Matthew 20:1-8

Matthew 20:1-8

For the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a house, who went out at the same time as the morning to hire workers into his vineyard.  And after coming to an agreement with the workers of a denarius for a day he sent them into his vineyard.  And he went out around the third hour to see others having stood idly in the marketplace.  And he said to those ones, “Even you all, go away into the vineyard and what should be fair I will give to you all.”  And they went.  And again, after going out around the sixth and ninth hour he did similarly. And about the eleventh hour he went out to find others having stood there and said to them, “Why have you all stood here idly the whole day?”  They say to him, “Because nobody hired us.”  He says to them, “Even you all, go away into the vineyard.”  And after evening came, the lord of the vineyard says to his supervisors, “Call to the workers and give to them the wage after beginning from the last to the first.”

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

The fact that this is a parable helps us understand something about the qualitative expectation of the kingdom.  The kingdom is like an owner of a vineyard.  It isn’t like the vineyard.  It isn’t like the workers.  The kingdom is like the master of the vineyard.  For what is the owner looking?  The owner is looking for people standing by doing nothing of importance but who are willing to do honest work with meaning behind it.  That’s the qualitative nature of this parable.  God’s kingdom is all about taking people whose lives aren’t particularly full of meaning and putting them into meaningful activity.  That’s the nature of relationship with God in a nutshell.  We can be all about ourselves in this life.  We can be full of serving our own agendas and fulfilling our own dreams.  But the kingdom of heaven is full of people who recognize that their life isn’t as full of meaning as others might think.  So they are found by the master of the vineyard who puts them to meaningful work in his vineyard.

Does your life have personal meaning?  Does your life have eternal meaning?  Have you been found by the kingdom and invited into meaningful activity?

Second Thought:

There is something worth noting about the timing of the story.  The parable is quick to point out that the master of the vineyard goes out in the morning, all throughout the day, and even in the hour just before the end of the work day.  So long as the work day is open, there is time to get involved in the work.  Even the people who are found so very close to the end of the day can come in and find something meaningful to do.  That’s the way it is with God’s kingdom.  There are those who will get into the work of the kingdom for most of their lives and do a good and full life of work.  There are others who might not get in until late in their life and only do a little work.  There are those who worked in the kingdom back in the days of Jesus when the kingdom was just being established.  There are those who will only get into the work of the kingdom just before the kingdom just before Christ returns.  The timing of the work is nowhere near as important as being involved in the first place.  What is of ultimate importance is that I come to an understanding of wanting to be involved in God’s work at all and receiving the invitation to be involved.

Are you involved in kingdom work?  What does it mean to you to be involved in the work of God’s vineyard?

Third Thought:

I find the reaction of the eleventh-hour workers very interesting.  “Because nobody hired us.”  Isn’t it interesting how some people will spend a whole day doing nothing simply because nobody told them what to do!  Clearly there was work in the area to be done.  I’m sure word had gotten out that the vineyard was hiring.  But in this response we can clearly see a major tendency in human beings.  We have a natural laziness about us.  Of course, each of us have areas where we are not lazy and areas where we are very lazy.  Many kids are not lazy with respect to going out and playing basketball in the front yard but they are very lazy about cleaning their room.  I’m lazy about dusting the house but not lazy at all about doing the laundry.  Every one of us has areas in our life where we know that there is something we could be doing but we just aren’t going to do it until someone comes along and tells us to do it.

Where are your areas where you know there is work to be done but you just aren’t willing to go out and do it without being told?  What can you do about those areas?

Passage for Tomorrow: Matthew 20:9-16