PENTECOST XIV

The Laborers in the Vineyard -- Lawrence W Ladd (1880) Smithsonian American Art Collection

Exodus 16:2-15
Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45
or
Jonah 3:10-4:11Psalm 145:1-8
Philippians 1:21-30

Matthew 20:1-16

The whole of this week's Gospel comprises a single parable – the Parable of the Laborers in the vineyard. At one level the parable is easy to understand, since, unlike some others it has a beginning, middle, end, and  punch line. But it is much harder to say just what its message is.

Occasionally people have thought that it has direct application to the workplace and implies that Christian bosses ought to pay their workers equally. Or that Christians should support equal pay for company workers. But Jesus makes it plain that he is talking about ‘the Kingdom of heaven’ which is to say, the way God deals with us, not the way we deal with each other. If this is indeed what the parable aims to illuminate, to many minds there is still a problem. The vineyard owner says to the one who complains ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong’. But how can it be just to give the same reward for radically different amounts of work? Don’t the laborers who worked all day deserve more?

These questions have familiar religious parallels. How can it be just for God to treat decent people who have been faithful Christians all their lives, in just the same way as cheats, child abusers and serial killers who express repentance on their death beds? What is the point of being decent if it makes no difference in the end?

The Epistle from Philippians points us to an answer. If, as Paul affirms ‘living is Christ and dying is gain’, then the benefit to us of God’s redeeming work in Christ is  ‘inestimable’(as the BCP General Thanksgiving expressly declares). Nothing can improve upon it. This remains true regardless of how God treats other sinners. Knowledge of salvation should dispel all envious glances at those who ‘got away with it’. How could we want more than to live ‘in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ’ for as much of our lives as possible?

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