Surprised by Grace ~ Matthew 20:1-16
It was an awful way to live.
For the peasant in Jesus’ day, the only way to eke out a living was to go into the marketplace at the crack of dawn and hope that someone would hire them. Most of the time, the supply of workers far outweighed the demand—so only the strongest, healthiest-looking laborers were hired. And they weren’t hired for an 8-hour workday. They would be working from dusk ‘till dawn.
The standard wage was one denarius—which was basically the minimum wage of the day. It was barely enough to live on and support a family. Needless to say, making a living was a day-to-day struggle. Work—and food—was never a certainty.
So the parable begins at the break of day when the landowner hires some laborers to work in his vineyard. They agree to work for the standard wage. And while they’re off in the vineyard toiling in the heat, the landowner keeps going out and hiring more workers—at 9:00 a.m., at noon, at 3:00 p.m., and even at 5:00 p.m.
At the end of the day, the landowner instructs his manager to pay all of the workers one denarius—even the most recent hires are to be paid first.
Would we have expected the workers who toiled in the heat of the day for over twelve hours to react any differently than they did? The people who worked for only part of the day certainly didn’t deserve a full day’s wage. They got off easy. The day-long workers felt cheated—even though they were being paid exactly what they were promised. They felt like they’d been stabbed in the back. It wasn’t fair.
But let’s put ourselves in the shoes of those workers who didn’t get hired at the beginning of the day.
All day long they had been waiting for work. And as the hours passed, their hopes began to fade. The grim reality sets in—they and their families may very well go hungry and homeless. Just imagine their fear. In my opinion, their situation is far worse than the workers who’ve been working since dawn. At least the hired workers knew they were going to eat that night. The same can’t be said for those still waiting around for work… It wasn’t fair.
Ultimately, the situation is unfair for all of the laborers. It isn’t fair that they spend every day waiting around for someone to hire them for backbreaking work at a wage that barely meets their needs. It isn’t fair that some workers got hired while others didn’t, for reasons like their age, their size, or their appearance. And it isn’t fair that they’re in extreme poverty while others in their society live lavishly.
How often do we find ourselves feeling the same thing? Crying out that it isn’t fair?
We try with all our might to be faithful Christians. We come to church, we give to the needy, we pray, and every day we strive to live rightly. But our doing those things doesn’t result in us living the good life. We’re always finding ourselves hurting and desperate. We pray and pray and get no answer and no help. We wait and we wait for a miracle that never comes.
All the while, we see other Christians who never seem to have any problems. They have a faith like iron—and their prayers always seem to get answered. They have great jobs and marriages. They’re healthy and always happy. Their kids do well in school and grow up to live perfect lives. Life is good for them. But life is not good for us.
And all we can really say is that “it isn’t fair…” And it isn’t. It isn’t fair that I have to bear this heavy burden and others don’t. It isn’t fair that I’m walking wounded. It isn’t fair that God comes through for other people but not for me.
God knows it isn’t fair. That’s why God is doing something about it…
This parable is about a God who surprises people when it would seem that all hope is lost. It’s about God coming through for people when they need it most…
When those workers who’d been standing around all day were given work, it was a miracle. But it was a mega-miracle when they were paid the full day’s wage. They needed a full day’s wage to support themselves and their families—and that is what they were given.
And ultimately, none of the laborers were cheated. There were no losers. Everyone was given what they needed—not what they necessarily felt they deserved, but what they needed…
This parable is a story of God surprising a hurting and suffering people with grace. And this is good news if you have been waiting around for weeks, months, or even years for things to turn around. God is going to surprise you too. God is going to come to you in times and in ways you’d never expect, to uplift you and strengthen you. God is going to give you what you need to make it through your worst days.
God abandons no one to suffer life’s unfairness on their own. Wait even until the 11th hour and beyond—because God hasn’t forgotten you. Lift up your weary head and be on the lookout—because your Helper is on the way.
The Christian life is so very much like the life of these day laborers. Just as they are dependent on landowners for making a living, we are dependent on God for meeting our daily needs. We’re dependent on God to help us make it when times are tough. But we don’t wait with uncertainty. We wait with hope. We wait for God who promises to be with us and help us. We wait for a God who loves to surprise us with grace.
But there is also labor in the Christian life. God has hired each of us to be laborers in God’s vineyards. It is an unfair world. Many are suffering unfairness and injustice in ways we can’t imagine. Everywhere there are hungry bodies and hungry souls to be fed. All over the world, God’s children keep waiting for a brighter tomorrow. God sends us to surprise them. God is mindful of the pain and suffering of every human being, and God will not rest until their needs are met. The way God sends us is by lighting fires of compassion in us for those hurting. And there’s always something we can do for them. God can turn even the simplest things that we give and we share into miracles of grace. And you will even be surprised when you see God’s grace at work.
We are children of a God who loves surprises. There is no bigger surprise for this world than Jesus giving his life for the salvation of sinners. And God still has a lot more surprising to do—because life isn’t fair. Bad things happen. But grace happens all the more. It will happen when we wait for it. It will happen when we serve one another. God is at work righting all of the wrongs and ending the injustices that God’s children suffer. So we wait on God with hope—and we serve God with hope—because our God will surprise us.
I have been thinking a lot about both the children's and congregation sermons. I found it very interesting when you described the daily wage as the ability to buy daily food. As each of us associate with the workers who completed a full day of labor, it seems contrite that we would complain that anyone received their daily bread...or that we would demand more bread than what we agreed to receive.
ReplyDeleteI did even more thinking on "it's not fair". In our capitalist orientation we believe that the harder we work the more we will receive. We all know people who don't work as hard as they should (or as hard as we do). We expect to earn more and be rewarded for our hard work. "show me the money" is a soundbite that we all understand. I admit that I may not complain too much if I worked all day and got the same amount as someone who worked much less...but come the next day I would be pushing for a more favorable pay amount. And in pondering this I feel like I continue to fail in learning the lesson of this parable...
It took a while but I am gradually coming around. In the spirit of parables, I changed the way I thought of the lesson to personalize it to me. What if the employer was God? The laborers are the people of God. "Wages" instead of being something tangible were instead "forgiveness of sin". Different people work harder than others to follow the commandments of God... And as a Christian I am very glad that God treats us all equally by forgiving our sins. Instead of identifying with an employee who is angry about being treated the same, I now give thanks that in God's wisdom he forgives me an unfair amount of my overly sinful self. I can now associate myself with a worker who did only an hour of work and boy am I thankful that we all are treated fairly.