For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage,* he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same.And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?* Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”
'So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’
-Matthew 20:1-16
I think people remember this Gospel parable for two reasons: first, what’s not to love about the idea of the kingdom of heaven being a vineyard.(!) Sign me up, Lord. Second, people have mostly heard the provocative line, “the last will be first, and the first will be last” oftentimes in life. It’s a knotty and complicated challenge most of have a hard time getting our heads around. I certainly do.
Let me think about this. In this gospel passage, the laborers hired first received exactly what they had been promised. Their dissatisfaction arose only after comparing themselves with others who were paid the same for less work. Their gratitude turned into resentment. The central message seems to be that the kingdom of heaven operates according to God’s grace to all rather than by a system of mere human calculations of merit. Human beings think reward should equal effort, naturally. The parable reminds us that that while God is perfectly just, he is also extravagantly generous. Salvation and grace are his gifts—not wages earned over certain hours worked. The workers who came early received justice – what they were due. The workers who came late received grace – what God extends to all. Neither group received injustice.
Our society today emphasizes fairness, equity, rights, comparison, entitlement.
We compare incomes, numbers of homes here and away, recognition, power, influence. The day-long workers in the vineyard made the same mistake, and we are still doing it today. We stop looking at what we have received and what gifts we have earned and focus way too much on what others have attained.
To bring this timeless truth closer to home, I can reflect on a personal example from my own life—someone who seemed to embody the idea of being 'first' early on, only to experience life’s unpredictable reversals later. In my boarding school days at Christ School, there was a classmate named Clipper who just had it all. Everyone knows someone from their youth like him. He was a top of the class, smart student, captain on both the football and track teams and maybe worst of all, he was a good-looking kid who all the girls in Asheville swooned over. He was to the rest of us, in a word, perfect. Clipper went on to Chapel Hill where he was fraternity president before graduating and settling into a lucrative wealth management profession in Charlotte. Maybe 15 or 20 years afterward, we began hearing sad stories about our hero. His marriage broke up. He lost his job. The culprit was prescription drugs. Sadly, Clipper, who God graced so early and young, died in his early 40’s. It made no sense. He was just a bright light that flamed out too soon from its own intensity and power.
Clipper’s early success and later struggles embodies the reversal idea in the gospel: those who are "first" by worldly standards may not stay there, and "last" ones in life stages or achievements can find their own time to be "first." He packed and earned so much accomplishment, triumph and success into the early part of his life, only for it to unwind so quickly and sadly at approximately the same time as the rest of us, his boyhood friends, were just earning our stripes and finding our life stride. If Clipper was “first” during his young life, all the rest of us were in the category of “last.” Yet as life circumstances for all evolved, as Clipper’s admiring classmates found ways to become “first,” Clipper was sliding into “last.”
God’s generosity cannot be measured by any form of human accounting of who’s first and who’s last. His grace is powerful when he extends it freely to everyone in their own time, in their own way. I think God’s invitation in this gospel parable is to replace the inevitable comparison of ourselves with others in all circumstances with gratitude, and to rejoice that the kingdom of heaven is a blessing with generosity and charity for all. (And all the better if it's really in a vineyard!)
God bless you, my old friend, Clipper. Yours was a life of brilliance and intensity that ended far too soon.
Musical Reflection - The Kingdom of Jesus - The Porter's Gate
Gracious God, help me keep my eyes on your kingdom where your Mercy always defeats our ideas of justice. Amen.
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