Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage (Matthew 20:10)

All my working life I have been an active member of a trades union. Part of my responsibilities as a trades union representative is to bring the concerns and the complaints of EIS members to the attention of school management and to look out for their health and safety. Which reminds me - I must see if there’s something that be done about temperature control. Over the last few days my room has been so warm I know what the guys in the parable mean when they talk about working through the heat of the day. You might imagine that, as an active trades unionist I might be the one who went up to the owner of the vineyard in today’s parable carrying the complaints of those who had worked all day.

This is one of the challenging passages of Scripture. At first sight it does seem that the vineyard owner is being unfair. Maybe Jesus’s disciples also thought that when he first told the parable. I mean, surely that can’t be right, can it? You put in a whole day’s work and you get no more pay than someone who’s only worked an hour. What sort of deal is this? And yet the vineyard owner is clearly meant to represent God. Is God unfair? Surely not. 

Normally when we go to work we do it to earn the money we receive my wages. I love my job - well, at least I like it. A bit. Sometimes. But I wouldn’t do it for nothing. Working for wages is an economic exchange; it’s a deal between the employer and his employees. In those terms the vineyard owner clearly is being unfair. This is not a fair deal. So maybe the point Jesus is getting at is that it’s a mistake to think of “deals” and “wages” at all when it comes to our dealings with God.

One of the commonest misconceptions that folk have about the Christian faith looking at it from the outside is that the whole business of living the Christian life - of doing what’s right, caring for those around us, speaking up for the marginalised - is all about earning our way into Heaven. Sometimes the perception is that there is some great balance sheet for each of us, setting out all the good things we’ve done and all the bad things, and if there’s more good than bad - if we’re not in the red - then we get eternal life in Heaven. There are some Christians who think that; who think that’s God’s deal - behave yourselves and do good stuff, or else!

But that’s not the way it is. There are no deals with God. In the parable the workers who came late to the vineyard received the full reward. And so it is with God. What God offers to each and everyone is the promise of eternal life - not as a reward for hard work or for long service, but for free, out of pure generosity; out of pure grace; out of pure love for his children. And the point about even those who only put in an hour getting the full reward is this: it doesn’t matter how late in the day you’ve left it before accepting the love and the grace of God; it doesn’t matter how far you’ve wandered from him; it doesn’t matter how many stupid mistakes you’ve made in your life - none of that can lessen the love God has for you.

And while it’s a mistake to think of our relationship in terms of deals, perhaps another reason we think of this parable as odd is that it’s a mistake to think that serving God is “work” in the way that my going into school every day is work. But this is not a deal - serving God is an opportunity; an opportunity to good to miss. 

Let’s look at the parable again. The vineyard wonder keeps coming back to the market square and keeps finding men who have not been hired for the day. What we are looking at here is what used to be called “casual labour”. It used to happen a lot in this country, especially during the 1930s. Unemployed men, scores of them, would gather at factory gates in the early hours of the morning. The factory foreman would come out and say, “You. You. You.” and those men would be hired for the day and if your face didn’t fit, or you were thought a bit bolshy, or if you went to the wrong church - and may God forgive us for that - you didn’t get work. You didn’t get paid and you’re kids went hungry. Today we have zero-hours contracts which are so much more civilised.

But this is the context of Christ’s parable. These guys still in the square an hour before sunset are desperate for even an hour’s work, to earn even the tiniest fraction of the money they actually need to keep body and soul together and to feed their families. What the vineyard owner is actually doing  in giving them a full day’s pay is making sure that they can get what they need to survive. Vineyard worker was not a well-paid job - especially for casual workers. Earning a day’s wage didn’t mean you were rolling in it - it meant you could eat.

This is the care God wants us to have for one another - for the least in our society. We live at a time when some of the poorest people in our country are vilified and despised; when there is an easy assumption that if you’re not working it’s because you’re lazy and feckless. We live at a time when there are people in our country shuffling to foodbanks in a country where tons and tons of food is thrown away because apples aren’t shiny enough. We live at a time when homelessness is rising inexorably and the response, in at one case, is to fit spikes in the ground so that they can’t sleep in shop doorways. Think on the vineyard owner whose grace and generosity meant that everyone got enough to feed themselves.

We are labourers in God’s vineyard. We are meant to do his work. It is our task - no, our blessing - to stand up for those the world too often despises. It is our task - no, our blessing - to do whatever we can to make sure that everyone gets enough to eat; to make sure that everyone has a roof over their heads; to make sure everyone gets their share of God’s bounty. It is our task - no, our blessing - to bear witness in the things we say and the things we do; in the values we embrace and the causes we espouse; in the way we live, to the great truth that the love of God reveals - that everyone matters. That the most despised, most vilified, most impoverished, hungriest, coldest child of God matters as much as the wealthiest, most powerful potentate on the planet.

Why should we do that though? If the grace and love of God are the same for everyone no matter how long and hard we work in his vineyard, why should we make the effort to do what he wants from us? Because when we do we make a difference. When we look after one another and speak up for the forgotten and the vulnerable we make this world a more beautiful place. When we do what we can to make sure that the hungry are fed and the homeless are sheltered we make this world a brighter place. When we show the love of God to those who are despised for their poverty and forgotten in their misery we reflect a little of the kingdom of Heaven into the world. And I cannot think of any greater blessing; no better reason to be alive. 

Lord may we serve you gladly, not to be worthy of your love but, sure of your love, ready to share that love with all your children

Preached at Tundergarth Church