Sermon 08.18.2024: Disturbing Parables: Living Beyond Justice

In the second of three sermons on famous parables of Jesus, we look at the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. Parables are meant to disturb us and upend the usual way we think about the world. I guess like me, you wish the world were a more just place. We could settle for that, as far from reality as that seems! But what if God calls us to live beyond justice, and to live an unmerited generosity in the world instead? What if being just is the very least we should expect of ourselves, and if really, we should be more concerned about being generous more than being just?

Scripture

Matthew 20:1–16 

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard 

20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius[a] for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 

3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went. “He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 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?’ 

7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. 

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ 

8 “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.’ 

9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘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.’ 

13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 

16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” 

Sermon Text

Whenever I read Jesus' parable of the workers in the vineyard, it takes me back to my teenage years. In the NE of Scotland where I was raised, October brought two weeks of vacation for the sole purpose of harvesting the potato crop, or as we would call it ‘Tattie picking.’ It was work that paid very well but was also back breaking. 



There was always competition to see who would be hired by the highest paying farms. Farmers with their tractors and open trailers would arrive at 7am in the parking lot of our local store and a melee would ensue to see who could scramble up onto which trailer and get the best pay rates. 

The risk was that if you aimed for the trailer of the best paying farm, with all the competition you may not make it on, and therefore miss getting hired at all; whereas if you’d set your sights a little lower you’d at least get a good wage at a less popular farm. If your friends made onto a trailer before you, they’d give you a hand up, helping you beat the competition. 

If you were fortunate enough to get a hire, it was off in the back of the trailer trundling to nearby fields. 

Not everyone, however, was so fortunate. 

Once the trailers were filled with enough pickers the end panel was drawn up and locked. And a few young folks had the unwelcome distinction of not being hired and having risen early for absolutely nothing. They then had whole day to dwell on it. It wasn’t an entirely fair process. 

Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard has always solicited a lot of conversation and comment. It’s a deliberately provocative story—given by Jesus to challenge us on what we think what is fair looks like, and whether justice ought really to be the limit of our aspirations in any case. 

As with much of scripture there is a whole history of interpretation of this parable, from the allergisation of the early church fathers such as Origen, through John Wesley, to the more recent critical lenses of Paul Freire and even Michael Moore. 

If ever Jesus told a story to disturb our regular thinking about the world—this, was it. And I want to draw today on the recent scholarship of Amy Jill Devine, a Jewish New Testament scholar at Vanderbilt Divinity School. 

Her scholarship is particularly inciteful because of her familiarity with the rabbinic traditions of other first century Jewish figures and so helps us see this and other stories Jesus told with fresh eyes. 

In this parable, the identity of the vineyard owner is deliberately ambiguous. They are a householder who owns land, and not just any land, but a Vineyard. 

Vineyards in the Biblical tradition are an analogy to God’s people, Israel. As soon as Jesus mentioned the Vineyard, his listeners would have realized this was a story about them, and their neighbors. 

So, there’s a double possibility—the owner may be a wealthy Jewish vineyard owner, but there may also be an inference to the vineyard owner being God, whose people the crowd are. 

As in any society, the hiring practices of the vineyard are prescribed by cultural norms and practices of the time, as much as by the law itself—shaped by questions such as what is good and just, as much as what is legal. 

This Vineyard owner needs some labor to harvest his crop and negotiates with the available labor. 

Together, they agree a denarius for the day. That would have provided a worker’s whole family with food for about three days. So far, so good. 

This landowner needs labor, and his labor needs work. They negotiate a fair price. Everyone’s happy. 

But then, the story takes an unexpected turn. 

The owner returns to the marketplace in search of more labor at the third hour, and he also promises these laborers a just pay for their labor. He does the very same at the sixth and ninth hour, again always promising a fair wage. 

At the eleventh hour, almost the end of the working day, he returns again to the marketplace only to find workers who have still not been hired. He asks them why they aren’t working? Well, simply, they haven’t been hired, and he tells them “you, also go into the vineyard.” 

As with everything in life, there comes a time to settle up. A time of reckoning… 

Unexpectedly, those who were hired last are paid first, and guess what: the Vineyard owner pays them 

exactly the wage negotiated with those who began work at the break of day. A living wage. A fair wage. A wage that would provide enough food and sustenance for a worker’s family for three days. 

Everyone hired receives a living wage for their labor. 

So, what’s the problem? Where’s the issue? 

The first hired grumble about being treated the same as the subsequent groups, but right at the start of the day they agreed a fair wage. A righteous wage. A wage that was just, in providing a family what they needed for sustenance. 

Why then should these first workers begrudge those who came after them, and disadvantaged in their community, from receiving enough for their families to live on? 

Amy Jill Devine wisely warns us about how we treat and interpret this parable. [1] Especially of the danger of spiritualizing it. She writes: 

“What commentators have insisted is ‘not a lesson in corporate economics’ or denied being a ‘model of good management-labor practices” may well be both. [2] 

The householder is both analogous to God and a model for followers of Jesus. 

Dismissing the parable’s practical implications is to make the parable safe and so to lose its challenge.” 

Friends, the landowner is God but could also be us. 

Be in no doubt, in the great scheme of things and in the greater context of this world we live in, we are the wealthy. Be of no doubt about that, and we especially are responsible for how we treat our neighbors. 

If you ponder on it for a brief moment, you will be able to recall many instances in the gospels where rich young men come to Jesus and then leave him disappointed with the advice he gives them. 

Well, here’s the flip side—Jesus tells a story that role models how the wealthy should live, and how they, we, may bring hope to the world around us. 

This vineyard owner is our role model and that for all the wealthy of the world. 

The wealthy, he says, should continue to call others into the field of work and righteously fulfil a contract whose conditions are from the very beginning to pay what is right, and what is right is a living wage. 

Here’s the crux of the parable friends. 

The point is not that those who have more, get more, but that those who have not “get enough.” 

Jesus is calling us to be like the One we proclaim, to live into the character of the One who has called us, and that calling is to a generosity in our lives that is beyond justice. 

Friends, Jesus is neither a capitalist nor a Marxist. He is both an idealist and a pragmatist. 

His focus is as much on the responsibility of those of us who are wealthy as on good news to the poor. Jesus is the living embodiment of the Torah, the law found in Deuteronomy, which reads: 

“Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.” [3]

We know the reality of life in this world. 

Goodness, you see it perfectly on the streets of this city and my home city of London—the sun shines and the rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous alike, doesn’t it? 

The goodness of individuals and the goodness of people at large, benefits not only themselves but everyone around, the deserving and undeserving alike. 

The workers benefit from the landowner, and the landowner benefits from the workers. 

Last week, the prodigal son benefitted from his elder brother’s work. 

In the gospels the sinful tax collector benefits from the righteousness of the pharisee, and in our Christian tradition our sinful humanity benefits from the goodness and sacrifice of Jesus. 

In this parable the last hired benefit from the contract negotiated by their co-workers who were first hired, and they all benefit from a landowner who is generous with his money. 

As Devine reminds us, “in the end, all have enough to eat, the rich recognize their responsibility to those who are less well off, a responsibility that includes not simply giving a handout, but hiring workers who can thus preserve their dignity.” 

This is the divine economy. 

And it is meant for here and now, in this world, not just the next! 

There is an alternative and we can live it and embody it now but living beyond justice, to generosity. 

In this election year Instead of allowing our politics or public discourse descend into a debate about who gets what, who deserves what, or about the deserving or undeserving poor, we need to ask what people need to live, and move beyond thinking only about justice to a society that is generous in spirit. 

In our abundance and gratitude to God for all we have, let’s think about not what is fair but rather how generous we can be with our resources—money, time, love and care. 

Such generosity has the potential to transform the world, and us. 

This parable seeks to draw us beyond mere justice into generosity instead, in recognition of the generosity of the One who loves us and who called us into our very being. 

In this parable we are being reminded of the common humanity we share with our neighbors, beyond and above all the markers of social distinction we construct in our community. 

Here is Jesus’ disturbing challenge to you and me in our time: 

In our own lives, in this church community, in the community in which we all live, can we live into a generosity that goes beyond mere justice, and reflect the life of God in our life together? 

Amen. 

[1] Amy-Jill Devine, Short stories by Jesus: the enigmatic parables of a controversial rabbi, (Harper Collins: New York) 2015 

[2] Ibid p.204 

[3] Deuteronomy 15:11 NRSV