Saint James UCC of Hamburg, NY

Mark 10:35-45; Matthew 20:1-16

Preached by Rev. Dr. Robert Matlack
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Jesus' parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard describes the plight of people who did not own any land but were dependent on picking up work by the day from the wealthy landowners in Galilee. During the period of Jesus' ministry in this region, there was chronic unemployment. Many day laborers earned only a portion of what was needed to meet their minimum basic needs - and those of their families. It was an extremely difficult economic period for many people.

There were no employment agencies, and no large factories to apply for work at. Instead, the procedure was that they would go and stand in the marketplace, waiting for someone to offer them work. The most able - probably the youngest and the strongest - would be selected first. The rest could only hope that there would be enough work for them. If not, they had to go home empty-handed.

In addition, there was no minimum wage in the vineyards. Each employer would negotiate a day's pay with the workers. A denarius was a customary wage, but each landowner could offer more or less than this amount.

On top of all of these pitfalls, the work in the vineyard was normally very hard work. Whether it was pruning vines or picking grapes, it was back-breaking labor, especially in the hot sun. Work began early in the morning, often as early as 6 AM, and ended about 6 PM, making a twelve hour work day.

In Jesus' parable, a landowner hired laborers early in the morning and agreed on the price he would pay them for their work. He agreed to pay them a denarius - or as it is described in this translation "a silver coin", which was the usual daily wage.

There must have been more work than the first crew could handle. The owner returned to the marketplace at nine o'clock and hired more workers, agreeing to pay, "whatever is right". Since these workers had already missed three hours of work, they were probably not in a position to bargain, and would have been glad to get whatever was offered. More workers were hired at noon and at three o'clock.

At five o'clock the landowner was in the marketplace again and noticed still other workers. He asked them why they were standing idle. They replied that they had not been hired that day. So, the landowner hired them, giving them about an hour's work in the vineyard. They were probably amazed and overjoyed to receive any work at all this late in the day.

At the end of the day, the landowner paid a denarius to the workers who came at five o'clock. He apparently gave the same amount to those who came at three o'clock, noon and nine o'clock. The workers who came at the beginning of the day saw what the other shifts had been paid and expected that they would get more than the denarius for which they had agreed to work. After all, they had worked longer and harder than any of these other workers. If the latecomers were worth a denarius, they were worth much more. However, they were given exactly what they had been promised. No more, and no less. As we might expect, they were outraged. They grumbled against the landowner and claimed that they had been treated unfairly. Those who had worked only an hour had been paid as much as the ones who had worked in the hot sun all day. And yet, they had received exactly what they agreed to work for. They were treated justly. It's just that the other workers received more than they deserved, more than they had earned.

In this parable Jesus challenges our expectations, for we expect that those who work longer and harder should be paid more, while the vineyard owner recognized that all of them needed a denarius to feed their families for a day. However long they had worked, their need was the same. He gave everyone what he had promised, but he gave some workers more than they had earned, as a gift, a gift of grace.

One writer sums up the parable this way: "Our very existence depends on whether we will accept God's gracious dealings, his dealings which shatter our calculations about how things ought to be ordered in the world." For at it's heart, this parable is about our expectations and about who really is in charge of this world and of our lives. Is it our expectations that should rule? Or God's?

In one of my favorite books, Covenant - which is about South Africa, James Michener talks about the Voortrekkers, settlers who had come over from the Netherlands, and ended up spearheading the oppression against the blacks in South Africa. He writes how they were a deeply religious people, who sought to build their lives upon their faith, but at the same time thought that they were the only ones who could adequately interpret that faith. They would not listen to the English clergy, or even to the Dutch ministers who came over from the Netherlands and warned them that they were twisting the faith. Rather, they went their own way, secure in their belief that they were right, that they had heard the word of God and interpreted it correctly.

At one point they were attacked by one of the black tribes, and it was literally a massacre, spears against guns. 4,000 blacks were killed and not one of the voortrekkers was even seriously wounded. They saw this amazing victory not as a triumph of technology, but as a confirmation of their covenant with God, a covenant which because of the way they understood it caused them to build a nation founded upon injustice. Michener makes the following observation about their understanding of their victory: "What the Voortrekkers failed to realize, was that they had offered the covenant to God", instead of receiving the one that God offered to them.

It's an error that's easy to make. We want something so much. We convince ourselves that it is right. We look at the world around us, and find whatever proof we can that this is indeed God's will. It can be an issue that only effects a few people, or a complicated, complex issue that effects everyone, but some people will be convinced that the issue is simple, and that there is only one right answer - theirs.

The temptation is there - to make the same mistake that the voortrekkers did in South Africa - to try and offer the covenant to God - the covenant that we want, instead of receiving the covenant that God is offering to us. The temptation is there to believe that we know exactly what is right - better than anyone else, and so we don't need to listen to anyone who doesn't agree with us. After all, we know God's will and they obviously don't.

It is into the midst of that self-righteousness, that sense of sureness about what God expects, that Jesus tells these parables, parables which shatter our expectations, parables with which Jesus seeks to shake us out of our certainty and challenge us to accept a new way of life, a new order - God's order instead of ours.

When I was in elementary school, and the teacher wanted everyone to line up or to do something in order, we usually did it in alphabetical order. Every once in a while the teacher would change things by saying that we were going to line up in reverse alphabetical order - that we'd start with the z's and work up to the a's. The last were then first.

That's not a comfortable concept. Unless we have major problems with our self-image we're taught not to think of ourselves as the last or the least, but rather to think of ourselves as among the best, among the most worthy. We strive to be the best, to be on top, to be successful - not to be the last.

It was natural that Jesus' disciples would feel the same. James and John, like all of the disciples had sacrificed a great deal to follow Jesus. They had demonstrated their faithfulness and their commitment. It's not surprising that they, or someone else among the disciples, asked to be first - to sit at either side of Jesus in the Kingdom to come - to have the seats of greatest honor for two who had given a great deal.

The other disciples were of course very angry when they heard about this. They were angry because they envisioned themselves in those places of honor. They were angry because someone else had the gall to ask for the place that they hoped would be theirs.

Jesus responded to them all by saying: "If one of you wants to be great, he must be the servant of the rest; and if one of you wants to be first, he must be the slave of all." In other words, the last shall be first. Instead of building our own egos, we are called to lives and actions filled with humility. Instead of worrying only about ourselves and our future, we are called to love others by the way that we live - to even do crazy things like that owner of the vineyard did when he paid some of the workers far more than they had earned, when he gave them a gift of grace by giving them what they needed, instead of giving them far less because it was all that they had earned.

Jesus calls us to a different way of living, a way which has different priorities. We are called to lives where our own needs are not always at the top of the list, but where receiving what we truly need can be a source of strength, helping us to help others to find the same. We are called to a way of life where the person who has accumulated the most when they die is not the winner, and instead the winner is the person who has given the most love and who has lived the most faithfully. We are called to a way of life where we don't set the agenda, instead God does, and where sometimes God tells us to struggle with unexpected ideas and new ways of thinking, for sometimes God says to us things like: "relax, be humble, love your neighbor as you love yourself", and even "the last shall be first".

Amen