Sermon - Matthew 20.1-16 - The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

Matthew 20.1-16 The Workers in the Vineyard
“Its just not FAIR!”
How often do you hear this complaint? How often are you the one saying it? Whether as employees, as children, as students, as sportsmen or fans, as taxpayers … we all have a strong sense of justice, of what is right and fair – especially when we see ourselves as the victim of unfair treatment. And surely God is concerned with fairness and justice too, especially for his beloved children, right? Well yes, but do we really understand justice as God sees it? This is the subject of today’s parable, usually called “The Workers in the Vineyard”, although a better title might be “The Generous Employer”, because it is all about God and his unusual generosity. The parable is given in response to Peter’s question “We (unlike the rich young man) have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”

Eccentric Employer
• Jesus uses a familiar scenario to make his point, but the story has a twist because he is actually showing how different the kingdom of heaven (the reign of God) is from the kingdoms of the world.
Landowner with vineyard / pool of unemployed men hoping to be picked up as casual labourers = a familiar scenario then (and now, even in Barcelona). But this landowner behaves in a highly unusual way, displaying eccentricities which would be obvious to the original readers and which seem to us like naive business practice. Bear in mind that being unemployed then (and today in countries with no social services safety net) was a far more desperate matter than it would be for most of us…
• FIRST eccentricity is that this landowner goes down to the market-place in person. This is a wealthy man who has staff (v8), yet he goes in person (Risk? Inappropriate to his social status? Hard work?)
• SECONDLY, he keeps going back for more workers – five times in all. Why so many unnecessary journeys? Could he not judge how many workers he needed at the start? Were there insufficient men there to begin with? Was he waiting to see if others would employ people? Did the earlier workers taken on not work hard enough to get the job done?
• THIRDLY, he instructs his manager to pay each worker the same as all the others; a full day’s wages, regardless of whether they have worked 1, 3, 6, 9 or 12 hours. This not only seems unfair (as the spokesman of the first group of workers complains) but is the kind of business practice which would soon lead to bankruptcy (you won’t get taught this method at IESE or ESADE!).
• FOURTHLY, he insists the workers are paid in reverse order (the last are paid first and the first are paid last). This reverses the normal, accepted order of payment, and is not just a matter of custom, but apparently calculated to deliberately shock and offend those who’d worked longest. (Think about it; if they’d been paid first and left, they would not have known what the latecomers got…) Why offend your most loyal workers?

Generous God
The parable is of course not really about an Eccentric Employer but a Generous God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). So what do we learn about God here?
• God is EXTRAVAGANTLY generous • God desires all people to be workers in his vineyard (= in his kingdom, under his reign)
. • God comes in person, in vulnerability amongst the broken, the hungry, the sick and the angry – and has power and desire to save them all from futility and fear and hunger.
• God keeps on coming back until he gets everybody into his vineyard.
• God is always fair and just, even though it may not look that way to us.
• God values all people equally and values the “work” of seeking work and the pain and anxiety and stress of searching for purpose, just as much as he values active work in his service.
• God is especially concerned for the vulnerable. Who do you think the last group of workers to be taken on were? Those who were too weak to push themselves to the front of the queue, the disabled, injured, malnourished. Those whose skin was the wrong colour. Those who knew they were “unemployable” … yet God does not see them as unemployable! These are all beautiful aspects of God, which clearly demonstrate that “God is love” in God’s essential nature. I am reminded of that beautiful refrain which comes up over and over again in the Old Testament:
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love” (Psalm 103.8).

But not everybody is pleased. A complaint comes from those who have worked longest:

Grumbling about Grace

“These men who were hired last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.” (v12) (= “Its not fair!”) It seems a reasonable complaint from a human perspective but not from the perspective of grace. It reveals an attitude which many of us often have, when we want to dictate to God how he should treat others.

Ken Bailey (Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes) explains “This is not the cry of the underpaid. No one is underpaid in this parable. The complaint is from the justly paid who cannot tolerate grace!”

The reply of the landowner is telling. “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 things? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Aside: That last verse has been tragically been used in the foundational documents of many churches e.g. the Canons of Dort to “prove” that Christians should not question the false and unbiblical doctrine of everlasting punishment in hell. What a terrible perversion of a Bible verse!)

The complainers had forgotten that they themselves had been chosen (by grace) and had even been given the security of an early end to their unemployment anxiety and the security of knowing they were going to get a full day’s wages. So they’ve had the easiest rather than the hardest day! Perhaps they have fallen into the trap of coasting through the day (taking advantage of the employer’s absences?).

Perhaps the ones who have really “worked hard” through the heat of the day are the unemployed, increasingly stressed and anxious as the chance of anyone employing them slipped away - and the landowner himself, travelling to and from the market?

Why is it that we can sing “Amazing Grace” when God’s mercy applies to us and yet grumble how infuriating and undeserved that same grace is, when it applies to others? This is a very old problem which crops up a number of times in the Bible. Think about the attitude of the prodigal son’s elder brother (Luke 15.25-30). And remember Jonah and his complaint when God forgave the Ninevites:

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry… “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” (Jonah 4.2-3)

The landowner (God) is challenging the grumbling workers to be like God, whose justice is always merciful and whose mercy is always just. We may claim the right to decide how God should treat others, but only God can decide and he tells us that the deciding factor is mercy.

How the Story Ends

Sometimes we look at the benefits of being accepted by God (eternal life, our fair wages) and we grumble “Is that it? Is that all I’m getting? I don’t know why I bothered. Its just not fair!” We bleat about God’s merciful justice which has made these “worthless ones” equal to us… We, who were fortunate enough to receive the security and comfort of a whole day’s work.

But God does not say “Yes, you’ve got a point there. Its not fair that I should pay the same wages for one hour as for twelve hours.” God does also look at the world and say “Its not fair!” but for different reasons. He looks at the poverty and sickness and oppression and violence and says “Its just Not Fair… … but it WILL BE. I’ll see to that! In my kingdom I will have fairness and justice for ALL my precious ones.

And like a firefighter, God keeps running back into the burning building until he has carried every last person out, safe in his arms. And God calls all those who hear or read this parable to see justice his way and to join him now in his saving work. To fight his fight. To love as he loves. God is building an army of people who will fight for justice for all the vulnerable and all the slaves of sin.

The call is to work with God every day for the rest of our lives, fighting against prejudice and fear and hunger and disease and bullying and dishonesty – the things which God hates and which will not prevail in God’s kingdom. Because those who are least and last will be first.

How does the story end? How did the workers respond? Did they repent of their hard-hearted attitude or keep on arguing and complaining? We don’t know … Jesus leaves the ending open and we are not told – exactly the same as at the end of Jonah and also the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

The reason all three stories are left open ended is to challenge us, the readers (and the original hearers) to MAKE OUR OWN ENDING.

Let’s end by saying together a famous prayer of St Ignatius of Loyola:

Teach us good Lord to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to head the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labour and not to ask for any reward,
save that of knowing that we do your will. Amen.

Great interview with Julie Ferwerda

Sceptical about people (like me) who reckon the Church needs to revise its traditional doctrine of hell? I recommend that you listen to this interview and take a look at Julie's recent book "Raising Hell". http://dianemarkins.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Julie_Ferwerda_Hell_final.mp3

Bible Study Matthew 20.1-16

Bible Study – Matthew 20.1-16 – The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard Q1 In what circumstances did Jesus tell this parable? What specific question or remark was he responding to? Q2 How would you express in a single, short sentence the single main point Jesus is making in telling this parable? Q3 Can you relate any experience of seeing unemployed people standing in a marketplace hoping to be employed for the day? Have you been in the position of one of the unemployed or the landowner in this story? Q4 How many times does the landowner go to the market during the day, and at what times? Do you find anything unusual or surprising about this? Q5 Of the five different groups of workers who are taken on during the day, what do you notice about the terms on which they are employed? Q6 Putting yourself in the position of one of the workers taken on at the beginning of the day, how might you feel as each additional group arrives? Q7 Verse 8, at the centre of the parable, reveals the landowner’s instructions to his steward on how the wages are to be distributed. Does anything in this verse surprise us (as readers/hearers)? Q8 How different would the story play out if the first workers to be taken on had been paid first and the last workers to be taken on had been paid last? Q9 What do you make of the complaint made in verses 11 to 12 and the landowner’s reply in verses 13 to 16? Can you think of any other biblical examples of similar complaints and replies? Q10 This is one of those parables which ends without resolution. If you were writing the story, what would happen next? Q11 Are there any other conclusions you feel we can draw from this parable?

How to read a parable - Matthew 18.21-35 All Age Talk

Matthew 18.21-35 All Age Talk Hi, today we’re going to start with a story that Billie’s going to tell us. I want you to listen very carefully, and try to work out what the most important, the main point is. Well, just like I asked you to think of the main points, so Jesus when he was telling stories, wanted people to pick out the most important point. We have a special name for the stories Jesus told, anyone know what it is? Parables. Can anyone name any of the parables JC told? And a question for the grown-ups: Why did JC tell lots of stories instead of just talking directly to people? More interesting/remember them better/... Some people think there are 4 main reasons: Ppt Were many people able to read in JC’s time? No. So, if you can’t read, you are used to hearing everything and if you are just relying on hearing, and you don’t have anything written down to check back, then it needs to be easy to remember, (just like Fred said). We are so used to looking things up on Google or writing down a ‘to do’ list, imagine if we couldn’t read or write, how different life would be. Pick up your bibles for a minute (illustrate) and just look at how long the Old Testament is, how much of the bible it takes up, imagine learning that off by heart! (to the kids) imagine if you were revising all of this for your exam! That’s what people did! So... things need to be easy to remember. Second point – people were used to this way of teaching and learning. People used stories all the time to make their points and we can find lots of examples of this in the bible, here are some refs if you want: 2 Sam 12, Isa 5 (on Ppt) Related to this, we need to remember that JC told his parables on the spur of the moment and he set them in context, that is, they were related to things everyone knew about. That made it easier for people to understand and remember. They were earthly stories but with a heavenly meaning. Lastly, I want you all to shut your eyes... now, think of a black horse running over some green grass...did everyone manage to see a black horse in their mind? Was it galloping over some green grass? Did anyone see anything else in their heads? The sun shining? Birds? Trees? The point I’m trying to make is that we often think in pictures, and a parable has been described as a word picture, drawn by JC, on the spur of the moment to teach or explain something. So, how should we interpret a parable? Are they full of hidden meanings? Is JC making life difficult for everyone? Well, a theologian called William Barclay says No. He reckons parables aren’t full of hidden meanings and symbolism, what we have to do with parables is treat them just like you did with Billie’s stories, so what do we have to do with a parable? What do we have to look for? That’s right, we’re looking for the main point of the story, or parable, because we need to remember that JC didn’t spend hours thinking and studying and praying and worrying (like I do when I’m writing a sermon!) No – his stories were given in reply to someone asking a question, just like when you ask your mum or dad to explain something. Barclay said they were ‘sudden, lovely improvisations in the dust and heat of conflict’. Ppt. So, with a parable, there are 3 things we need to do Ppt. We know the first one don’t we? We need to look for the...main point. Great! Yes, we look for the main point JC was trying to make and we don’t try to find the whole Christian faith in one story! Secondly, we need to understand when and why JC told the story; we need to know the context. And finally, we need to think about how to apply it. It’s not enough just to read it and understand it; we need to think what it means for us today and what we are going to do about it! OK then, let’s think about today’s bible reading. But first, I want to tell you about my little sister. She’s not that little any more, she’s 45, but to me, she’ll always be my little sister. Do any of you have little brothers or sisters? Well, my sister, Janet, could be very annoying, she’d take my things, even break them sometimes (she didn’t mean to) and she was always wanting to play with me when I was busy with my friends or things and Mum was always telling me to look after her and so on, you get the picture... In our reading today, we heard about Peter asking JC a question. It sounds to me like he was feeling just a bit fed up with his brother who was called... ahem! ... Andrew – I can’t imagine why he could be cross with anyone called Andrew?! Anyway, he wants to know how many times he has to forgive him. This is actually following JC’s teaching about how to deal with a community member who is in the wrong so it might not have been just about Andrew – phew! So Peter thinks he’s being the nice guy saying he’ll forgive someone seven times, but JC says no! 7 x 70 times! Now, 7 x 70 is only 490. Now I bet that your parents have forgiven you more than 490 times already! JC isn’t really majoring on the numbers here, he’s making a point – you have to keep on forgiving, over and over again, Peter thought he was being generous but he was way short! Now, let’s look at the parable, can anyone remember what it was about? I’ll give you a clue: it was either about some penguins or a mean servant... Ok, was there a king involved? Was his name Gregory? No, we don’t know his name do we, but what we do know is that the king was sorting out all his money and our mean and nasty servant owed him lots of money but when the servant begged the king, the king let him off paying. But then what did the mean servant do, can anyone remember? Someone owed him money too, did he let off? Was he nice like the king was? No! He was really nasty and had the man put in jail. But the king got to hear about it and he was really angry wasn’t he? He called the servant wicked and said that he should have been merciful. Now, we know that JC had just been talking to Peter about forgiving people and then he told this story, so what do you think was the main point of the parable? That’s right, and the last part, the judgment should be treated like an ‘exclamation mark’ said to underline how important it is to forgive people. And how is this relevant to us today? What do we have to do about it? Well, one thing is pretty obvious, we need to forgive others, and we need to be merciful. God is merciful to us and he wants his mercy to be shared with everyone else too. Ppt But, before we finish, I want you to think – do we demand standards of others, including God, which we don’t expect of ourselves? If we are late for a meeting, we think, ‘I missed the bus’, but some else is late, we think ‘they should be more organised!’ If a friend doesn’t stand up for you when someone is teasing you, you think how awful they are, but it’s your friend and you have to stand up to a bully for them, it suddenly feels very different. The point is, we are very good at criticising other people and going easy on ourselves. So, to sum up (Ppt): look out for the main point when you read a parable, don’t try to make things complicated. Think how you can apply it to yourself. Remember, it’s easy to see the faults in other people and forget about our own.

Video Interview with Robin Parry about Universal Salvation

http://theologicalscribbles.blogspot.com/2011/09/video-interview-with-robin-parry-about.html

Matthew 18.21-35 Bible Study Questions

Bible Study Questions – Matthew 18.21-35

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

Q1 Do you think St Andrew was a particularly annoying individual? (See verse 21 in NIV!)

Q2 What is the point of Peter’s question? Does it deserve an answer? What answer would you give a child who asked this?

Q3 Jesus’ initial reply (v22) may be deliberately echoing Genesis 4.24. Some commentators also think he might have had the year of Jubilee in mind (see Leviticus 25.8ff). How do these OT references help us understand the point of Jesus’ parable?

Q4 What do you think is the main point of the parable?

Q5 Has Jesus given a satisfactory answer to Peter’s question?

Q6 Why is there such a contrast in the amounts of money involved in the two debts?

Q7 What should we make of verses 34 and 35? Is God merciful or not (18.33, Luke 6.35-36)?

Q8 What is the relationship between knowing ourselves as “forgiven”, and our showing forgiveness to others? (See also Luke 7.47 and Matthew 6.12)

Q9 Do we demand standards of behaviour from others which we are unwilling to appl to ourselves?

Q10 How can we learn to have a merciful attitude to others?

Sermon - Romans 13.8-14

Romans 13.8-14

In today’s passage Paul has more to say about the central importance of love and he uses two slightly surprising images to help his readers understand.

Debt

• Paul starts talking about debt in the context of saying christians should be model citizens and should meet all their commitments and obligations, including the payment of taxes. They should not leave any debt outstanding.

• Perhaps he has in mind the effect that being in debt can have on you. How it can fill you with anxiety, even fear. How it can dominate your thoughts so much that you can hardly think of anything else. How it can restrict what you are capable of doing, the ways you spend your time.

• We’ve probably all had some experience of the struggle of being in debt at some time in our past. Many are in it now of course. I used to be a bank manager and used to see daily the effect debt had on people’s lives, whether they had been forced into that situation or arrived there through their own foolishness.

• I agree with Paul that being in debt is something to avoid – especially if you want to enjoy and keep control of your life. But then he thinks of a different kind of debt, which christians are never free of: the debt to love others.

• Its an interesting thought. If I ask you to think about who you owe a debt of love to you might think of parents, other family members, teachers and others who have shown you love and helped you over the years in practical ways or even in your faith journey.

• But remembering what we talked about last week we know that christians are also to love enemies, persecutors, ungrateful people. How can we have a debt to love these people? Not because of what they have done for us but what Jesus has done for us … we can’t repay Jesus but we must “repay Jesus” – by loving others, not just going through the motions but with a deep, true love which always seeks the other person’s good, whatever their attitude or actions towards us.

• Paul tells us that we all have a debt, an obligation that will never be fully paid off, to love others, all others, even the most unlovely, even those who hate us. And just like owing money can dominate our thoughts and control our behaviour in a negative way (avoiding the bank, worrying, having nightmares, envying others), Paul wants this commitment to love others to dominate our thoughts and control our actions in a positive way like giving up our time to work with a charity.

• Having turned the negative idea of being in debt into a positive motivation to show love, Paul goes on to show how the “thou shalt nots” of the ten commandments are summed up in the positive command to love your neighbour as yourself. He says exactly the same thing as Jesus does. Love is the fulfilment of the Law, it makes sense of our covenant relationship with God. Not that we do loving things in order to win God’s favour, but that we respond to God’s unconditional love for us by showing unconditional love to others.

Visible or Invisible Christians?

• We all need to have a serious look at ourselves and work out how we can fulfil our obligation to love others – how we can allow this motivation to become dominant in the way we live our lives. Paul urges christians to wake up from their slumber and actively put their faith into practice – we need to hear that call and catch some of that urgency.

• But the second half of the bible reading also raises questions for me about how “visible” we should be in this loving activity. On the one hand it is right that we should be happy to do our good deeds quietly and anonymously, without needing recognition or applause for our efforts. But Paul also talks about the need for christians to “clothe themselves with Jesus and to behave decently” and clothing and behaviour are things which are seen by other people (clothing is used metaphorically here).

• There are two aspects to this. First, there is a danger in being secretive and anonymous about our faith. Not only does this deny other people a chance to recognise how God is at work in the world, it also opens us to the temptation of living a double life, attending church on a Sunday morning but just blending in with the morals and norms of society the rest of the time.

• Paul’s warning (v13) shows that even christians can slip back and behave badly. He warns against drunkenness and sexual immorality – we may be surprised these warnings even need to be given – but also about divisive behaviour and jealousy, which can certainly be seen in most churches as in any other human organisations (for example…)

• So one point is that we may feel more secure about behaving badly if we have not “come out” as a christian. I am probably less likely to react with road rage if my car carries a badge indicating I am a christian! If I am an incognito christian I can more easily kid myself and live a subchristian life.

• But there can also be positive aspects to being more open and upfront about our faith to others. Paul writes that we are to act as people of the daytime, as Kingdom of God people, even though the dawn – the time when everybody will see the light – is not quite here yet.

• If we are open and upfront about being a christian this may give people hope and a sign that wrongs can be put right. For example, if I were to get mugged and have my wallet stolen I would look around for somebody in a police uniform to help me. If I see one, that gives me hope that my attacker may be brought to justice and my wallet returned.

• This is why society takes very seriously the crime of impersonating a police officer, as Anders Breivik notoriously did recently in Norway. Who we are on the outside has to be a true reflection of who we are on the inside. (It also occurs to me; I wonder if impersonating a christian is also a “crime”?)

• But we live in a time of crisis and in a society which is struggling to keep believing in the materialist dream. It is as if our society has been mugged and is looking around for someone in a uniform which says “I can sort things out”. The world, with all its problems does not need proud, superior christians saying “I told you so.” But neither does it need anonymous, disguised christians saying “Nothing to do with me mate”.

• The world does need open, hands-on, confident followers of Jesus who are overflowing with love, channels of healing, hope and good news. The world needs christians who know why the gospel is good news for the world and how to apply it. This is what we are trying to build here.

Objections and Conclusions

• So my challenge to all of us today is to do something more openly christian.

• One objection to this might be the negative images and memories the words church and christian and the very idea of church carry for so many people, especially in this part of the world. We need to find ways of addressing that and changing the public perception of the church and christians…

• Its easy for me to talk about being openly christian – I’m a vicar! Its easy for people to see who I am and what I stand for (when I’m in uniform). For many of you it may be much harder to talk about your beliefs at work or socially.

• Maybe in your conversations with people outside the church it might be easier to talk about some of the reasons we meet and things we do, rather than call it church. “I teach a Sunday School class.” “I’m part of a group which serves homeless people one night each week”. “I’m supporting friends of mine who are trying to do something about the problem of slavery through prostitution in this region.”


• I’m not saying we should turn the church into nothing more than a social work organisation, I’m saying perhaps we should be more open about the positive impact the gospel can have in the world.

• This is a real challenge for all of us and one way to make it easier on yourself is to have a support group, a place where people can pray for you, share your worries and help you get to know Jesus and the Bible better. Yes, this is where home groups come in. Please think seriously if you can afford not to be in a home group.

• If we challenge and support each other in these ways, the new people Jesus has made us on the inside should be more visible on the outside. So when people see us they see Jesus, when they hear us speak, encounter us in a conflict or whatever, and they get a christlike response and in this way they experience the love of God.