Text: John 20:1-16
Date: October 4, 2020
Event: The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
Matthew 20:1–16 (EHV)
“Indeed the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing to pay the workers a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3He also went out about the third hour and saw others standing unemployed in the marketplace. 4To these he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will give you whatever is right.’ So they went. 5Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6When he went out about the eleventh hour, he found others standing unemployed. He said to them, ‘Why have you stood here all day unemployed?’
7“They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’
“He told them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8When it was evening, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last group and ending with the first.’
9“When those who were hired around the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius. 10When those who were hired first came, they thought they would receive more. But they each received a denarius too. 11After they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner: 12‘Those who were last worked one hour, and you made them equal to us who have endured the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’
13“But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not make an agreement with me for a denarius? 14Take what is yours and go. I want to give to the last one hired the same as I also gave to you. 15Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16In the same way, the last will be first, and the first, last.”
Rejoice in God’s Generosity!
Last week we briefly considered our personal or natural feelings toward justice. We figured that many (if not all) of us would typically rather see justice carried out for the wrongdoer who is not us and for mercy to be shown when we are the wrongdoer. But it’s not just justice and mercy; our selfish, sinful natures rear their ugly heads again when we consider generosity of any sort. We want someone to be generous to us, but if someone else doesn’t seem to “deserve” it, we’d rather they not be shown the same generosity.
Jesus is addressing that sentiment in our Gospel for this morning. To truly appreciate the point Jesus is making to his disciples (and to us) let’s back up a chapter and understand what has come just prior to our lesson. Starting in the middle of Matthew 19, a man asked Jesus what he needed to do to be able to enter eternal life. He felt like he had been good enough to enter heaven by his own deeds and wanted confirmation from Jesus. Jesus showed him where he was wrong, though. The man was rich and Jesus said that the only thing separating him from heaven was to give all of his possessions to the poor. Jesus wasn’t suggesting that the man could buy eternal life through charitable donations. He was showing the man that he wasn’t as perfect as he assumed. He went away “sad” because he didn’t want to give away his stuff. Jesus showed that the man actually loved the things of this world more than he loved God. Not only had he not kept all of the commandments, he clearly stumbled at the very first one as he loved money more than God!
Peter follows this conversation not long after with a question about himself and his fellow disciples. “Look, we have left everything and followed you! What then will we have?” (Matthew 19:27). Peter’s essentially saying, “Look, we don’t have anything here, but we want to be rewarded too! What bonus will we get because we’ve sacrificed to follow you, Jesus?” Peter, again, is misguided at best.
That question is really the lead-in to the parable before us. At it’s base, it’s pretty simple. A landowner hires a group of people to work in his vineyard, putting in a 12-hour day starting at 6am. They all agree to a denarius for compensation which (as we learned last week) was a standard day’s wage. The landowner goes out several more times during the day—at 9am, Noon, 3pm, and even at 5pm—to hire people to work in the vineyard until 6pm.
At the end of the day, the workers line up for their pay. The workers who only worked from 5-6pm each receive a denarius. Those who put in a 12-hour day see this and assume because they worked 12x longer than those people, that they will clearly get more. But, when they reach the one doling out the wages, they each receive a single denarius, the same as the people who worked for only one hour, but also exactly what they had agreed to receive from the landowner at the start of the day.
And here’s where we see the natural reaction towards selfishness take over. “It’s not fair!” the tired workers yell. “Those who were last worked one hour, and you made them equal to us who have endured the burden of the day and the scorching heat!” The landowner’s reaction shows his confusion to the sentiment and also directs the workers to reevaluate their thoughts: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not make an agreement with me for a denarius? 14Take what is yours and go. I want to give to the last one hired the same as I also gave to you. 15Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?”
“Are you envious because I am generous?” That question hits hard, doesn’t it? Because, yes, if someone seems to be getting preferential treatment or even equal treatment that we deem that they do not deserve, our natural reaction is to cry foul, to say, “This is not fair!” But it’s not really fairness or justice that we’re wrestling with in that moment—it’s envy and jealously. The problem isn’t so much that this person got something, it’s that I didn’t get that thing or I didn’t get something more.
I hope and pray that we do not take issue with someone who converts to Christianity on their death bed. I pray that we do not view God working faith in the heart of someone to trust in Jesus’ death in the last hours of their life as somehow unfair. I pray that a situation like that is cause for rejoicing—another person spared from the hell they deserve who then will enjoy eternal life with us! Praise the Lord!
Maybe the issue isn’t exactly that, but I do sense that we have a special struggle especially in the place where we live. More than many other places in our nation, we live among people and in a society that couldn’t care less about God, his Word, or his actions. And that can feel lonely and isolating, it can lead us to feel sad for them, but that sadness can also easily warp into a sense of entitlement and superiority. We might think, consciously or subconsciously, “These people around me are so misguided, so warped in their perception of reality. Good thing I know the truth about God—and that makes me better than them.”
And you see where we’ve crossed the line, right? Am I better than someone who hates God and everything to do with Jesus? No! If I feel that way, I don’t actually understand who I am by nature and what God has done for me. Without God, I’m on exactly the same footing as what society would call the “worst” of people. In God’s eyes, there is no difference between me and a serial killer, a rapist, or someone who defrauds helpless people. Why? Because my sin, and any sin, is rebellion and war against God. He demands perfection and even one sin is punished with hell—and I have a lifetime full of innumerable sins! That means that on my own I certainly have no favored status with him. I haven’t earned any kindness from him; I’ve only earned his wrath and punishment.
True as that all is, still my selfish sinful nature wants to warp God’s generosity into bragging rights for myself. Thinking of myself as superior to an unbeliever totally ignores how I got to know the truth in the first place. It wasn’t something great and grand I did or something spectacular inside of me—it was only God’s grace, his undeserved love for me, his generosity toward me that makes me a believer because he worked that faith in my heart. The only thing I contributed to the process was sin that fought and still fights God every step of the way.
How did God show his generosity to me? He sent his Son, Jesus, to live a perfect life in my place. The flawless obedience of Jesus is credited to my account. His hours slaving away in perfection is now mine. And Jesus also died in my place to pay the penalty for my sin, the world’s sin. So he suffers the punishment for sin—hell—so that you and I wouldn’t have to. All of my natural rebellion and war against God, my feelings of self-entitlement and superiority, all of it is done away with in Jesus’ life and death for me. His resurrection proves his victory.
If there is anyone in all of this that could be justifiably upset at the Father’s generosity, it would be Jesus, right? He lived a flawless life only to be punished as if he was the only sinner ever to live. That happened so that sinners like you and me, enemies of God, could be freed from our sinful life and live with him in eternity. Injustice! Unfair! And yet, exactly what Jesus came to do, and what he was happy to do for you and me, because he loves us. This is God’s generosity for us.
So, we are not superior to anyone because we have had more time than someone else as a Christian. We are blessed to have known God’s love for this time, but the gift of eternal life is just that, a gift. Whether God has given me faith to trust it for decades or for minutes before my death doesn’t matter. Timing doesn’t matter. Status doesn’t matter. All that matters is God’s generosity to people who deserve hell, whom he longs to have with him for eternity. That’s the message you and I are privileged to know and trust now and to cherish for the rest of our lives. That’s the message that we have the honor to share with those who are “standing unemployed in the marketplace,” who don’t know what God has done for them.
Thank you Lord for your unfathomable and unending generosity. Help us to share this generosity with others. Bring this faith to many more, whether they have a long or short time left in this life that they may enjoy eternal life with you only because of your generosity! Amen.
