Rupert’s Blog

This is the 4th Parable of the Kingdom that we are looking at this Summer. We are staying in Matthew’s gospel, but are darting around the gospel a bit! Each week the parable is being posted on this blog, with a couple of questions for reflection. On Sundays at our church gathering we will be looking at the parables with a variety of different speakers over the summer months and with a number of associated photographs. For a full introduction see the post here.

Suggestion: In the spirit of thumbing our noses at our tendency towards self-preservation, try to put to one side the fact that we know what Jesus is going to say and so force yourself to get closer to, and not ahead of, the text/scene.

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard - Mt 20: 1-16

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

About the third hour 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 the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour 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 the eleventh hour 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 men 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, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man 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.

Questions for reflection:

What are the emotions that attempt to erupt in you when you read/hear the parable? What waters do the summary phrases such as ‘it’s not fair’, ‘you have made us equal’, ‘I want to be treated differently and I don’t want to be treated differently’ stir?

There seems to be a very personal response to each person/group. What is your response to that - mortified, oddly flattered,….? Is this like sibling rivalry, albeit possibly less public and vocal than our photo might suggest?

Do I really believe first is last? Isn’t most of my effort taken up with being first or at least not last?

Andrew (the aforementioned guest blogger). I can hear my wife thinking ‘that term sounds very unappealing’.