One summer, I was trimming the grass around one of the trees in the back yard, when I felt this sting in my leg. I didn’t think too much of it. I was wearing shorts and figured that a little stone had hit me in the leg, so I kept mowing.
But then I felt another little sting on my leg and then another one. And I thought to myself, this is ridiculous. And that’s when I realized that bees were stinging me. I guess they were under the ground around that tree, and they were letting me know it.
I wonder if the disciples felt like they were getting stung when Jesus told them this parable of the workers in the vineyard. Jesus’ parables sometimes have a sting to them. Just when you think you have Jesus all figured out, he tells a story like this one, and he leaves you confused, upset, angry, and frustrated. You just got stung by grace.
The good bible commentaries will tell you to just accept the ambiguity that is present in parables such as these and to allow the sting of the story to linger with us. The not so good commentaries often try to rationalize these stories to help us ignore their sting.
Well, anyway, here’s the parable.
Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like this…Once upon a time there lived a landowner. And this landowner who operated an impressive vineyard, got up really early one morning to hire some workers to give him an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. These workers saw this as a pretty good deal, so they headed out to the fields.
For some reason, this vineyard owner goes back to the marketplace (it’s now around mid-morning) and he notices some guys just standing around and he says to them, “Hey, if you’re looking for work, I’m in need of some strong backs for my vineyard. If you work out in the fields for the rest of the day, I’ll pay you whatever’s right.” And off they go to join the other workers who have already been out there since the crack of dawn.
This owner does the same thing at noon and at 3 o’clock. Both times, he notices more guys just standing around without any work to do and he tells them the same thing. “If you work the rest of the day in my fields, I’ll pay you what is right.” They jump at the chance. And so, the noon group and later the 3 o’clock, group move alongside the early and mid-morning workers who have already broken a great big sweat out there in the hot sun.
And then 5 o’clock rolls around – it’s almost the end of the workday. The owner makes yet another trip into the marketplace to look for workers, and sure enough, there’s a few more, and he tells them that he will pay them what is right if they are willing to hurry up and work the final hour or two.
Evening comes and this vineyard owner tells his manager to give each group their pay for the day. And they all come in from the fields. And I can imagine that the early morning workers are thinking that they are going to get their pay first since they were there all day. That’s how these things usually work.
But no. The manager first calls the 5 o’clock workers to get their pay. And the kicker is - they are each given a full day’s wage for working only an hour or two. What a surprise for them! How lucky could they be - to have been standing in the marketplace just at the right time and at the right place, for this vineyard owner to have spotted them, and then to receive a full day’s wage for just a small amount of work.
Here they thought they were going to have to split a 6-pack. But now they have some real money to cover some expenses.
This manager then calls the 3 o’clock, the 12 o’clock, and the 9 o’clock workers forward and they too receive a full day’s pay for less than a full day’s work. Not bad. Not bad at all.
And then the crack-of-dawn workers step up to the manager, thinking that they are going to get more than what they had agreed on earlier in the day. “We’ve been breaking our backs in this hot sun this entire day – Who knows how much more he’s going to give us.”
And when we get to this point of the parable, we are thinking, “Hey I like this story, Jesus. This is a story about having a good work ethic. These guys who have been out in the fields the entire day, will surely get time and a half pay. This is a story about working your tail off and getting an extra reward for it.”
Nope. We next read that the all-day workers got the same amount that everybody else got. Even those one-hour losers. You just got stung!
But they’re not willing to take the money and go home. They’re not going to go quietly. And so, they push aside the manager, and storm over to the vineyard owner who hired them in the first place, and with sweat dripping from their foreheads, they angrily point to the one-hour workers who are going down the road with a wad of bills and they are saying, “This is no way to run a business. Give us what belongs to us.”
And the owner calmly explains, “Guys, there’s been no wrong done here. You were OK with this amount when I hired you this morning. Just take your money and go home. And by the way, ‘it’s none of your business what I give to the other workers. That’s my business.’”
Jesus – where did you get these parables? What kind of message are you trying to send?
When I was in college, I worked 3rd shift at a plastics factory during the summers and the holidays. My usual 8-hour night would have me sitting on a metal stool with no back support by a hot factory press. And about every 45 seconds, the operating press would open and drop a really hot plastic part down into a bin. I would then trim the plastic part and put it in a box.
It was the most monotonous job I have ever done but I ended up making a pretty good hourly wage to help me during my college years. There were some nights though, where I thought the shift would never end. Plus, it was so hard to adjust to sleeping during the day.
So, as I think about this parable of Jesus, I can’t help but to wonder how I might have reacted if the company had workers come in that last hour of my shift and then on pay day finding out that we all get paid the same amount!
Thinking about this parable, can you imagine what these workers who had been under the scorching heat in the vineyards all day must have felt? Sweaty, tired, body aching, bugs, dirt, - what kind of boss is this who treats everybody as if they worked the entire day?
This parable has a sting to it. There’s no way around it. I don’t blame the all-day workers for being upset.
But we’re supposed to make sense of this parable, aren’t we? Why does Jesus tell us these kinds of counter-intuitive stories.
Here’s my take for what it’s worth.
Jesus is trying to wake us up on this Sunday morning and point us to a God who is ridiculously and irrationally, gracious, generous, and loving toward all people, especially those who we think deserve it the least. And sometimes the only way for Jesus to get through to sensible and fair-minded people is to tell these crazy stories that have a sting to them that force us to rethink who God is.
God is ridiculously gracious, generous, and loving toward all people.
This vineyard owner went out of his way to shower blessings on as many people as possible. And he did such a good job, that he ended up ticking off the all-day workers.
Here’s the takeaway for today. Grace is not a rational concept. What’s rational is to keep everything fair, equitable, make everything proportionate. That’s rational. But grace is not rational.
Grace is embarrassingly generous and many times, disproportionate.
This is a parable to help us see who God is. This is a parable that has a sting to it.
I had the wonderful privilege to serve early in my ministry, as an Associate Pastor at a large United Methodist Church. Fresh out of seminary and newly ordained, I was one of three full time pastors on staff.
Toward the end of my first year there, it was the beginning of the month of December, I received a check from the church for over $1,000. This was in addition to my regular paycheck.
I didn’t understand why I received this extra check of over $1,000, so I went to the Senior Pastor. And he said, “It’s yours.” And I said, “But why am I getting this?”
And he said, “Well – like I told you when you came on staff, the three of us put all of our honorarium checks into one fund and then we divide it up three ways at the end of the year. And that’s your third.”
And I said, “Well I understand that. But I’ve only been with you for six months and since I’m new here, I’ve only received one honorarium check of $50 to put into that fund, and here I’m getting a check for over $1,000. That’s not fair to you or to Dan because you both did all of the work. I can’t accept this. It’s not right. The two of you should divide up that fund.”
And I’ll never forget this. This Senior Pastor looked into my eyes, and he said to me, “You don’t understand grace, do you?”
Here I had put a measly $50 into that fund, and yet I was receiving way more than I deserved. Way more. It just didn’t seem right. And I will never forget his words to me, “You don’t understand grace, do you?” I thought I did, but wow, did I have a lot to learn.
Grace is not easy to understand. In fact, I’ve given up trying to understand it. I think that it’s one of the things that if you think that you understand it, you probably don’t.
This parable from Matthew 20 is just one parable among many in which we are blown away by God’s generosity.
We just can’t avoid the sting of grace if we are serious about following Jesus.
We feel the sting of grace whenever we forgive those who have sinned against us. I feel this sting every time I pray the Lord’s prayer. “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.” Forgiving is one of the hardest things in the world. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s the way of Jesus.
We feel the sting of grace when we are painfully reminded that we still have so much more to learn about grace.
We feel the sting of grace when Jesus starts meddling with our concepts of economics, fairness, and justice. How dare Jesus to be messing with my politics, my worldview, and how I have interpreted the Bible all of these years. I know what the Bible says. Don’t confuse me.
We feel the sting of grace when Jesus reminds us to show mercy toward those who don’t think like us or act like us or have the same values like us. Jesus calls us to love all people, not judge them or criticize them.
And then there’s the sting of grace whenever we are reminded of the price that Jesus paid for our sins by dying on a wooden cross 2,000 years ago on Good Friday. As Jesus hung on that cross, he said “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
And here’s the hot take for today. We don’t always have to figure Jesus out. We don’t always have to explain what he might be up to in telling these stories. These parables, as unsettling as they may be, are meant to push us out of our comfort zones where we never stop asking questions about our faith.
Several years ago, Penny and I were in the middle of a Sunday School class of young adults, mostly couples. And one of the class members said, “Um, would somebody explain the concept of grace to me? Because I just don’t get it.”
After class, Penny and I spent the next several minutes trying to explain the meaning of grace to him. And after our long discussion, he said, “I’m sorry but I still don’t get it.”
And then I thought, maybe he does get it, but he just doesn’t know it. Here is someone who has trouble believing that God can be that generous, that merciful, and that gracious.
Maybe he does get it – maybe even more than any of us do.
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