“When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage” (NRSV, Matthew 20: 9)
The parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard vividly illustrates the truth that God does not think as human beings think, and that in our hopes of eternal life we are wholly dependent on his compassion and generosity.
It was evidently a busy time in the vineyard and the owner was taking on extra men in order to keep pace with the work. Accordingly first thing in the morning he went to the market square where, in that simple society, the day labourers who were unattached to any particular farm or vineyard, used to gather in the hope of being given a job.
He found some men already waiting there, and these he engaged, and agreed with them to pay the normal wage for a day’s work. He made three more visits to the market square – at about nine o’clock, noon and three o’clock – and on each occasion he was able to take on more men whom he promised to pay a fair wage. At about five o’clock, an hour before the men knocked off work, he went up once again and found others there hanging about on the off chance of picking up a job. These also he sent into the vineyard.
When six o’clock came, the manager, acting on his master’s instructions, first paid the men who had been hired at the end of the day, and gave each one a full day’s wage. In doing that the owner was acting, not as a hard-headed employer of labour guided by “the lore of nicely-calculated less or more”. (1) He was acting as he man he was, a generous man who had compassion on the pitiful plight of others. The men he hired in the market-place were not loafers or shirkers. He had satisfied himself on that score by asking those whom he had hired last why they stood there idle all day. “Because no one has hired us” was their answer (NRSV, Matthew 20: 7), and he knew what that meant in human terms – the family at home waiting hopefully for the breadwinner to return with wages in his pocket, only to be met at the end of the day with a disappointment bordering on despair.
So he gave to each of them a full day’s wage.
The men standing in the queue behind them saw at once what was happening and quickly passed the word down the line. The news of these high wages not unnaturally led the men who had been hired first thing in the morning to start working out, at that rate of pay, how many days’ wages they were likely to get for their one day’s work.
When, however, they were given exactly the same – one full day’s pay as they had agreed on – they began to grumble to the owner of the vineyard that it was not fair. For, unlike the owner, they were motivated, not by compassion and generosity, but by a hard self-interest. “These last”, they complained, “worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat” (NRSV, Matthew 20: 12).
The owner was quick to point out to one of them that he had no reason to complain of unfair treatment since he had received what he had freely agreed to. And he then went on to vindicate himself. “Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (NRSV, Matthew 20: 14-15, our emphasis).
In telling this parable Our Blessed Lord made clear one of the principles on which God awards eternal life. We have to remember that though our life and character here may, as it were, qualify us for eternal life, they can never entitle us to it as a matter of right. According to our ideas, if people do a day’s work they deserve a day’s pay – the two things balance one another.
But that principle does not apply to God’s rewards in a future life. The only thing there which we can earn is what Holy Scripture calls the outer darkness or eternal death, that is, an existence in which God is unseen, unknown and unwanted. For just as sins separate us from God, so, if they go unrepented, they end by separating us from him for ever. As St Paul puts it, “…the wages of sin is death…” (NRSV, Romans 6: 23, our emphasis).
And so, because we are all sinners and there is bad in the best of us, no matter how many or how great our virtues may be, they cannot earn for us eternal life or Heaven as we call it – that is, life with God in his visible Presence.
In a word we cannot buy Heaven, we can only be given it. As St Paul goes on, “…the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (NRSV, Romans 6: 23). All we can do is to plead in the words of that great hymn, the Dies Irae:
“King of majesty tremendous,
Who dost free salvation send us,
Fount of pity, then befriend us”. (2) (our emphasis)
For eternal salvation is a gift that comes solely from the surpassing generosity of God, who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, and from the self-sacrificing generosity of God’s Son who gave his life as a ransom for many (see John 3: 16 and Mark 10: 45).
And the gift is given to the only ones who can receive it – to those who respond to their Crucified Saviour by turning their back on the sins he died to save them from and by handing themselves over to him in humble trust and love.
And indeed it was at the Crucifixion itself that this parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard first came true; and a man who turned to Our Blessed Lord at the eleventh hour was given all that the most loyal and lifelong disciple could receive.
In St Luke’s words: “One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’ “ (NRSV, Luke 23: 39-43, our emphasis).
References
1. Wordsworth, W. (1821-1822) Ecclesiastical sonnets XLIII. ‘Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge’. Available from: http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww690.html (Accessed 08 June 2018) (Internet).
2. Thomas de Celano (13th century), translated by Irons, W.J. (1812-1883) Day of wrath, O day of mourning. Available from: http://lutheran-hymnal.com/lyrics/tlh607.htm (Accessed June 9th 2018) (Internet).