Week 36 Matthew 20
Another one of Matthew’s long parables begins: the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers
for his vineyard. It’s the story about a work-crew that – even though some of them worked all day long and others just worked the last hour – all got the same pay.
The employer’s payment schedule for work hours is the weird element in the parable. It looked like this:
12-hours work: 1 denarius
6-hours work: 1 denarius
1-hour work: 1 denarius
That would never fly in modern labour practice. So it’s easy to side with the disgruntled 12-Hour Guys. Their problem was that the 1-Hour Guys only worked one hour and had not borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.
But the employer’s reply left the 12-Hour Guys without a leg-to-stand-on: friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? So there it is: the 12-Hour Guys had agreed to work for a denarius. And they got what they’d agreed to.
I think two basic ideas about the kingdom show up here. First is that the King gets to make the decisions in his kingdom. Second is that part of my getting acclimatized to life in the kingdom is to a) focus (pretty exclusively) on my own action & performance and b) not get my shirt-in-a-knot over the King’s decisions about anybody else.
Note: quotes from Matthew 20:1 16 17 (ESV)