Sermonstudio

So this fellow up in Sonoma County, not far from wine-growing Napa County, anxiously watched the weather forecast. Heavy rains of November were on the way across the Pacific. The grapes were mature and ready for harvest. Having no regular work crew, he went in to the union hall to get day laborers to do the picking. They agreed to work for ten dollars per hour. But the work didn't go fast enough and the sky was darkening with black clouds. Several times during the day he added more and more workers until the harvest was safely in the winery's barn.

Then the trouble began. Instead of paying the first to be hired, the foreman made them wait until last. Not only that, he paid those last to arrive the same amount as those who worked all day in that hot California sun. Those who worked all day and got only what they had agreed upon were angry. No doubt one of those California boycotts was certain to be organized against this Sonoma winery.

It's a parable of Jesus that only Matthew tells and it is a monument to unfairness! I sometimes wish Matthew had forgotten to write it down! On the other hand, it's one of the greatest of parables to teach us about ourselves and especially about how God is and wants to deal with us.

I believe Matthew, who wrote primarily a Gospel for teaching in the early church, had a very special purpose for including this one. He wanted to make sure that those who had entered the Christian Church early, like the disciples of Pentecost, didn't feel they were more important in God's sight than those who came into the faith much later on.

We can see how this could have been a problem. Those who knew Jesus face to face and had given up a lot to follow him must have been tempted to think they were just a little better than those who joined much later and didn't pay nearly the price in their lives to be Christian. To them the parable of the "Workers in the Vineyard" could be read again and again.

Evidently Matthew, who also wrote his Gospel as an appeal to the Jews, wanted them to know that while they were God's chosen and special people and had come into the vineyard early, others like the Gentiles were also acceptable to God and would have the same benefit as those who came first.

If this parable doesn't upset our normal way of thinking, we probably don't understand it. The parables always ought to challenge us to a new way of looking at our normal set of values and manner of living out our Christian faith. If we don't get a new perspective and challenge, we probably didn't comprehend the story. This particular parable of hiring workers for the vineyard is no exception. It tells us a lot about ourselves.

We have this natural way of thinking in us which says there should be merit and earning in what we receive. To this idea God says no -- there should be grace. We want to give to those who deserve it. God wants us to share with others because they need it, not deserve it. It's a radical new way of looking at life itself. I help because they need the help.

Our tendency is to accept what our culture tells us, like: "They'll never appreciate it," or "You're wasting your time and money on those who don't deserve it," or "You'll never see them again."

If we do give to those who haven't earned or deserved it, we're often called "do-gooders and bleeding hearts." But that's exactly what Jesus asks us to do and to be in this parable of grumbling and late-coming vineyard workers.

The Christian who helps in a calculating way, figuring if it will be used wisely, or is deserved, or if there will be any resulting appreciation shown, will not ever be able to give with joy as the New Testament asks us to do. Still, we try to give that way and it's not a pleasant way to practice our discipleship. We'll always be like those resentful day laborers whom Jesus described, "... they began to grumble against the landowner" (Matthew 20:12a).

Now before we look at what this story tells us about God's graceful generosity, let's consider the flip side of the parable. It's all about our need to share in a very gracious manner. It's not so much the need of those laborers to receive the abundant salary as the vineyard owner's need to give it to them! How's that for a different way of looking at things?

The owner of that vineyard not only owned the real estate, but also had a big harvest coming in -- all this wealth -- when many men were standing all day in the village square desperately needing work to feed their hungry families! So he really needed to give away a lot in his life right then to keep a proper perspective and to keep his priorities from being all greed, selfishness, and possession accumulation.

Who was really blessed that day? Well, those who were fortunate to find a day's work with wages for it; those who worked only a part of a day and were overpaid. But the owner, who paid much more than fairness dictated, was the one I think was really blessed because of his compassion and generosity. And not because he planned and did it to be blessed, but because the generous giver who gives that way is always blessed without ever expecting it. He needed very much to share his wealth, and when he did, he was blessed because of it.

I imagine late that evening he was a better husband to his wife, a better father to his children, a better employer to his employees, with a quiet sense of joy in his successful harvest and a right understanding of stewardship the next week in his synagogue. The wine produced probably tasted all the sweeter!

I'm quite sure this has something crucial to say to us who live in such a consumer-driven culture and wealthy country. Our need is to give, much more than the church's or individual's or cause's need is to have our money or talents. We almost always get it backwards and talk about the church's need to have our offering. We ought to be praying about our need to give it away -- and in large amounts so it makes a difference in our life's priorities. It's the primary way we stewards and disciples can keep our sanity in such an insane consumer-oriented society.

The danger is that we coldly calculate the least we need do to be respectful, and never know the benefits which that vineyard owner received because of his generosity to undeserving day laborers. That's probably not what Jesus had in mind when he first told this story which Matthew thought worth writing down. But it's what we need to hear on the flip side of the story.

The real heart and the main side of this parable is the wonderful grace of God. It tells us how God is and how God wants to deal with us. We are the undeserving late-comers who get much more than earned that day. God is no bookkeeper about what we deserve. God is a grace-filled generous benefactor who gives and gives and gives. And that same God also has compassion when we have needs like those day-laborers who stood in the village square waiting to be hired.

This story says to us that we never need to worry that we are alone in our struggles and desperation and that our needs are known by a loving God who has not kept track of our sins. Like the vineyard owner who saw those sad and desperate out-of-work laborers and invited them to come to his vineyard, so God sees us and bids us to come into the garden because of what the Christ did on the cross, ultimately coming out of the grave that first Easter Sunday. We just haven't earned that kind of gift, but God gives it anyhow.

Because of these basic teachings of the grace and compassion of God, this parable is one of the most significant of them all. Perhaps the one about the loving father (often called the prodigal son) would rank right up there as well, as it brings us a similar message of undeserved grace and forgiveness.

When we render the good service offered to us by the church, let's remember that we do it not because it earns us God's favor, but rather we do it out of thankfulness for a God who has already worked it out for us to have much more than we will ever deserve.

I hope those late-comers, who got much more pay than they deserved that day, later said and did some good things in that same vineyard the next time they traveled by it. I hope they were good stewards of the denarius given each. I hope if that landowner got in some kind of trouble they would want to help as a proper response to the grace given them that day.

Just one more thing about this story (which Jesus probably didn't have in mind at all). It too would be on the flip side of the parable. There is an example here of an attitude of boss to worker which is worth noting. Some of us are given the responsibility of supervising others. There is a special Christian stewardship in that which we ought to take seriously.

If we employ people, we are responsible for their very livelihood. We are not over them in order to be powerful tyrants, but stewards of their talents and abilities. We ought to see it as our ministry to care about them and their families in a compassionate way. What we pay them and how we treat them often shapes their family life and very human existence. To be the boss carries heavy responsibility. To own the vineyard was the same, and this owner did it well.

It's a great story and sounds like it could have happened in wine country in California. It certainly did happen there in Palestine. It tells us on its flip side to be compassionate managers of people and that our need to share is even bigger than others' need to have. On the main side, there is the wonderful example of the undeserved grace of God which is offered to us late-comers in the vineyard. There are also those admonitions not to calculate in our giving and to be careful how we think of those who join us even at the last hour.

Each time we receive the bread and wine undeserved, let us remember those workers who produced wine by picking grapes on a rocky, hot Palestine hillside and were blessed beyond what they deserved that day. Ours will be the same.