The Generous Kingdom

Rev.. Doug Floyd Pentecost +17Rev. Doug FloydMatthew 20:1-16 Jesus says, “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.” [1] He proceeds to tell a story about a landowner who hires workers for his vineyard at four different times during the day. At the end of…

Rev.. Doug Floyd

Pentecost +17
Rev. Doug Floyd
Matthew 20:1-16

Jesus says, “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.” [1] He proceeds to tell a story about a landowner who hires workers for his vineyard at four different times during the day. At the end of the day, he pays those who came last as those who came first. The workers who were hired first grumble that he has paid those who came last the same amount. My first response is to agree with those workers. This seems unfair. What’s going on?

Sometimes when I don’t understand a parable, I keep chewing on out it: over and over. I read this parable with one of my favorite commentators on Matthew, Erasmo Leiva-Merkakis. It seems like the parable keeps opening in different ways. Yet, all of them provoke me, so let me pause over some ways we can hear this parable.

First, we have a conflict between those who worked the vineyard early and those who came late. We’ve been reading Romans throughout the summer. Considering Romans, I might think those who came early are like the Jews, and those who came late are like the Gentiles. When the way of the Kingdom is opened to Gentiles even the Jewish Christians find this offensive because they have failed to see how the promise from the beginning was always to bless all families through Abraham. Now before we begin to look disdainfully at the Jews, I might suggest it is easy for us also to forget hospitality.

What happens when someone converts who is our enemy? Think of the story of Jonah? He is offended by the generosity of God extended to his enemies. Sometimes people react against a specific racial group maybe due to past negative experiences. But the gospel goes forth without restraint. Last week I mentioned Corrie Ten Boom having to forgive a former guard. There have been many stories of the need for generosity and forgiveness in Rwanda. We used to be under a Rwandan Bishop, and he said that in some of his churches, he had people who had been guilty of killing family members from other people in the church. Part of his pastoral ministry was shepherding this work of reconciliation.

Another way we might consider this parable involves the agreement with the laborer. It seems to me that the workers who grumble have a transactional notion of their relationship with the landowner when in fact the relationship is one of generosity or grace. It’s easy to fall into a transactional view of our relationship with the Lord. Sometimes people want to make overt deals with God. If you will do this, I will do this. When God doesn’t come through with his end of the bargain, they are mad at God. But everything is grace: there is no transaction. We wake every day due to the generosity of God’s love.

Some people reverse the transaction. They think, if I don’t do this and this and this, God will be mad at me. I failed to read the Bible or pray, God will be mad at me. Reading the Bible and praying are an important part of cultivating my relationship with the Lord but they are not part of some negotiated transaction. He loves us and showers us with his love. It’s is all grace from first to last.

Now let’s come back to the parable yet again. Jesus says, “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.” [2] This story is about the kingdom of God. This is not free market capitalism or socialism; it is the kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is rooted in the abundance of God’s love. According to verse 16, this is a kingdom rooted in the generosity of the king. We are dealing with a generosity that knows no limits.

Next, we consider the relationship with the laborers. In verse two we read, “After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.” [3] The Greek word for agreeing is the same word for symphony. It is to be in one accord. To fit or conform. To be in harmony or to create a harmonious sound. The landowner came to an agreement with his laborers but at the same time, he was inviting them into a very different kind of agreement: a harmony, a symphony of people and land and time. All things coming together in the glory of the kingdom.

My Eastern Orthodox friends use the term sobornost: in some sense a Eucharistic harmony that unites all people and all things in Christ. The kingdom of God does not look or work like a market economy. It is rooted in the sacrificial love of God revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. From this life-giving center, we all live in relationship with the Lord. In turn, we all live in communion with one another. This is larger and more glorious than we can grasp in this sacred communion.

We were created for this communion. The laborers in this story were created for this communion. They think they are simply agreeing to work on a vineyard, but they are being invited into something so much larger. Within this communion of love, it is possible for the laborers who came early to rejoice over the laborers who came in late.

We want to be a people who rejoice when other people experience the blessing and favor of God, but sometimes we struggle with envy.

Notice the end of this story. “And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ 9 And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius.”[4]

The landowner intentionally pays the laborers who came last first. In so doing, he reveals the heart of the laborers who came first. This revealing of the heart is an essential part of the kingdom. Why does God call Jonah to preach in Nineveh? He is blessing the people there, but He is all revealing the heart of his servant Jonah.

God in his goodness and generosity will reveal our stubborn, selfish, idolatrous hearts. I’ve said before I think Evangelicals can sometimes spend too much time searching their hearts for some secret sin. This practice can easily become a form of self-glory. Our Father in heaven can expose our hearts and will expose our need for healing and cleansing in His good time.

I have sometimes thought that spiritual formation should be focused on learning that God loves us and nothing can separate us from His love. We must know that beyond a shadow of a doubt because He will lead us through the valley of the shadow of death and reveal the ways that sin has broken and damaged our hearts. In this valley, we come to see afresh our desperate need for grace. God Himself will reveal our secret sin in good time and bring us to the place of healing grace.

Those laborers who grumbled were being invited into the generosity of the landowner. They were being invited into the transformational grace of God.

Our hearts have been damaged by sin and it will take a lifetime of God’s grace to lead us into the fullness of healing. How do we walk this path? First rejoice in God’s overwhelming goodness to us in Jesus Christ. Next, we expect to face times of offense at God’s people and even at God Himself. I would hope and pray that we are honest about what offends. We bring it to the altar, acknowledging before God our need to be cleansed, to be healed, to be transformed.

He has invited us to work in the vineyard. He has called us into an agreement, a symphony of love. He has opened the floodgates of generous love. We receive. We rejoice. By His grace, we become extensions of His grace. His love and generosity flow through us to a world in need of redemption.

By His grace, our voices join with the voices of all creation.
10 All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord,
and all your saints shall bless you!
11 They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom
and tell of your power,
12 to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds,
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.[5]

Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 20:1.

[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 20:1.

[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 20:2.

[4] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 20:8–10.

[5] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ps 145:10–12.