Dr. Ron Sumners
July 17, 2005
The setting of this parable was quite familiar to first century Palestinians. It was the harvest season for the grape crop. The owner of a vineyard got up before dawn and went to the center of the village where day-laborers congregated, hoping to find employment for the twelve-hour workday. If you go to Lorna Road and Highway 31 in Hoover any early morning, you will find a group of Hispanics doing the same thing; waiting for someone to come and hire them. These were the folks who did not have regular jobs, nor did they own property. They were totally at the mercy of others for any sort of employment.
Most of us have a deep aversion to this kind of powerlessness. In a profound sense these individuals mirror the condition of each one of us in relation to life itself. In the basic structure of things, we are all beings who were called into existence by a power other than ourselves, and we live each moment by the grace and generosity of that One who wanted us to be. None of us willed our way into this existence, nor set in motion the process that called us out of nothing into being.
We are also radically dependent by nature. The English word "dependent" comes from the Latin word meaning "to hang." We human beings depend like a chandelier, hanging, held in place by something other than itself. Should that something ever let go, it has no power in and of itself to avoid crashing down into brokenness.
The essence of Christian salvation lies in learning to trust in the One who is greater than you. This is radical dependence. And our dependence is our comfort when we know God.
When the vineyard owner arrived, he chose only a select few of those assembled to go to his field. He picked a few and agreed to pay them the going wage, a denarius, which was about enough to keep a peasant family going for a single day. Notice carefully that an injustice of sorts was done here, for many were available but only a few were hired. Yet you hear no word of protest from the chosen ones at this point in the story. They were more than pleased to have a whole day's work ahead of them and the promise of taking home something to their families in the evening.
As our story unfolds, the vineyard owner returned at 9:00 o'clock in the morning and found a pool of laborers still standing in the square. He told a few more to come and work and he would pay them an appropriate wage. At noon he returned and did the same thing and at 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon he hired a few to work only an hour.
At this point in the story, everybody is satisfied, for each one got to work and was promised to be paid. No one was going home empty-handed to hungry children.
At the close of the day, the vineyard owner instructed his steward to call the laborers
and said, "Pay those who have worked the least amount of time first and then pay the rest."
When the men who had worked only an hour came to the pay station they were astonished when they received a whole day's pay. They were delighted. When the afternoon crowd came, they were also given a whole day's pay as were the noon group, the 9:00 o'clock group and the group that had worked the whole day. The group that had worked all day was not happy! They demanded an audience with the owner.
They were angry and felt that an injustice had been done. They had worked all day and had received no more than the folks who had worked only an hour. Do you think that's fair? They certainly didn't.
The owner answered them, "There has been no injustice here. I have paid you exactly what you agreed to work for at 6:00 o'clock this morning."
Then he added an interesting note, "Am I not free to do with my abundance what I
want? Or do you begrudge me my generosity?" This is the pivotal point of the whole story.
I'll have to admit to you that at first reading this whole story seemed blatantly unfair to me. I found myself saying, "That is just not fair!" After some reflection, it dawned on me that I was starting at the wrong place. If you and I had earned our way into this world or had received our existence as some sort of entitlement, then there might be some validity to this complaint. But the point of this parable is grace, not entitlement. Birth is windfall and life is gift! We are called out of nothing into being in an amazing act of generosity for which we can claim no right. Once the gift becomes our central focus, it changes forever how we interpret things.
There is another Jewish parable that both parallels and illuminates Jesus' story. It is about a farmer who lived in Poland. For generations his family had been poor. One night he was awakened by an angel of the Lord, who said, "You have found favor in the eyes of the Lord. He wants to bless you. Therefore, you can make three requests of God and He will grant them. There is only one condition: your neighbor will get a double portion of everything that is given to you."
The farmer was startled and woke up his wife to tell her all about it. She suggested that they put it to the test. So, they prayed, "Oh, blessed God, if we could just have 1,000 cattle we could break out of our poverty." No sooner had they finished the prayer than they heard the animal noises outside. All around their home there was a herd of a thousand cattle.
During the next two days, the farmer's feet hardly touched the ground. He divided his time between praising the Lord and making provisions for his new cattle. On the third afternoon, he was up on a hill behind his house and looked and saw that his neighbor had two thousand new cattle. For the first time since the angel appeared, the joy evaporated, and a scowl of envy covered his face. He went home that evening in a foul mood, refused to eat supper, and went to bed in a rage. He could not fall asleep because every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was his neighbor's two thousand cattle.
He remembered that he could make three requests and forgot about his neighbor. He prayed, "Gracious God, if it pleases you, please give me a child that I may have descendants." Soon he discovered that his wife was expecting a child.
The day the child was born he was overjoyed. The next day was the Sabbath. He went to the synagogue and shared the good news with the congregation. His neighbor replied, "God has been gracious to us both. My wife just gave birth to twin boys." On hearing that, the man went home in an utterly different mood. Instead of being joyful, his heart was filled with jealousy. The envy did not go away. Late that evening, he made his third request to God: "Please God, gouge out my right eye." No sooner had he said these words than the angel appeared and asked, "Why are you so vengeful?"
With rage the farmer replied, "I cannot stand to see my neighbor prosper. I'll gladly sacrifice half of my vision for the satisfaction of knowing that he will never be able to look on what he has."
Tears formed in the angel's eyes as he said, "Why have you turned an occasion for blessing into a time of hurting? Your third request will not be granted. Not because the Lord lacks integrity, but because God is full of mercy. But know this; you have brought sadness not only to yourself but to the very heart of God."
Do you see the parallel between the two parables? In both cases, some individuals had nothing, knew that they were powerless and undeserving and then grace came into their lives. As long as they stayed focused on what had been given to them, their experience was one of incredible joy. In both cases, however, the celebration turned into something different.
They began to compare what they had and to what others had rather than being grateful for the grace gift they had received.
If you want to be miserable, then compare what you have with what some others have. There is always someone who has more and has done better than you materially. We almost never compare ourselves to the many that have less. We invariably look with envy to those who have more.
You may have heard about the man who went to work on Monday morning and asked his boss, "How's your wife?" He was startled when his boss shot back, "Compared to what?" You don't have to be a philosopher to realize that this second question really is basic. You see, compared to Marilyn Monroe, the boss would have answered one way. Compared to Mother Theresa, the response would be totally different.
Any kind of interpretation hinges on the criterion you choose, and this is crucial to the meaning that Jesus was trying to convey. If I compare what I had before August 20, 1949, when I was born, then all the particulars of my life looked wonderful in relation to the nothing before I was born. This body, this mind, this place in history, may not be much, but they are incredible compared to not having a chance to be at all. If, however, I begin to compare my body to Arnold Schwarzenegger's or my mind to Stephen Hawking's or my wealth to Bill Gates, what I am and what I have begins to look terribly inadequate. So, a fail-safe recipe for joy is regarding our life as a gift. A fail-safe for misery is comparing our lot to someone else's and forgetting what a gift of grace life is!
There was a family that had four children and they eagerly awaited the bi1th of the fifth child. She was born a beautiful child in every way except one - she had no arms or legs. The family accepted her and loved her and gave her every advantage they possibly could under the circumstances. She had a brilliant mind and a great capacity for friendship, although she could not do most of the things that we take for granted.
She was asked one day, "How do you keep from being angry at a God who would let you be born like this? How do you keep from being a volcano of resentment?"
She replied, "I realize that compared to what most people have, what I have doesn't seem like much. But I have the ability to see and hear. I've been able to smell and taste and hear and feel. I've been exposed to some of the finest music in the world. I have wonderful friendships. I know that what I have doesn't seem like much when compared to what other people have, but when compared to never getting to be at all, I would not have missed being born for anything!"
Where did she get the courage to feel that? Somewhere along the line, someone had taught her that life is a gift, and that birth is a windfall, and that compared to not getting to be at all, simply being born is better than winning the lottery! If you want a formula for making the best of the less-than-perfect and making the most of what you have been given, then begin to compare your lot to what you were before you were born, and it will empower you. In Jesus' parable, every one of the workers had an occasion for gratitude if they had only remembered what their circumstances were like before 6:00 o'clock that morning.
The vineyard owner also points the way to human potential. He was not the perpetrator of injustice, but rather a model of how wealth can be used creatively and compassionately. What he did for the last four groups was motivated by sensitivity and concern, not abstract injustice. He realized that all the workers had families to feed and needed a whole denarius. He was thinking about them, not the service he had received from them, in deciding to pay them as he did. It was his generosity - not just the concept of fairness - that accounts for his action, and we would do well to learn from him.
This virtue is illustrated beautifully by another parable about a father with two sons. The father taught the boys all about farming and was a wonderful mentor. When he died the two boys stayed together and worked as partners. One of the brothers married and had eight children; the other remained a bachelor.
One night, during a bountiful harvest, the bachelor brother thought to himself, "My brother has ten mouths to feed, and I have only one. He really needs more of the harvest than I do. He is much too fair to take more than his half. I will take some of the harvest and slip it over to his barn at night so he can have more for his family."
At the same time, the married brother was thinking to himself, "God has blessed me with this fine family. My children will take care of me when I am old. My brother is not as fortunate. He really needs more of the harvest to provide for his old age. He is far too fair to take more than his half. I'll take some of my harvest and slip it into his barn to build up his nest egg for the future."
When the moon was full, the two brothers came face to face each on a mission of generosity. It is said that raindrops started to gently fall. Do you know what it was? It was God weeping for joy because two of His children had gotten the point. The real secret of human joy is in sharing what we have with others rather than hording everything for ourselves.
I imagine God wept for joy over the actions of the vineyard owner that late afternoon. I thank God for my life and what I have. It is all a gift of His grace! If you have more, or if you have less, gratitude should pour from your life just because you got a chance at this wonderful thing called life!
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