Matt 20:1–16 — The Parable of Equal Wages For Unequal Work

Context and the Kingdom

It’s interesting that our passage today begins with the word for. And that tells you something, which is that we’re in the middle of a discussion and a dialogue. And so Jesus is continuing his conversation with the disciples that goes back to the last section of chapter 19. In chapter 19, after the interaction with the rich young moralist who thought that he was able to be saved by his works, Jesus has a discussion with the disciples about their situation. Notice that it begins in verse 27 when Peter said to Jesus, look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have? Are we gonna get some great reward for leaving everything, leaving our father’s nets and the fisherman work that we used to do, leaving all that and following you? Are we gonna receive something great and glorious?

And Jesus says to them, yes, you will. He says, truly, I say to you in the new world, not in the millennium, but in the new world, in the eternal state. When the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands for my name’s sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last and the last first.

And it is here then that we have this parable of equal wages for unequal work, beginning with this word for. And so that for, for the kingdom of heaven is like, that for ties back to what Jesus has just been saying. The disciples had made great sacrifices. They have left everything for the sake of Christ. And so it seems like they would receive a greater reward But that is not how things work in Christ’s kingdom. And so Jesus tells this story of the parable of the laborers in the vineyard in order to teach the disciples that things don’t work out quite the same way they do in the earthly realm. In the earthly realm, it makes sense. You get paid for the amount of work that you do. If you work harder, you’ll get a bigger wage. If you work less, you’ll get paid less. but in the kingdom of God things are different.

And this whole section here of Matthew, Matthew 19 through 20, is all about the paradoxical counter-cultural values of the kingdom, all in the shadow of the cross. because we didn’t read it, but the very next paragraph after this parable of the workers in the vineyard, Jesus again reminds the disciples that he is going up to Jerusalem in order to be handed over to death, in order to go to the cross, and he’s going to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.

So everything Jesus is saying to his disciples in this section of Matthew is under the shadow of the cross. He’s about to go to Jerusalem. In fact, the very next chapter, Matthew 21, is the triumphal entry when Jesus enters Jerusalem in the beginning of Holy Week, climaxing in the passion of Christ, the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. And Jesus is trying to teach the disciples that the kingdom, the values of the kingdom, are different from the values of the world because of this reality that Christ is the suffering servant. He is the Messiah who comes to suffer, to go to the cross for his people.

The Workers and Their Wages

Now let’s look at this parable in a little bit more detail. This parable assumes the idea of a 12-hour workday. That’s a little bit unusual. We’re thinking of an 8-hour workday, but I guess back then they worked from 6 in the morning to 6 at night, from daybreak to sunset. And so this parable speaks of various stages of the day when the owner of the vineyard goes out to hire laborers to gather in the grapes from his vineyard.

He goes out early in the morning, which is probably six o’clock in the morning. Then it mentions that he goes out again the third hour, and some of our modern translations like the NIV actually spell that out and say around nine o’clock in the morning, so three hours after 6 a.m. And then again in the sixth hour, that’d be around noon. And then again at the ninth hour, that’d be around three o’clock in the afternoon. And then it mentions this group at the very end of the day, at the tail end of the day, the 11th hour. So if the ninth hour is three, then two hours from that would be around five.

Around 5 p.m., there’s only an hour left before sunset. And so at the 11th hour, that’s where we get that phrase, the 11th hour, by the way, is from this parable. At the 11th hour, the last hour of the day, the owner of the vineyard says, why are you sitting around all day? Why don’t you go and work as well?” And so they go into the vineyard, but by then the sun is about to set. They only put in an easy hour in the shade, and it doesn’t seem like that much work for them.

But the amazing thing is that when it comes time for all of the laborers, even those that came at the beginning of the day, For all the laborers to receive their wages for the day, things turn out differently than expected. Now, one thing we have to keep in mind is that day laborers who are waiting around in the marketplace for someone to hire them would have been fairly poor in that time. Obviously, they don’t have any land of their own, and so they are fairly poor. Maybe not quite as poor as a beggar, but they’re pretty poor. They don’t have any resources. And so that understanding that everyone who was hired that day is fairly poor is going to affect how we interpret the distribution of the wages at the end. So let’s look at that part of the story because this is where the punchline happens.

It says in verse 10, well verse 9, that when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a denarius. But verse 10, when those hired first at six o’clock in the morning came, They thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius.

And on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house saying, these last, the 11th hour workers that came and only worked from five to six, these last, You have made them equal with us. They only worked one hour, but you made them equal with us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat. We worked hard all day long for 12 hours straight out in the hot sun. And yet these guys who came in at the very end, only put in an easy hour when the sun was already going down, you’ve paid them the same amount. Their complaint sounds reasonable at first because you would think that the more you work, the more you would be rewarded. And yet, Jesus, in the story, he reminds them that they agreed to work only for a denarius.

Now this grumbling here, verse 11, on receiving it, they grumbled at the master. and compared themselves with the late workers, the late comers, the Johnny-come-latelys who only worked an hour. These grumblers remind us of something, don’t they, in the rest of the gospel story? It reminds us of another parable that Jesus told, and that is the parable of the prodigal son.

Remember that the prodigal son, he squandered all of his father’s wealth, And yet when he came back to the father, the father welcomed him with open arms and put on a wonderful party for him to celebrate. But the older brother who was standing by this whole time, the older brother, he grumbled just like these people here. He grumbled and said, look, these many years I served you, referring to the father, Luke 15, verse 29, and I never disobeyed your command. I worked hard all 12 hours, and yet you never gave me a young goat so that I could have a big celebration with my friends. And so that’s an important clue to understanding the significance of this parable, and we’ll return to that later.

Now notice what the landowner or the foreman says, actually it’s the landowner, the master of the house, what he says in verse 13 in reply to these grumblers. He says, friend, I’m doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? There’s no injustice in what I did because that’s what you agreed to do. The fact that I want to be generous to someone else does not mean I’m being unfair to you.

But now it should have made the first hour workers, the ones who worked all 12 hours, it should have made them wonder. They thought that they were simply getting a pay, getting their wages for what they deserved. But in reality, isn’t it that they are also recipients of the generosity of the landowner? Remember that they are fairly poor as well. The last hour workers are just as poor as the first hour workers. And so the fact that they were even given a chance to go into the vineyard and work and be paid anything is because the landowner was being generous to them as well.

Verse 14, take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Notice this language here of I choose to give. This clearly indicates the sovereignty of grace. God chooses to give in his sovereign grace what he desires to give and to whom he desires to give it. There’s no longer any talk, is there, of an agreement or any talk of paying wages. Now, at this point, he is simply giving a gift.

It began, the story began with this idea of hiring workers and agreeing on a certain contract and agreeing to pay the wages. But now as the story progresses and we get to the end of the story, the punchline, we realize that it is all a free gift to begin with.

The owner hired the last group more out of philanthropy than out of a genuine need for someone to help him with bringing in his crops. And the first ones didn’t realize it, but they too were being hired out of philanthropy. That is, the landowner just wanted to do a good deed. He wanted to bless these people who were poor and needy. We think we’re doing good works, but in reality, we’re all beggars. Isn’t that what the story is telling us?

And then verse 15, the landowner says, am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? The ESV translates it, do you begrudge my generosity? Other translations like the NASB and the NIV say something a little bit different.

They say, or is your eye envious because I am generous? In Greek, it actually says, is your eye bad because I am good? And this idea of the bad I, that is the I that betrays the emotions within. This is the envious I. They’re envious because they’re comparing their pay with the last hour workers who were paid the same, even though they worked less. Are you envious because I am generous?

How should the first hour workers, the ones who worked all day long, from the first hour of the day to the last, how should they have responded? Instead of this grumbling and comparing themselves with others and thinking that they’re being treated unfairly, how should they have responded? They should have responded the same way that Jesus discusses in Luke chapter 17 and verse 10. We are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. That’s the problem though, isn’t it?

That these workers, the ones that worked all 12 hours in the heat of the day, they do not think of themselves as unworthy servants. They think of themselves as having merit. And so they think that they deserve more because they worked harder and because they earned the reward.

And so, hey, it’s not fair that you would be nice to these people here and give them a generous wage that they did not deserve. But if they had realized that they are just as poor and just as needy as the late hour workers, then they would have said, we are unworthy servants.

We have only done what was our duty. Thinking you deserve more is not consistent with the attitude of humility that characterizes those who are truly saved. And so therefore, I think we have to conclude that even though the parable doesn’t quite spell it out, that we should think of those workers that come out with this grumbling attitude, we should think of them as not saved, right? In the story, they’re given their denarius, but In reality, they’re not saved. They don’t have that attitude of someone who recognizes their need and in humility receives the gift of grace.

That’s why Jesus concludes with verse 16. So the last will be first and the first will be last, which is repeating the very same thing he had said at the very end of chapter 19 and verse 30, although it’s switched, right? So in 19.30, it says, many who are first will be last,