The Workers in the Vineyard

Evening in the vineyard. A line of tired workers waits for their pay. The ones at the front have worked for one hour. The ones at the back have worked since dawn. And everyone is about to get exactly the same.

Jesus is on the road toward Jerusalem. A rich young man has just walked away from him sad, because he couldn't let go of his wealth. Peter, puzzled, speaks up. “Look, we've left everything to follow you. What will we have?” Jesus promises that anyone who gives things up for his sake will receive far more, and eternal life too. Then he adds, “But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” And to show what he means, he tells a story.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.” At sunrise he walks down to the marketplace, where men stand waiting, hoping for a day's work. He agrees to pay them a denarius, the usual wage for a day, and sends them off into the rows of vines. Around nine o'clock he goes back, and finds more men standing around with nothing to do. “You go too,” he says, “and I'll pay you whatever is right.”

At noon he goes back again. And at three in the afternoon. More workers each time. Then, at five o'clock, with only an hour of daylight left, he finds still more men in the marketplace. “Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?” “Because no one has hired us.” Imagine that. A whole day of waiting, watching others chosen, wondering how you'll feed your family tonight. “You go and work in my vineyard too,” says the landowner.

When evening comes, the owner tells his manager, “Call the workers and pay them, starting with the last ones hired.” The five o'clock workers step up first. One hour in the vineyard. And into each hand goes a whole denarius. A full day's pay. Their eyes go wide. Further down the line, the men who started at dawn are doing the maths. If they got a denarius for one hour, surely we'll get much more. But when their turn comes, each of them receives a denarius. Exactly what was agreed.

And they grumble. “These last men worked only one hour, and you've made them equal to us, who carried the load all day in the scorching heat.” The landowner answers one of them. “Friend, I'm not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give this last man the same as you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with what is mine? Or are you jealous because I am generous?” And Jesus finishes: “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

That evening payday wasn't just kindness. It was the law. The law of Moses said a hired worker who was poor must be paid the same day, before the sun went down, because he was depending on it. Day labourers had no steady job and little or nothing saved. Many scholars think a denarius was roughly what a family needed to get through a day. So a man paid for just one hour might have gone home with too little to feed his children. This landowner made sure nobody went home empty-handed.

The Workers in the Vineyard. You'll find it in Matthew chapter 20, verses 1 to 16. The workers who started at dawn weren't cheated. They got exactly what they agreed to. What bothered them was that the landowner was generous to someone else. God's grace isn't a wage we earn. It's a gift. So here's the question to carry with you. When God is generous to someone else, can you be glad?