“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. 2 He 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. 4 He told them, “You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” 5 So they went. He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6 About 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?” “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. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When 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? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I
have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’”
It can be argued that humor always has an element of surprise to it. The humor grabs you because you didn’t see it coming. This is why you don’t truly find the same joke funny twice; you might find it clever upon repetition but not funny in the way you did the first time. Humor and surprise go hand in hand.
It’s easier for us to understand humor than grace, but grace and surprise go hand in hand too. Think about your own experiences of grace. It has always surprised you. Think about the hymn Amazing Grace. The definition of “amazing” begins with “causing great surprise.” Jesus’ parables about grace are all surprising. Grace isn’t a weak, monotonous blessing. It moves in surprising ways—mysterious ways. No matter how long you’ve lived in God’s grace, grace finds ways to surprise you. That’s what we see in this parable: God’s grace is surprising. Be surprisable; that’s the claim of this sermon: God’s grace is surprising. Be surprisable.
We will study this in two points. First: the parable itself. Second: acknowledging God. First, in verses 1-16, we see the parable itself. Second, from this parable, we will consider what it means to acknowledge God for who He is.
We see the surprise in our first point: the parable itself. This parable, like last week’s is explicitly about the kingdom. Last week began with, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field…” This week begins with, “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner…” With his parables, Jesus—as we saw last week—is revealing what is hidden. He’s revealing what God’s way with us is like, which we would not realize unless told.
I’m pairing this parable series in the evening with Exodus in the morning because part of God’s answer to terror of the world seen in Exodus is the kingdom; the kingdom of God is the answer to the world. This kingdom’s coming is always surprising as we are seeing in the twists and turns in the Exodus and so it is with the kingdom as seen in the parables. This continually aspect of surprise keeps us from assuming we can engineer God’s work in this dark world. That’s wisdom in church leadership.
Today’s parable is an explicitly kingdom one seen not only by the use of the words, “The kingdom of heaven is like…” but also by this parable being set in a vineyard. This vineyard is an allusion to Isaiah 5. In it the Lord plants His people—His kingdom—like a vineyard. He tends them so they will bear fruit. This parable’s setting in a vineyard would have been as obvious to the Jews as connecting log cabins with Lincoln is for us Americans. When God came in the flesh He entered into our experience and used our experience to explain life to us.
Today’s image of the kingdom is a vineyard with an owner and workers. It begins at the beginning of the work day. The owner finds men waiting to work and hires some. They didn’t have temp agencies in that day. They had city centers where men stood waiting to be hired. Economics finds a way. “He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard,” Jesus tells us in verse 2.
A denarius was a day’s wage. This owner was a fair man and Jesus makes it explicit that they agreed on this wage. This agreement is explicit right at the beginning of the parable because it becomes so important. Agreements like this were very familiar to Jesus. “It must always be remembered,” one author writes, “that for the larger part of his life Jesus was a working man… he knew all the difficulties of making a living and of supporting a mother and younger brothers and sisters.”
It wasn’t easy to be day-laborer in that culture. In some ways it was easier to be a slave. At least slaves had consistent room and board. Day laborers were readily available and so disposable. They were, “often overworked or even abused,” as Snodgrass explains. We will see that this owner is different.
As the day went on, the owner wanted more workers; this happened in vineyards especially during the grape harvest; verse 3, ‘About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, “You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.”’ The third hour is the third hour from sunrise—so, about 9:00 am. It doesn’t seem that the men who were waiting were unproductive. We aren’t told they were doing nothing because they were lazy; they simply hadn’t been hired.
The owner doesn’t specify what he will pay these men hired at 9:00. He just says he will pay them, “whatever is right.” So he will pay those he hired earlier whatever is right and these men whatever is right. Jesus tells us in verse 5 that “he went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing.” The purpose here is to build tension for the surprise at the end. Jesus isn’t using these intervals to distinguish between, say, Abraham—called early in human history—the work day, Moses—called later, David—called still later, and finally the church. His point isn’t to distinguish between Jews—called first—and Gentiles—called later. His point isn’t to distinguish between those born in believing families and those who come to faith later. The point in all the hirings is to build tension for the great surprise at payday. It’s to surprise us with grace.
It’s worth noting that for these hires the master himself comes. He doesn’t send a messenger with a sign reading, “help wanted.” He himself goes. “All these little features in the story teach the great love of God for human beings,” as Bruner reminds us. God is not an aloof manager. He cares about His vineyard. He cares about His workers. You see this in the fact that Jesus even bothers to tell us this parable. You see this in the fact that Jesus came to us at all.
‘About the eleventh hour,’ Jesus continued—so about 5:00 pm, ‘[the owner] went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, “Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?” “Because no one has hired us,” they answered. He said to them, “You also go and work in my vineyard.”’ It’s possible that these men were working on their own fields or animals to this point and this a second job. It’s possible they didn’t look like the strongest workers—like the last chosen in a pick-up game between children—“the least desirable workers, passed over by other employers,” as France puts it. We don’t know. We do know that the owner hired these men, unlike the others, with no talk of pay.
That’s telling because it is almost time for payday. In ancient Israel the end of every day was payday. The true king of Israel, the Lord, required it. “Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight,” as Leviticus 19:13 commands. “Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it,” Deuteronomy 24:15 explains. As with last week, we don’t know what a marvel savings and banks are. These men were paid every day so their families could survive for the next few days. That’s the practice behind verse 8, ‘When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, “Call the workers and pay them their wages.”’ None of that would have seemed strange; what’s strange is the next clause, “beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.”
The owner wants everyone paid and he wants the last hired paid first and for everyone to see the progression we see starting in verse 9, “The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.” You know the surprise because we’ve already read the parable but we are already set up for the surprise before it happens with the big word of this parable, which is “receive.” The word “receive” is used three times in the three sentences we just read in verses 9-10—“received a denarius,” “expected to receive more,” “also received a denarius.”
This is a parable about receiving. It’s not a parable about the relationship between faith and works. It’s not a parable about treasures in heaven. Those matter, but that’s not what this parable is about. Don’t misinterpret by expecting to find what’s not there. If you are touring a home you aren’t disappointed because you don’t find a bathtub in the kitchen or ample closet space in the garage. This parable is about receiving. It’s about the surprise of grace. It’s not about other matters any more than it’s about how to run a business; Jesus isn’t saying that this how Menards should handle paychecks. We need to, as with everything in life, take the parables as they are, and this one is about to surprise us with grace; “a successful parable is an event that decisively alters the situation,” as Eta Linnemann put it. “It creates a new possibility that did not exist before…” she continues.
This new situation of everyone receiving a day’s pay wasn’t popular among the workers who were more focused on deserving than receiving; verse 11, ‘When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. “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.”’
The non-receptive receivers grumbled. The more you know your Bible, the more attuned you will be to that word “grumble.” It is a word we will consider a great deal when we come to the book of Numbers. Those people grumbled over the miraculous manna they received then. These people grumble over the agreed upon pay they receive now. Grumbling over what God provides seems natural to us in our flesh. We, like Israel in the wilderness and like these workers here have our expectations. Our expectations, though, do not determine reality. They don’t determine what God will do. Consider your own expectations about life and you will find that, in the end, it proves very good news that God isn’t governed by our expectations. Remember, grace is never expected. It is always surprising.
The grumblers didn’t talk with the owner about their frustrations; they grumbled among themselves; the owner, for his part, speaks directly with them saying, “Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?” The master’s warmth is clear in that word “friend.” His fairness is clear in the word “agree”—“Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?” There is no coldness or injustice in the master’s actions—nor is there in God.
There is, however, grace. God’s grace here is seen in His generosity. “I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” You see the nature of this gracious generosity by remembering what we said about day-laborers living hand to mouth. Why might the owner want to pay those men hired at 5:00 pm a full day’s pay? Because they had full day’s expenses waiting back at home. They had wives and children. The vineyard owner is more interested in their welfare than in what’s deserved. The king of the kingdom is more interested in our welfare that in what we deserve. Starting with what you deserve with God will lead you nowhere good. We need to learn to receive and that is a learning curve for us all.
We can receive because God is good. This same word used here for “generous” in, “or are you envious because I am generous?” was used by Jesus a bit earlier in this same section of Matthew to explain that it is God alone who is good. When we get caught up in what we deserve from God, we do so forgetting that He alone is good. That’s not a place we want to go. It’s anti-grace. Are you pro-grace or anti-grace today? Am I pro-grace or anti-grace today? That’s the question and some scholars consider this parable on grace to be the climax of this gospel of Matthew. It is a question each of us would be wise to ponder when we are surprised by grace—is it a happy surprise or a grumbling surprise. We would be wise to ponder how we respond to this gracious God. We see more of this in our second point: acknowledging God.
Jesus gave a rather cryptic ending to this parable; verse 15, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” If you turn to what is written directly before this parable you will see that this same line is how chapter 19 ends, “but many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” That was the story of the rich young ruler. This is a parable about what we think we deserve and both the story of the rich young ruler and this parable are designed to show us that God’s giving and what our deserving are quite different so we would be wise to major in receiving. That’s who winds up first in Jesus’ kingdom—those who are happy to receive. That’s why Jesus holds up children as examples. They are happy to receive. I don’t see too many adults mobbing me when I open my candy jar after worship.
We, however, are quick to get caught up in what we think we deserve from God rather than in receiving what He gives. Reflecting on this Bengel wrote, “it is wicked to wrong God; but still worse to think oneself wronged by God. And men think this oftener than one would suppose.” We humans have it in us to be like the man who killed the goose that laid the golden egg even if that goose is God. You see that at the cross. We can, like those hired first, wind up sulking at God and His grace. Jesus is warning us against that here. “The Lord takes nothing worse at the hands of His than such hard thoughts of Him, knowing full well what fruit this bitter root is like to bear—what alienations of heart—what drawings back—what unbelief… in our walking with Him,” as John Owen reflects. Don’t have hard thoughts about God. Acknowledge Him for who He is—generous and just.
This parable, like so many we’ve studied, is both a window into what God is like—He surprises us with grace—and a mirror to look at ourselves—we are often frustrated because we expected something other than the form His grace takes. How will we respond?
During the height of the Great Depression the mayor of New York City was an energetic, charming man named Fiorello LaGuardia. He was, like the vineyard owner, quite hands on. He was always busy trying to find ways to encourage the people during those dark days. One night, he gave a judge in one of the poorest parts of the city a break and took the bench for the night. A woman was brought in accused of stealing bread. She explained that her daughter was very sick, that this daughter’s husband had abandoned the family, and that her two grandchildren were home hungry and so she stole. The shopkeeper from whose store the bread was stolen was there in court refusing to drop charges. LaGuardia made clear that the law was the law and needed to be satisfied and so fined her ten dollars. While laying that he took ten dollars out of his own wallet to pay the fine and said, “furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat.” And he did—the other defendants, the policemen present, and even the shopkeeper had to give fifty cents to that woman who went home to her hungry grandchildren with $47.50—about $1,100 today. I doubt any one of us are wondering whether that was justice, and that’s the point. It was good. It was right and it was grace. That’s Jesus point too. It’s not about what we deserve. It’s about grace.
The word “grace” never once appears in the gospel of Matthew, but that doesn’t mean it’s not everywhere. Grace is after all surprising. “Grace has a grand laughter to it,” as one novelist put it. Do you get it? Are you surprisable? Amen.