gentiles welcomed on equal terms to them – not on your life.

But then maybe this parable wasn’t so much for them, as for the disciples themselves, and disciples in subsequent generations, you and me.

If you go back to the end of the previous chapter Jesus says to the disciples, Matthew 19.30. It may have seemed that ‘the first’ were the rich and powerful, whereas ‘the last’ meant the disciples themselves. However, that saying was part of the answer to Peter after his self-centred question in v. 27. It’s possible that Jesus is intending this saying about first and last, to be a warning to the disciples themselves. ‘Don’t think that because you’ve been close to me so far, you are now the favoured few for all time.’

In this parable Jesus warns them, and us, that they may have set out with him from the beginning, but others may come in much later and end up getting paid just the same, the regular daily wage.

In both Jesus's parable and the other one, some individuals had nothing, were undeserving, knew themselves to be powerless, and then grace erupted in their lives. As long as they focused on what had been given to them, they were filled with joy. However, as soon as they made comparisons with someone else, their joy was turned to bitterness. They didn’t have a problem with grace, they had a problem with grace shown to others.

It’s been said, ‘If you want to be miserable, compare what you have to someone else.’ Invariably there will be someone who has done better than you for some reason or the other.

For some people, the very notion of grace is a scandal, an offence. But for other people, the fact that grace is shown to others makes it ten times worse.

We can all too easily assume that we are the special ones, God’s inner circle. The fact is that God is out there in the marketplace, looking for the people nobody wants, and who everybody else tries not to hire, welcoming them on the very same terms and surprising them with his extravagant generosity. Who are they? – the very people who maybe you would rather not see in Christ the Cornerstone. And sometimes it’s hard to stomach. ‘Look we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have.’ Matthew 19.27.

This parable is a challenge to us because although we speak and sing frequently of grace, we lose sight of just how radical, how scandalous it is. Instead we domesticate it, we make it manageable, and yet there is a wildness about God’s grace to us his people, and God’s grace to those not yet his people. ‘Radical grace has most often been too radical for most Christians. We most often put conditions on God’s grace: God accepts you if … And whenever an “if” clause is added, grace becomes conditional and ceases to be grace.’

On this Covenant Sunday, let’s celebrate the grace of God for ourselves, and especially as we covenant together in our vision of unity. But let’s make sure that the vision of unity doesn’t become such a preoccupation that we fail to give ourselves to the wider vision and to have eyes to see where God’s grace is breaking out in unlikely places, among unlikely people.