But he answered one of them, “I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?  So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 10:13-16)

Matthew 20:1-16

When instructing his disciples, Jesus probably intended this story to warn them about their attitudes to work in the Father’s kingdom. 

When he said earlier in Matthew’s Gospel that those at the front would end up at the back, and vice versa, it may have seemed that ‘those at the front’ referred to the rich and powerful and that ‘those at the back’ were the disciples themselves. However, that saying was part of the answer to Peter after his somewhat self-centred question, “We’ve left everything and followed you; so what is our reward?”. (Matthew 19:27) 

It’s possible that, already in chapter 19, Jesus intended the puzzling saying about first and last, the front and the back, to be a warning to the disciples themselves: don’t think that because you’ve been close to me up until now, you are now the favoured few for all time, or destined to become rich and famous. They may have set out with Jesus from the beginning, but others may come in much later and end up getting paid just the same, the regular daily wage.

God’s grace then is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little. The story's point is that what people get from serving God and his kingdom is not a ‘wage’. It’s not strictly a reward for work done. God doesn’t make contracts with us as if we could bargain or negotiate a better deal. He makes covenants, in which he promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When God keeps promises, he does not reward us for effort but does what comes naturally to his overflowing, generous nature.

There is always a danger that we get cross with God over this. People who work in church circles can easily assume that they are the special ones, God’s inner circle. In reality, God is out in the marketplace even now, looking for the people everybody else ignored, welcoming them on the same terms, surprising them (and everybody else) with his generous grace. The earliest church clearly needed to learn that lesson. Is there anywhere in today’s church that also doesn’t need to be reminded of it?

Who are the different categories of workers meant to represent?

Do you accept God’s generosity for yourself and express it towards others?

Do you humbly serve God and others, trusting God to provide all that is needed?  

Reflections by Reginald Venter

Visit our website