An article in December 2009 in the Independent (of London) newspaper reported the findings of research carried out by the charity War on Want. Almost unbelievably the report pointed out that there were workers in Bangladesh stitching Primark clothes for three pence an hour. These were child workers. These workers claimed to be working up to eighty-four hours a week, were subject to verbal threats and banned from joining a trade union. The same year shareholders celebrated record profits.
Now Primark is certainly
not the only clothing brand that uses cheap labour. Indeed, they may not have been aware of the
conditions in some of the factories supplying their clothing. I hope that they have done something about
this since 2009. But should they have
checked the conditions for workers who were supplying their clothes?
But who are we to judge. Have we made any effort to ensure that the
products that we buy are ethically sourced?
After all, we are part of a global economy where we in the wealthiest
countries benefit from cheap labour and poor working conditions in less well-off
countries. We hear stories of slave
labour in the supply of chocolate and coffee among other products, but do we do
anything about it?
This morning’s passage
includes an employee complaint. But that
employee complaint is triggered not because the employer is not paying a fair
wage but because he is paying some more than a fair wage. What right does he have to be so generous?
A
gracious God will let the last be first
Leading up to this parable we have the
story of the rich young ruler. Now in
that society being rich was seen as a sign of being blessed by God. Not only that, but this young man was deeply
religious and scrupulously moral. He was
first in the religious pecking order of that day. But when Jesus challenges the young ruler to
follow him with all of his heart the ruler walks away. He is an example of the first being last in
the kingdom of heaven. Unlike the
prostitutes and tax collectors, the moral outcasts of that time, the last in
the religious pecking order of the time, who happily gave their lives to
Jesus. They were the last who came first
in the kingdom of God.
After the rich ruler had left
self-seeking Peter rather self-righteously and probably with a fair degree of
self-pity says, ‘we left everything to follow you. What will we have?’ Jesus points out that what they get in this
life as a follower of Jesus and what we can expect in the next life goes a
hundred-fold beyond what we deserve, because our God is a gracious Father.
With these themes of the first being
last and the last and of the abundant grace of God in mind Jesus now tells the
parable that we know as ‘The Labourers in the Vineyard.’
A
kind employer cares about those whose hope is fading
The first surprise in
this parable is the role played by the landowner. In that society wealthy landowners acted like
gentleman farmers—they got others to do their work. A landowner would have told his foreman what
he expected to have done and then come back at the end of the day to ensure
that it had been completed. But this
landowner is hands on. He went out early
in the morning to hire workers.
In Palestinian villages
of that time there was an area in the marketplace where those who had no fixed
employment went hoping to be hired. Those
gathering in this unemployment corner would have been desperate for work. The landowner agrees to pay the first group
of men one denarius. That was fair. That the living wage. They would have been delighted for the
work. They had nothing to complain about!
The second surprise in
this parable is that the landowner goes back in midmorning. Why would he do that? Surely, he could have seen at the start of
the day how many labourers he would have needed. In fact, the landowner makes five trips to
the unemployment corner.
Middle east expert, Ken
Bailey, suggests that the landowner kept going back to the unemployment corner
because he was concerned for the unemployed men. If they don’t get a job that day they will
have the difficult task of facing their family and admitting that they had come
home empty handed. At the start of the
day he hires some men in the hope that the others will get work elsewhere, but
compassion keeps bringing him back to see these men are okay. And kindness keeps him employing people right
up until the end of the day.
The day is not over for
any of us, and the day is not over for those we love. Jesus is always seeking the lost and
desperate. He is always willing to lift
those who are hopeless. He is kind and
compassionate and says even to those who have lived a long life without him, ‘I
am willing to remove your sins from you and give you a hope and a future.’ Look at the response who had waited all day
to be hired: ‘no one has hired us.’ They
had spent the whole day being rejected but the landowner is taking on those who
no one else wants.
There
is equality among all God’s children
At the end of the day the
landowner instructs the foreman to gather the workers to receive their
payment. Here the last literally are the
first as they are the first to be paid.
They receive the days wage—a denarius.
I think that the landowner didn’t want these men who had worked less
than a day to have to face the disappointment and hardship of returning to
their families without a full day’s provision.
They are being treated as if they had worked the full day. When someone comes to Jesus after a long life
that has been futile and wasted they receive the full right of sons and
daughters of God. There is a fundamental
equality among God’s children. Whether
your sins are scandalous or refined you are accepted as if you had never sinned
and always obeyed.
Those who had agreed to
work for a denarius now think that are going to be given more than the
others. They are disgusted when they are
paid what they deserve. They complain: ‘you
have made them equal to us.’ The
religious insiders of Jesus’ day could not stomach the grace that Jesus showed to
the morally broken. The rich young ruler
said, ‘all these commands I have kept since I was a boy’. How would he respond to Jesus treating the
moral outcasts of his day as if they had been obedient since their youth?
Look at the landowner’s
response to those who hate-grace: ‘take what belongs to you and go’. The rich young ruler thought he was deserving
but he actually went home empty.
Do you think that you should be a favoured child of God because you came to Christ as a child whereas others have only recently come to him? God loves all his children equally. He does not play favourites. If you are a new Christian or one who struggles in your walk with Christ you are as much a son and daughter of God as the most mature and confident Christian.
Is
God fair?
Was the landowner fair to
pay a full wage to those who worked less than a day? Listen to his logic: ‘Am I not allowed to do
what I chose with what belongs to me?’ I
think that makes sense. Those who were hired
first were treated fairly. They were
paid the living wage. Doesn’t the
landowner have the right to do what he wants with what belongs to him.
Our God is rich in grace. In fact, our God is just in grace. He says to the later works ‘I will pay you
what is right/just’. His grace flows
from the cross where Jesus paid an infinite price for our forgiveness. It is right and just to show mercy to whoever
he pleases. Indeed, who are we to complain,
for each of us stands before him on the basis of grace and not wage?
It is said that the mass murder Jeffrey Dahmer turned to Christ before he died. Is it fair that god should forgive someone like him and make him equal to us as children of God? Absolutely! On the cross justice for his sin was satisfied. God is rich in grace. He can forgive whoever he chooses.
We must remember that
this is a parable. A parable is a story
that is designed to make one central point.
The point of this parable is Jesus is kind and has the right to show god’s
grace to whoever he wants. But we push
this parable to far is we start thinking that there are some who deserve a day’s
wage by their good works and others who depend on grace.
No, it is all grace in
the kingdom of God. ‘For it is by grace
that you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is
the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast’ (Ephesians 2:8).
Conclusion
Our God is kind and
gracious, are we? We live in a harsh world
of sweetshops and ruthless competition.
Are we gentle and generous? Do we
rejoice with heaven when sinners are brought to repentance and stand with us as
equally loved children before our infinitely loving God? Have we put away all moral snobbery and
embraced humility? We have a kind and
gracious saviour who will not stop inviting the desperate to come to him until
the day they die or he returns.
In Brazil a young girl
called Christina broke her parents’ hearts when she went to the city to live
the high life. When her mum awoke and found
her gone she followed Christine to the city and circulated a photo in all the
clubs and bars she could find. One day
Christina found one of those photos in a bar.
She turned it over and there on the back read, ‘Wherever you are and
whatever you have done, come home!’
Our kind God is rich in
mercy and he delights to give us more than we could expect and what we have
done nothing to deserve.
[PR1]atthe
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