I was told at the
roundtable this week that this is a hard parable to like. Well, I think that
was Jesus’ intention; he needed his listeners to be shaken up a bit. Consider
the conversations that have been going on up to this point.
It was just a few verses
ago that some people brought their children to Jesus. They wanted Jesus to lay
his hands on them and bless them, which seems perfectly reasonable to us. But
his disciples were all into crowd control. There were so many people who wanted
to see Jesus, they felt the need to prioritize. They made themselves the
gatekeepers – no one could come to Jesus except through them. And as far as
they were concerned, there were no children getting through to see Jesus. They
were too short. But Jesus saw what they were doing and said, “Hey - Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for
it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”
Then a rich young man came
to him – the disciples let him through, I guess, and I don’t think it was
because of his height. He wanted to know what good deeds he would need to do to
inherit eternal life. Jesus said, “Well, you’re going to have to give away all
your wealth,” and this young man said, “Ok, thanks,” and disappeared as fast as
he could. He wasn’t expecting that answer, and now he would have to go find a
second opinion.
After he goes, Jesus makes
that comment about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to pass into heaven – you’ve heard this one? You can
tell by their reaction the disciples find this as alarming as we do. Rich men
won’t get into heaven? That’s not what they had heard. Then Jesus utters those
confounding words: Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.
For the kingdom of heaven is like this – and he launches into this awful
parable.
If you have a bad reaction
to the parable, that means it’s doing its job because a parable is meant to
convict you. You are meant to feel it before you even understand what happened.
With the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, you do feel it. And I think
you can pin down the exact point at which you feel it.
It’s not at the point where
he lines the workers up just so – the first last and the last first.
It’s not at the point where
he hands each one of the one-hour-workers the usual daily wage – a denarius.
Nope.
It happens right at the point
where Jesus gives the first workers – those who have worked since the dawn’s
early light – how much? A denarius.
Let’s note that a denarius
was fair enough at the beginning of the day when they negotiated their terms.
It was fair enough all day long under the hot sun. It was fair enough until that
moment they saw the latecomers – the one-hour-workday folks – receive a
denarius. At that point, their mental abacus started recalculating.
“Wait a minute … If these
slackers get a denarius I must be getting more – maybe 12 times as much.”
Suddenly, they thought they deserved much, much more.
You see, it’s not that it
wasn’t enough. It’s just this ranking and ordering that we do. If these lesser
folks are worth this much, I am surely worth more than I thought. If I am
first, and they are last, I have something coming to me.
This idea that the first
shall be last and the last shall be first really messes with our heads. It
completely turns things upside down. Because we do a lot of ranking and
ordering, and it confuses us to turn that upside down.
But, let’s consider the
possibility that we might be thinking of this in too literal a sense. After
all, Jesus spoke and taught in parables.
Perhaps he simply meant
that in God’s economy there is enough. For everyone.
There is enough food and
water for even the poorest. There is enough work for even the weak or disabled.
There is enough time for even the children. There is enough.
Like manna that falls from
the skies, the story Israel told about their sojourn in the wilderness when God
was with them, God did not abandon them. In that time when they had nothing but
God, there was enough. There was enough for each one, enough for each day.
The people of Israel had memories of plagues
and natural disasters, times of want and times of plenty, and everything in
between. And they knew that the Lord had
been with them through it all. They knew
from their experience that the Lord provides and that sometimes humans are
their own worst enemies, when their insecurities and greed and jealousies get
in the way of their well-being.
And they
knew, just as some of us know, that when you are in your most inadequate state
God is most present. When everything
else is cleared out of the way, God is there.
There is an old saying that has come up a few times recently in our
roundtable discussions: God helps those who help themselves. But the amazing
truth the scriptures tell is that God helps those who cannot help themselves.
The story of
the manna in the wilderness is a testament of faith. The gospels, full as they
are of parables like this one of the laborers in the vineyard, are testaments
to faith. Our life stories, can be testaments to faith.
What does
your life story look like if you tell it as a testament of faith?
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