Matthew 20:1-16 Commentary

Right before Jesus tells this parable, he talks with his disciples about the rewards for following him. Peter, seemingly filled with awe, says, “Look, we’ve left everything and followed you! What then will we have?” (19:27) The reward Jesus describes to him is stellar, even if it is given to “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields” for his name’s sake (verse 29). But, and it’s a big but, then Jesus adds: “many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Now, we know that Peter was not the only disciple (or parent of disciples) to get wide-eyed when thinking about their future place in glory. James and John notoriously were also involved in such a conversation with Jesus. So though this parable is only in the gospel of Matthew, the heart of its message belongs to all of them. And that’s because the need to be first so as to not be last is deeply ingrained in our earning culture and human mentality.

Grace and generosity, of course, belong to an altogether different realm. Their math only makes sense in the Kingdom, and even then, we subjects need help making sense and accepting it. As he often did, Jesus helps his disciples ponder the Kingdom with a story that shows everything being upside-down and redefines fairness and equality.

The workers who question out loud the vineyard owner’s generosity don’t think that it’s fair that people who worked less than them are getting the same pay as them. Imagine what damage would have been done to the establishment of the church if that was the attitude that Peter and the other disciples brought along with them as apostles! 

Instead of fostering a community of joy, of celebrating when someone else has had something good happen to them, we get upset because we want more. The people who were hired by the vineyard owner to work were all in the same boat in the morning; they needed jobs and they needed the money in order to buy food for themselves and their family. Each group, no matter the time they are hired, are promised by the vineyard owner that they will be paid what is right. 

To the dismay of the workers who worked all day, they receive what is right, a full day’s wage, alongside those who worked for only a fraction of the time. As they watched the pay go out, they assumed that what was right would be that they would get more. It’s a fair assumption but it goes much deeper than the pay. The issue seems to have impacted their sense of self. In their mind, they are better than the people hired later and throughout the day. They are superior and better workers—that’s why they were hired at the start. The problem is that the way this pay has come out, the vineyard owner has made the less suitable workers “equal to us”, they complain.

The vineyard owner calmly looks at them and explains the reality of the Kingdom of God: we humans, with all of our measuring and looking for “fairness” can’t make heads or tails of grace’s record books. Equality in the Kingdom comes with an entry ticket, no matter when you show up. Those who “get in line early” so as to get the best seat, the best choice, the best view, the best whatever, are in for a rude surprise: every seat is good, every view is breath-taking, and every bite is delicious: our Heavenly Father spares no expense. And God, the Creator of the Universe and the Author of Salvation, gets to do with it what he wants. He can respond to our comments and complaints in the same way the vineyard owner does: “Are you envious because I am generous?”

Textual Point

The literal translation of the second half of verse 15, “Or are you envious because I am generous?” is “Is your eye evil because I am good?” Remembering that at that time and place the eye was the window to the soul, Jesus’ words penetrate much deeper than gut reactions to what seems unfair; he’s talking about the general disposition of our souls.

Illustration Idea

My husband and I buy a ticket for the local hospital’s big fundraiser every summer. The prizes are exceptional: a 50/50 cash prize that’s usually over a million dollars, “dream homes” with money for furnishings, cars, etc. Every year we buy the minimum ticket and every year I spend the six weeks or so between purchasing it and the ticket draw dreaming of what I’d do with the prize. Did I mention that in Canada, such winnings are tax-exempt!?! So needless to say, I think I know what was going through the minds of those labourers hired at the beginning of the day as they likely started to imagine the riches that must surely be coming their way. It is so very easy for us to want things, especially money, and to get carried away with what we want as though it is already ours or that we deserve it. And as we do so, we’re swept away further into selfishness and away from the generosity that already surrounds us.