Good morning and welcome to Monday’s podcast. My name is Alan and I am going to be taking over from Bryony and will lead us through the next section of Matthew’s Gospel. We have made it all the way to chapter 20. Today we will look at what we consider fair and use that to take a good look at God’s grace – a real culture clash!
REFLECTION:
The first half of Chapter 20 in Matthews gospel is taken up by another one of those stories that starts, “the kingdom of heaven is like…” Jesus is trying to describe something that is incredibly difficult for us to get our heads round because the kingdom is alien to us. The kingdom works and functions on a different plane to what we are used to… God doesn’t play by our rules so Jesus uses a story to contrast our broken, selfish, you get what you deserve world with the heart of God and how his kingdom operates.
I’m going to read the story that Jesus tells in full now, rather than at the end. Are you ready? Lets wade in!
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
“About nine in the morning 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.’ So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon 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.’
“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.’
“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon 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. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These 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.’
“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one 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?’
“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
This is the word of the Lord – thanks be to God!
When I was a teenager, my brother and I were asked if we would like to earn some money. We said yes… My dad played golf – he was actually pretty good. He and a colleague from work were involved in a completion and they wondered if we would caddy for them. 2 days work, carrying a bag out in the fresh air – what could be an easier way to earn a bit of cash!? We were in.
Two days… two very long days in the pouring rain later and we were about to climb back in the car for the 90min drive home when it came to wages time.
Two days of our half term holiday… cold… wet… miserable… but this was what it had all been about… show us the money!!
My dad’s work colleague got his wallet out and gave my brother £10! T-E-N P-O-U-N-D-S!!!!!!
I think my dad had thought to give us a little more but he felt his hands were tied… he had to treat us the same so he handed me £10 also.
Even though it was many years ago, inflation didn’t make the sum of money any less miserly…. I was livid… it was a very long 90mins drive home. I didn’t speak, I just sat silently seething in my cold damp clothes.
You see we all have a sense of fairness and what had happened to me and my brother just wasn’t fair. We had been cheated, taken advantage of… True, we hadn’t agreed a fee before we started work but that’s a small detail in the whole teenage unfairness of it all.
So, I feel for those in Jesus’ story who got hired first. I get that they were miffed. They felt that what they received wasn’t fair. Surely they deserved more than those who had only worked for one hour. It was hot, they had worked hard all day and those who got hired last… well they had probably not made it out of bed until lunch time… and they hadn’t worked very hard… they were quite obviously lazy, very lazy indeed…. IT’S JUST NOT FAIR!!
We live in a world that is horribly unfair, where many people work long hours in horrendous conditions and take home less than a dollar a day. They struggle to survive, caught in a broken system with no power to affect change. Others of us have had access to education, opportunity and some sense of security, we have worked hard and… ‘deserve’ all we have…
Some have preached to millions, planted churches, and healed the sick… surely their reward will be great in heaven!?
Some have a quiet unassuming faith that they have never dared to speak about… surely they are at back of the queue!
Some have grafted for God all the days of their lives, left their family and friends and travelled to the far side of the sea as missionaries….
Others have come to faith late in life after living a selfish existence of excess…
It’s just not fair!
You see the kingdom of heaven doesn’t work on a system of work and reward – it’s not like a pension where the sooner you start paying in the more you will reap when the time comes.
No, the kingdom is a kingdom of love… of grace… of the undeserved gift… of gratitude… of honour, of faithfulness… of treating those who deserve nothing with love, honour and respect…. Of extending forgiveness to the unforgivable, of even wanting the very best for our arch-enemies… not because we must… not because there will be greater reward for us that do…
NO, instead we act simply because God’s love has taken root and is growing inside us.
Because there was a moment in our lives, a penny dropping moment… a moment when the scales fell from our eyes… when we woke up to the fact that it was us who were hired in the last hour. When we realised that the riches that have been lavished on us are nothing to do with how hard we’ve worked or how clever or talented or holy or wise or special we are…
In fact we realise that we are nothing special, messed up, prone to sin and in need of God’s grace, just the same as everyone else.
Then maybe… just maybe… we will stop judging… we will stop blaming… we will stop looking for excuses, for justifications for why we have and they haven’t… we will stop feeling superior, entitled, a cut above…. and God’s love will flow more freely from us. We will see all our fellow human beings – from the greatest to the least – with the same dignity, honour, respect and love as God sees us.
The kingdom of heaven is not some far off place. It is not somewhere we go when we die. The kingdom of heaven is here… it’s all around us… it’s within us… it’s accessible… it’s within reach.
All it takes is for us to recognise our position, our error, and the coldness of our heart and to cry out to Jesus and invite him in.
PRAYER:
Father, it is so easy to read the stories that Jesus told and to simply skip over them thinking we’ve nothing to learn, that there is no challenge to us because we are on Jesus’ side. Help us Lord to hear your word to us today, to glimpse your grace, your free undeserved gift to us, and be transformed. Take our hearts Lord and fashion them in your own image and likeness. Let us be known as people who love like you do. Amen.
BIBLE READING: Matthew 20:1-19
‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
‘About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the market-place doing nothing. He told them, “You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went.
‘He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon 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.”
‘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.”
‘The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon 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. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. “These 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.”
‘But he answered one of them, “I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one 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?”
‘So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’
Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, ‘We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!’