These are my speaking notes from Sunday’s sermon (9/3/2017).
[Matthew 20:1-16] (New Living Translation)
1 “For the Kingdom of Heaven is like the landowner who went out early one morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay the normal daily wage and sent them out to work.
3 “At nine o’clock in the morning he was passing through the marketplace and saw some people standing around doing nothing. 4 So he hired them, telling them he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. 5 So they went to work in the vineyard. At noon and again at three o’clock he did the same thing.
6 “At five o’clock that afternoon he was in town again and saw some more people standing around. He asked them, ‘Why haven’t you been working today?’
7 “They replied, ‘Because no one hired us.’
“The landowner told them, ‘Then go out and join the others in my vineyard.’
8 “That evening he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers first. 9 When those hired at five o’clock were paid, each received a full day’s wage. 10 When those hired first came to get their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they, too, were paid a day’s wage. 11 When they received their pay, they protested to the owner, 12 ‘Those people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’
13 “He answered one of them, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you agree to work all day for the usual wage? 14 Take your money and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. 15 Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?’
16 “So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.”
===============
When I was growing up in Potter County near a little town called Shinglehouse, we lived up a little valley where the ridge of a couple of the Allegheny Mountains came together called Blauvelt Hollow. It was a small dirt road where you had to pretty much get off the road if you met another car. And there was a pretty steep hill and a curve in the first quarter mile of that road. And I had a job as a kid… called SCHOOL WORK. My job was being a student.
In the winter time, the plows had priority roads that they cleared first and our road wasn’t always the priority, but even if it did get plowed, there were times that the school bus couldn’t get up the hollow to pick us kids up. And so it didn’t. School went on, but we were excused, because the bus couldn’t get to us to take us to do our school work. Sometimes it just got there later and we would get to school late, and weren’t penalized for having missed the beginning of the day’s school work.
[Unfortunately, my grandfather (who lived across the road from us) became township supervisor and road master within a few years and he always made sure that bus could make it up to get us.]
Now, why do I tell you that?
Because, like the later workers in the parable from Matthew 20 that we’ve just heard, my brother John Paul and I, even if we were late or missed school on those days, got credit for being there and doing the classwork just the same. But we hadn’t had to endure the same workload. And trust me, we were the envy of those others around us who had been there the whole day.
Except Jesus isn’t talking about school work, but harvest work. Specifically harvesting the grapes in the vineyard. And Jesus chooses to tell the story from the perspective of those workers who got there first doesn’t he?
At the very beginning of the day, 6:00 am I’m told is what the time would have been when the farmer first went out to hire some workers, he hires some workers. They clearly understand that they have to work all day and they clearly know what to expect for their paycheck. A day’s wage. They’ll agree to nothing less. And the farmer agrees to their price. So they start working.
Now, there were many others who were around but were not workers. They weren’t around when the farmer went early in the morning to hire workers. The farmer knows there are more that will be in town now, so he goes back and hires them too. And later, he goes back to hire those that weren’t there before to be hired. And the farmer keeps going back out for more workers. Not willing to give up. He needs workers and is willing to do what is needed to get the job done.
And when all is said and done, and the job’s completed, he gives them all their pay for the job. He can be generous with those that he hired throughout the day because they agreed to work without thought of how much they would make.
With those that came to work for a specific sum of money, he is faithful and pays them what they wanted and expected.
No problem right? Well, yes there is. You see, the farmer was so generous that he paid the newer workers the same thing as the first workers. And the first workers remembered how long and how hard they had worked, more than the newer workers had. And they cried out: “THAT’S NOT FAIR!”
And Jesus explains that the farmer had been faithful to what was agreed upon and had chosen to be generous to those who had thought nothing of the pay to be earned, and still worked.
Now there’s probably a whole lot that you can learn about God, and specifically Jesus, from this story and about how to be a Christian and lots of good stuff. But for right now, I just want to focus on a couple of things that I think can speak to us today, here in OUR situations.
Let’s suppose, shall we, that Jesus is the farmer and that WE are the workers (or the would be workers at least).
What if the call to work is when Christ calls us into his kingdom? Calls us to be a follower of Jesus, or worker in the kingdom of God? Just by the fact that we are not all the same age, would suggest that we all can’t come to know and expereince Jesus inviting us into relationship with him at the same time. We can’t all come to be a worker for the King at the same time because when the first ones were called, some of us weren’t around. We hadn’t even been born yet!
That happens doesn’t it? There are some in this congregation who accepted Jesus as Savior sixty and seventy years ago. And those dear saints have served their Lord, working in the kingdom of God, for decades before some of the rest of us were even born, let alone old enough to work for the kingdom.
Thank God, that he, like the farmer in the parable, keeps going back out to get more workers.
Some of us, have heard Christ call us to be his workers, yet have missed him, we’ve not responded when he called, or were busy doing something else and didn’t hear him. And Jesus still comes back time and again to call us to join his workforce.
There are some here today, who have heard Jesus calling you to relationship with him, to be one of his followers, his workers, and you have tried to turn a deaf ear in the past. You’ve not wanted to be a follower, not wanted to be a worker. Friends, Jesus is still looking for you, desiring you to come to him. And will. Will you answer today? Will you allow him to be your Lord, your Savior, your Master, your King? Say yes today. Invite him to become lord of your life and allow him to guide you and heal you and set you free.
If you do so, your reward is the same as those who’ve been Christians for decades. You’ll spend eternity with Christ, as a follower, a disciple, a friend of Jesus.
The parable has at least one other meaning to it though. You see, if you look in the chapter right before this one, you see the context of what was going on when Jesus decided to tell the parable. Peter has, in his own bumbling, foot in the mouth kind of way, he has just pointed out to Jesus how he and the other eleven had given up everything in order to follow Jesus. And Peter asks, in Matthew 19:27, “See, we have left all and followed you. Therefore what shall we have?” He’s asking ‘What’s our reward?’ or as we would say today, ‘What’s in it for me?’
And then Jesus responds with this parable.
How many times do we, like those first hired workers, not agree to go and do the task until we know what’s in it for us first? We may hear God calling us to do something, but we see no personal advantage so we are unwilling to answer the call.
Why should I be a Christian?
What’s in it for me?
Why should I help out with the evangelism team?
What’s in it for me?
Why should I give my money to that mission trip, since I’m not going to get to go with them?
What’s in it for me?
Why should I spend my time as a chaperone with that rowdy youth group or teach that Sunday School class, I don’t have kids,
What’s in it for me?
Why should I give up my security and safety and comfortable job in order to go into ministry?
What’s in it for me?
Folks, I believe that a very large message for us in this parable is that approaching Christ with a list of expectations and an attitude of ‘What’s in it for me?’ is NOT a good thing.
The farmer explains, almost angrily it sounds like to me, that he has been just, “Friend, I have done you no wrong” and that he has been faithful, “Did you not agree to work for that amount?”
My question today is two fold: depending on who you are…
- If you are not yet a follower, a worker for Jesus, will you answer the call? Today?
- If you have already accepted Christ and are one of his workers, are you a worker that will obey his callings to do whatever needs to be done, as he decides? Or will you be hesitating with the question, ‘What’s in it for me?’
The danger here is not for those who answer later, but for those who want to deny the master farmer Jesus, the chance to be generous to others.
Those times the bus had gotten me to school late (or even the next day) and yet I didn’t lose credit for missing the work, those kids who had been there the whole time were even more responsible for what had been covered in those classes. SO too with us as we join the work field for Christ. We’re responsible, not for what the master does with someone else, but for his callings and requests of us…. And we can trust him to be fair and just and faithful.
This past week, in the aftermath of all the raining and all the flooding in the Houston area, Twitter and Facebook were all abuzz with what a megachurch pastor in the Houston did or did not do. And I saw Christians posting their own opinions (and forwarding other people’s opinions & posts) about how wrong Joel Osteen was and what he should have done.
Then I saw a sign that simply said…
I just talked with God and he didn’t ask me anything about Joel Osteen…
He asked me about what I had done and what I was doing.
Just like those workers in the farmer’s field, we are workers for God in HIS fields… And We’re responsible, not for what the master does with someone else, or how they respond to the Master, but rather we are responsible for his callings and requests of us… and OUR response to Him!!! And we can ALWAYS trust him to be fair and just and faithful.
Mixed Ministries 