Matthew 20:1-16
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
1"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3"About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' 5So they went.
"He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?'
7" 'Because no one has hired us,' they answered.
"He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'
8"When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.'
9"The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. 10So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'
13"But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? 14Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'
16"So the last will be first, and the first will be last."
Jesus starts out telling us the kingdom of God is like a landowner in this parable...To me this is a Parable about God's Great Grace and how He goes about giving His Grace to those who have the faith...
So as Jesus teaches us about God's grace, man may look at God's grace in a different way and we maybe wrong...What we think of fairness and what is fair in God's eyes may be different...
Sometimes we compare ourselves to others...This can harm our relationship to others, because there is always one smarter, stronger, faster, wiser, prettier, a better athlete, a harder worker than ourselves...And humanity is competitive and this competitiveness may effect how we think about fairness..This competitiveness can hinder our love for others...Competitiveness can make us judgmental and critical of others...This competitiveness with others may bias our thoughts on generosity...And maybe our wanting to be a favorite or the favorite also hinders our ideas and thinking on fairness...
In the kingdom of God we are all equal...God has no favorites...The Father LOVES all of His children...
In the parable the landowner, who is God, hires workers early in the morning to work in His vineyard...God and the vineyard workers agree to being paid one denarius...These workers would have to work the whole day...
About three hours later (in the third hour) around nine o'clock more workers were hired and went to the vineyard...Another group of workers were hired for the vineyard around noon...Another group was hired around three in the afternoon...God even found some workers around five o'clock...All of these groups agreed to be paid, whatever was right...
A customary harvest work day was twelve hours...We might assume that at six o'clock the work day is over the first group would have worked the full twelve hours...The second group had worked nine hours...The third group worked six hours...The fourth group worked three hours, while the last group worked only one hour...The sun was out and the first groups would naturally be more tired than the others after their long day's work...
When God pays the workers He pays the last group first...He paid then whatever He thought was fair...He pays them one denarius... Each man in the latter groups thought they would receive more...I think they thought they should receive more...When the last group (who worked twelve hours) came to be paid by God, they also received the same one denarius...This payment was the same as group five which only worked one short hour...
If none of the groups knew what the other man was paid, would the first group have been mad...I suspect not...They would have assumed and thought the other groups were paid less...If this is true (that there would have been no hard feelings if they did not know what the others were paid), is this about fairness, jealousy, competitiveness, envious, or something else?...
One person in the first group spoke up and asks in this authors mind an appropriate question about the pay...God answers him...He tells him "didn't you agree to work for one denarius...Take your pay and go...I want to give the man who worked one hour the same pay as you who worked twelve hours...Don't I have the right to do with my money whatever I want?"...God does have this right...
I think we can learn a lot from this parable, even though Jesus does not explain it to us...Maybe man thinks to much of money...Man's perspective on fairness is not the same as God's...Life is not always fair, in our eyes...God does not show favorites...God loves it when someone finds Him after a long life...We learn the last will be first and the first will be last...God's rules are just and for us individually...We are judged individually...Looking at other or our neighbor and comparing and judging him and wanting to be judged by this comparison (to our neighbor) may not be the way God will judge us...He will judge us perfectly...God may be harder on His servants who follow Him all or most of their lives...If you work hard and get a decent wage, why are you jealous of others?...Are we judging God, and saying He is unfair, when He paid us what we agreed to?...
God rewards His servants according to His grace and not ours...God's grace is not man's privilege or man's right...It is reserved for Him...Were the men objecting to their payment or God's generosity?...Each of us view generosity different...