Bible Text: Matthew 20:1-16 | Preacher: Pastor Andrew Richard
The first major feast that the Christian Church celebrated annually was the Resurrection of Our Lord. Baptisms would happen at the Easter Vigil, and since there were many adult converts who needed to be instructed in the Christian faith before then, the season of Lent developed as a season of catechesis, or instruction in basic Christian doctrine. This little three-week season in which we find ourselves now was a call to those who were not yet baptized to go through the 40 days of instruction and then be baptized at Easter. And what could be more inviting than the theme of the parable of the workers in the vineyard, namely that the kingdom of Jesus is a kingdom of grace?
Every year at the Easter Vigil Pastor Preus reads a famous Easter sermon by John Chrysostom, a pastor from the 4th century, and the sermon references this parable so that we arrive in the Easter season by returning to the theme of this Sunday. Here’s a short quote from that sermon: “If anyone has arrived even at the eleventh hour, let him not fear on account of the delay. For the Master is gracious and receives the last, even as the first; he gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, just as to him who has labored from the start. He has mercy upon the last and heals the first; to the one he gives, and to the other he is gracious.”
This is a great reminder for the one who has been putting off instruction or putting off Baptism, for the one who has come to church casually, or hardly at all, or has just begun. This parable teaches that the kingdom of Jesus is a kingdom of grace. Jesus is not angered at the delay. When He asks, “Why do you stand here idle all day?” it’s not because He wants to be wrathful, but because He has compassion. “You go into the vineyard too,” He says. Delay no longer. Jesus has not shut the door. The day is wearing on and the time is coming when the door will be shut. But that time is not yet, and so long as it is day, Jesus brings people into His vineyard, and He receives the last as the first.
This parable is at the same time a great reminder for the one who has been a Christian his whole life. The lifelong Christian needs the message of this parable as much as anyone: the kingdom of Jesus is a kingdom of grace. Jesus tells the parable in response to something Peter said, and the original occasion of the parable is very instructive. Peter was conscious of what he and the other apostles had given up in order to follow Jesus. He wasn’t bitter about it, but he understood that with Jesus there are better things than there are without Him. So Peter says, “See, we have left everything and followed You. What then will we have?” Jesus doesn’t deny that the apostles will receive great things. He responds to all the disciples, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve 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” (Mt. 19:27-30).
The parable of the workers in the vineyard explains in what way many who are are first will be last and the last first. “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. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard” (Mt. 20:1-2). The master of the house is Jesus, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven to bring us out of the marketplace of the world and into the vineyard of His Church.
There is great difference between the marketplace and the vineyard. In a marketplace everything has its price: if you want that shirt, then you owe the merchant money, and if you give the merchant money, then he owes you that shirt. You don’t think of the market as a place of loving and giving, but of transaction and sale, of people getting what they’re owed. According to the ways of the marketplace, a sinner deserves death and damnation, he has earned it, and it is owed him.
A marketplace is also very busy. Now the word Jesus uses of those in the marketplace is “idle,” but that doesn’t mean unmoving. It means “unworking.” There are plenty of busy people who get nothing done, and that’s what life is like in the devil’s kingdom, apart from Christ. It’s a hectic busyness that leads nowhere, one big relentless and frustrating attempt at self-justification that is never enough, a place of much activity that doesn’t produce a single good work, for, as it says in Romans 14, “whatever is not from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23), and in the devil’s kingdom there is no faith.
A marketplace is finally a place of confusion. Picture a chaotic grocery store with people and carts and noise everywhere. The unbelieving world is like that: it’s a confusing place, and gives tunnel vision, makes people shortsighted, and leads them to make impulsive decisions. There are people everywhere, and yet it’s lonely. It’s hard to know which way to go, and such is life without Christ. The prophet Isaiah describes this miserable life of the sinner apart from God: “We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes; we stumble at noonday as at twilight; we are as dead men in desolate places” (Is. 59:10). Such are the men standing idle in the marketplace. There’s nothing enviable about their situation, but they are rather pitiable, and we need to remember that about the world so that we don’t hate or fear, but have compassion.
A vineyard is very different. First of all, it is a place of grace. Just think of a vine. No man has the power to make a vine grow and produce grapes. Only God can do that, and thus the vineyard is ultimately about God’s grace. If He doesn’t grant the growth and give the fruit, then there is no vineyard. There’s nothing a man can do to earn a single grape. It’s all pure gift, and so it is in the Church. In this vineyard Jesus gives us the wine of His own blood for the forgiveness of our sins, not because we deserve it, but because He wants to be gracious. He doesn’t want to treat us according to the marketplace and only give us what we’re owed. He wants to give on the basis of His merit, not ours. So the vineyard is a place of grace.
The vineyard is also a place of work as opposed to idleness. Work isn’t inherently bad. Before sin entered the world, God put man in the garden to work it and keep it, and this was good and desirable to Adam. While the marketplace is a horrible blend of idleness and busyness, the vineyard is a place of real, good, satisfying work, work like listening to the Gospel, singing praises to God, praying, loving and serving your neighbor, doing your duty according to your station in life. As with manual labor in a vineyard, there are trials to push through and temptations to resist. Yet even here Jesus has taken the curse away, and He is with us and strengthens us and fights for us and upholds us in our work by the power of His own work, for His atonement and the gift of forgiveness and eternal life is more than enough to carry us through all hardships.
The vineyard is finally a place of clarity. There’s open space and clean air, room to move and breathe and live. Christ has set before us the goal, and we are heading toward eternal life by His grace. We don’t stumble about aimlessly in darkness, but go on straight ahead in the light of life. Life in the vineyard is the best life, and we give thanks to Christ for calling us into it.
Now let’s look at the men who were called from the marketplace into the vineyard, focusing particularly on the first man and the last man. The man who was called into the vineyard at the beginning of the day is a man who had been a Christian nearly from the time he was born. He was baptized as a baby, raised in the Church. He knew what being in the devil’s kingdom was like more by the teaching of Scripture than by experience, and he was grateful for that. He praised God as all Christians do, saying, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13-14).
But then a problem arose for him as time went on. He began to focus on his own work instead of Jesus’ work. He began to judge himself in relation to others instead of judging himself according to God’s Law. He became more mindful of his own sufferings than the sufferings of Jesus. He began looking at the world with a feeling of missing out on its idleness instead of looking at the master of the vineyard with thanksgiving for saving him from it. He began to look at the good works of the Christian life with bitterness, thinking of them as a burden and as scorching heat. He began to think of Jesus’ kingdom as a kingdom of merit instead of a kingdom of grace.
In contrast, the man called at the eleventh hour is a man who became a Christian toward the end of his life. He spent the bulk of his years trying to justify himself in vain, busy at fruitless tasks, a slave to sin. The grace of Jesus is crystal clear to him. He can vividly recall the many things of which he is now ashamed, from which Jesus has saved him, and he turns constantly to the Gospel for comfort. He has a lifetime of regrets and memories of the marketplace to keep him from becoming proud or supposing that he deserves to be in the vineyard. He knows that the timing of his conversion is not desirable. He would gladly have come sooner. He knows that those who have been in the vineyard from the beginning of the day haven’t missed out on anything in the marketplace.
And then the day ends. You heard how it went in the parable. The man who had only just become a Christian received the same eternal life as all the rest. The man who had been a Christian from the beginning had at some point forsaken the faith. Jesus rebuked him and kicked him out of the vineyard. Jesus ends the parable, “So the last will be first, and the first last” (Mt. 20:16). Jesus speaks this parable as a lesson to His disciples not to become focused on any special benefits they might receive, because to focus on that is to focus on one’s own work and miss the point entirely, namely, that being a Christian is about the grace of Jesus.
Now life doesn’t have to go like it did in the parable. Jesus is not saying that every lifelong Christian is going to end up in hell or that the only way to eternal life is to convert on your deathbed. There are many lifelong Christians who remain Christians unto eternal life, and a real deathbed convert is a rare bird. So what’s the point? That the kingdom of Jesus is a kingdom of grace. Jesus says, “I want to give to this last man as to you” (Mt. 20:14). And those are the words to hold onto: Jesus says, “I want to give.”
When your past sins haunt you, Jesus says, “I want to give.” “I want to give you peace in My blood, shed to atone for those sins. I want to give it, and so I do: Peace, peace be with you.” When you see the shortcomings of a fellow Christian and pride threatens your heart, Jesus says, “I want to give.” “You are the recipient, along with your fellow Christian. The two of you are branches grafted into Me, the Vine. You’re no better than he, and he’s no worse than you, for both of you are what you are by grace. I want to give, and in that is your boast, that the Lord of all has shown you His favor.” When labor in the vineyard is hard, Jesus says, “I want to give.” “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt. 11:28-29). When the marketplace seems appealing, Jesus says, “I want to give.” “I want to give you far more than you would find there. The devil offers fool’s gold, but what I have is genuine. If you want pleasure, you won’t find it there, but I give you true enjoyment of life. If you want riches, you won’t find them there, but I give you what moth and rust cannot destroy and what thieves cannot break in and steal. I want to give what is true and good and lasting, and you already have it here with Me.” And finally, when darkness shrouds your eyes, and the eleventh hour is past, and this life’s day draws to a close, Jesus says, “I want to give.” “I want to give you the eternal kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Mt. 25:34). I want to give you everlasting life. Enter into the joy of your master (Mt. 25:21).” For the kingdom of Jesus is a kingdom of grace, and there is no better kingdom to be had. May the Lord preserve us by His grace unto life everlasting. Amen.