Matthew 20:1-16 - No Partiality

Let's take our Bible and go to Matthew chapter 20.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 20.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

We're going to be looking at one of Christ's parables, the parable of the vineyard workers.

Let me read this for us.

You can follow along with me as Ted had mentioned for this month.

I'll be preaching from the CSB, the Christian Standard Bible.

Jesus in chapter 20, verse 1, begins, For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.

And after agreeing with the workers for one denarius, he sent them into his vineyard for the day.

And when he went out about nine in the morning, he saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.

He said to them, You also go into my vineyard, and I'll give you whatever is right.

So off they went.

About noon and about three, he went out again and did the same thing.

Then about five he went and found others standing around and said to them, Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?

Because no one hired us, they said to him.

When evening came, the owner of the vineyard told his foreman, Call the workers and give them their pay, starting with the last and ending with the first.

When those who were hired, about five, came, they each received one denarius.

So when the first ones came, they assumed they would get more, but they also received a denarius each.

And when they received it, they began to complain to the landowner.

These last men put in one hour, and you made them equal to us who bore the burden of the day's work and the burden burning heat.

He replied to one of them, Friend, I'm doing you no wrong.

Didn't you agree with me on a denarius?

Take what is yours and go.

I want to give this last man the same as I gave you.

And don't I have the right to do what I want with what is mine?

Are you jealous because I'm generous?

So the last will be first, and the first last.

Well, we're going to dig into this parable that Jesus speaks here, but before we do, I want to sort of pull us into the context of what's going on here.

For just a second, just look a little bit past what I just finished reading into verse 17.

While going up to Jerusalem, Jesus took the twelve disciples aside privately and said to them on the way, See, we're going to Jerusalem.

The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priest and scribes, and they will condemn him to death.

They will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked, flogged, and crucified, and on the third day he will rise again.

Now go back a couple pages to chapter seventeen.

Look at verse 22.

In 1722, you're going to read this.

As they were gathered together in Galilee, Jesus told them the Son of Man's about to be betrayed into the hands of men.

They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised up.

And they were deeply distressed.

And Jesus here in chapter 17 is repeating something he also said in chapter 16.

So what we find here is that we're coming to the climax of the Gospel of Matthew.

We're coming to that time that's soon arriving when Jesus will go to Jerusalem and he's going to face what's awaiting him there.

He's going to face the rejection of the people.

And then he's also going to be rising from the dead.

What we have in chapter 17 and chapter 20 and verse 17 is an encapsulated talk in between there, the fourth of five major discourses that Jesus gives.

We've looked at three of those already, and we're near the end of our fourth one here as we come into this chapter.

The first one was the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus in chapters five to seven talks about the characteristics of the kingdom.

And then if you go into chapter 10, Jesus calls out those who will be proclaimers of the kingdom, and he gives them instruction and warning about how to carry out their responsibilities.

We get to chapter 13, and Jesus tells all the clues of the kingdom by way of a series of parables that he offers.

In a few weeks, we'll be getting into the fifth discourse.

But this one here, Jesus is focusing in on something very significant.

He's talking about the community relationship of the kingdom.

Somebody calls it the discourse on the church, but it's more the discourse on the citizenship of the kingdom in the broader sense.

And the focus has been on how to relate with each other in the right way within the kingdom of heaven.

And so in chapter 18, we looked at humility, we looked at purity, we looked at concerned care for the wayward, we looked at the willingness to receive the rebuke of those whose best interests are to call us to holiness.

We've saw the power of forgiveness and how that changes our relationships with each other.

In all of these things that we've been looking at in this fourth discussion, this fourth discourse, Jesus has been giving us an understanding that his kingdom is not a material kingdom.

It's not a kingdom won and conquering by force.

It's a spiritual kingdom that carries with it a dynamic to transform and change the character of every one of us.

That it can lead us to be humble, it can lead us to seek purity, it can lead us to be concerned about others, it can lead us to be willing to receive correction, it can lead us to be people who forgive and seek forgiveness and find our lives in reconciliation rather than conflict.

And what he's been telling us here is that his kingdom is going to be so influential in that way that people will take note of it and they will see the reality of the kingdom not by boundaries and weaponry, but by transformation of character and relationships.

But it seems like the disciples, despite all that Jesus has been teaching, are refusing, unable to understand it.

In chapter 18, they argue about who's the greatest in the kingdom.

They fail to understand the power of forgiveness and ask Jesus, uh, should we just forgive someone seven times if they sin against us?

They cry out in despair over the strictness of self-denial.

You know, it's better not to be married than to sort of restrict my behavior in a way that's in alignment with God's will.

They're overzealous bodyguards keeping children away from Jesus and saying he's too busy for you small people.

He wants to spend more time with us.

They refuse to accept the call of self-denial, and they look at what Jesus says to the rich young ruler and s and and cry out in amazement, Well, who can be saved then if the rich men can't do that?

I just turned this mic back on.

Are our settings okay?

And Peter makes a remark.

Take a look at it in chapter nineteen.

He makes a remark, we've given up everything for you and followed you.

What will there be for us?

Jesus has to teach these men again about what the kingdom of heaven looks like.

He has to teach them again about the spiritual nature of the kingdom of heaven.

He has to teach them again about the selfless, life-giving membership of the kingdom of heaven.

And so he brings a parable into play here to teach them this lesson.

And we've looked at parables already in the Gospel of Matthew, and we know that a parable starts with a commonplace occurrences in our life and carries us by that story into an understanding of God's character and conduct, but then it brings us back down into our life again and shows us the consequences of the kingdom of heaven and God's character and conduct for our behavior.

So here he is again doing the same thing.

And as we looked at parables, especially in chapter 13, and as we'll look at them more here and later, we understand that the parables often have slipped into them all kinds of surprises, unexpected twists and turns that help us understand something that we didn't know before.

And so the listeners drawn into a good story, but it's more than a good story.

It's a story that actually awakens us to new realms of thought and hopefully behavior.

And so this morning I want us to unpack this passage.

I want us to look at this parable.

And I want to break it down in three ways.

I'm going to spend a little time with the first one, a little more with the second, and then we will look at the third one even more deeply.

But I want us to see the setting, and then we'll talk about the story itself, and then we'll discover the significance of the story.

And I've kind of given you a clue of the setting already.

At the end of chapter 19, Peter is standing up, speaking what everybody else is wondering, and says to Jesus, We've given away everything to follow you.

We've left everything to follow you.

What will there be then for us?

And Jesus replies to this question.

He says to them, Well, you've asked that.

Let me tell you, truly I tell you, in the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

And everyone who's left houses or brothers or sisters or fathers or mothers or children or fields because of my name will receive a hundred times more and will inherit eternal life.

What's in it for me, Peter?

You don't even know.

You can't even take it in.

It's so great.

But then he offers a proviso.

Many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

Now that must have caught Peter's attention.

What is he saying here?

Well, mark the words first and last.

And let's look down through this.

Take a look at verse eight, for instance.

In verse 8 of chapter 20, we see in the middle of this story, when evening came, the owner of the vineyard told his foreman, Call the workers and give them their pay, starting with the last and ending with the first.

Okay?

Now take a look at verse 11 and 12.

These men who got paid last when they'd received their denarius, they began to complain to the landowner.

These last men put in one hour, and you made them equal to us, the first men who bore the burden of the day's work and the burning heat.

Then drop down to verse 16.

This parable ends with another statement: so the last will be first, and the first last.

Our chapter divisions in our Bible, especially in the New Testament, sometimes do us a disservice.

And we can separate chapter 19 from chapter 20, but obviously what's going on here is meant to be a bridge between the two chapters.

Peter asks a question, Jesus gives an answer with a provocative statement, and then tells a parable that's peppered with that kind of language and ends it with a very similar, if not identical, phrase that he finished off speaking to Peter.

So that's the setting.

Just pay attention to that for a minute.

Now let's go through the story.

And remember, this is a parable, a parable that takes commonplace things and in life and brings us into the heavenly realms to know more about God's character and conduct, his kingdom, and then brings it back down to us because of the consequences of that for our behavior and understanding.

So there's some things we want to note here because this, well, I don't know how many of you have worked a vineyard or been day laborers.

Not many of us have, right?

So this is not common knowledge to us.

It was common knowledge to Peter and everyone there, but not to us.

So the first thing we see here when we go into verse one is that the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.

So this landowner is going out to hire day laborers, someone who didn't have a fixed job to go to every day, but went to some place of meeting and was hired out day by day.

And so the landowner went to that place to find these workers and to bring them into his harvest field because the vineyard was ready for harvest.

Now, these day laborers kind of sat in the middle between slaves and laborers with regular employment.

There was something more beneficial to being a slave in the sense that if you were a slave, you had someone over you who was responsible for your daily care.

And if you had regular employment, you had it consistently enough to be able to take care of yourself.

But here was someone who every day had to stand in line with others and wait to see if a job would show up.

And so that put the person in a rather difficult place of life, an added degree of vulnerability.

And there were times, of course, with the rotation of crops and harvests as they came throughout the season, that there would be a job here and a job there, and another job there and another job.

But what if, what if, what if there weren't any rains and the harvest was poor that year?

What about the times in between the harvest seasons?

There was a lot of question marks about the viability of your life if you were a day laborer.

So this landowner is hiring these kinds of people.

He goes out early in the morning, about 6 a.m.

and hires the first batch.

They negotiate a wage for the day, a denarius.

A denarius is the commonly uh the common indication of a day's wage in that day.

That's what a soldier would get paid in the time of Jesus.

Get paid a denarius every day.

So this is this is a good pay.

A day's work deserves a day's wage.

And this is what the landowner offers to them, and they receive it, and they go off to work.

Now, if you read this passage quickly, you see the same thing happens at nine o'clock that happened at six o'clock.

The same thing happened at noon that happened at six o'clock and nine o'clock.

The same thing happens at three that happened at noon and nine and six.

And you might say, okay, what's well, what's the point?

But let's look a little more closely at this.

Take a look at verse one and compare it to verse three.

The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.

So in verse one, he's going out to the marketplace with the intention of hiring men or women, men and women, for work in his vineyard.

But when you get to verse three, you see a little bit of a change here.

When he went out about nine in the morning, he saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.

Now, it's a subtle statement here, but at nine o'clock, the landowner is not coming out there because he's shorthanded or the harvest is so full he needs more people.

He's out walking around and he sees people standing around and calls them into the vineyard and pays their wage.

And then he does that at noon and he does that at three.

Now, this might seem like a small point, but the point is to be made.

He's hiring these later people at nine and noon and three, not because he has a need, but because of what he saw.

And then that brings us into verse six.

Then about five, he went and found others standing around, and said to them, Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?

Because no one hired us, they said to him.

This conversation in verse six and seven heightens the standing around statement in verse three, repeats it.

It brings it into our focus.

And what these men at this time at 5 p.m.

are saying is we've not been given an opportunity to work.

We came out of our houses, we came to the marketplace, we waited at the appropriate place so that someone might hire us and nobody has.

And we've waited here all day waiting for work, which nobody has offered to us.

They've given us no opportunity to labor.

And so these people at nine and noon and three and five are not lazy people just standing around.

Rather, they're people that would showed up at the marketplace, that went there for the purpose of being hired.

They wanted to work for the day, they needed to work for the day, but they hadn't been hired by anybody until this landowner saw them and saw them doing nothing.

And Matthew's readers would have answered the question of the landowner, why are you standing here doing nothing?

With a very clear answer.

They're standing there waiting out of desperation.

They're waiting because they need the paycheck for the day.

They need to take care of their family.

That's why they're there.

They're not just there hanging out, talking to one another and laughing and enjoying the moment.

They're waiting for work.

But why had they been passed over?

Why hadn't they been hired?

Why has no one stopped to say, look, you guys come?

You think perhaps it was because they didn't look like they'd be good workers?

Because they might have been frail or sickly or old or somehow deemed incapable of hard labor?

So they were left behind.

You know what it was like in gym class, you know, when two two team captains are picking their side and they're like, Bob, come over here.

Sam, you're on my team.

And you know, there's there's like four or five of us going, Am I gonna be the last one again?

Seriously?

Every time I'm always the last one picked.

these these workers are sitting there saying we need some work we've been waiting for work and nobody's nobody's hiring us so he calls them even at 5 p.m to work six o'clock rolls around the end of the day the final whistle and so the landowner recognizing scripture says in deuteronomy 24 don't take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns pay them their wages each day before sunset because they're poor and counting on it otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you and you will be guilty of sin Deuteronomy 24 14 and 15 this is a just landowner he's going to pay these people at the end of the day what they did for what they did.

He's not going to sort of push off the paycheck he's going to make sure he gives them what's due them.

And so at five these five o'clock men are called into the line first we don't know why they're called first we don't even know if that's customary or not customary we don't understand the customs and cultures of Jesus day to know that but these men are called first because it brings up a contrast it brings up the ability for the first ones hired to see what the last ones hired are getting paid because they're in line watching, waiting.

And it brings in a shocking development these men hired at five o'clock these men who had been passed up by other landowners these men who had worked for significantly less time than they had these men who had hardly even gotten into the rhythm of work when the whistle blew to tell them to quit work these men were going to get paid first and they were also going to get paid a whole day's wage and what that does is it builds an expectation in the guys at the back of the line the ones who've been working all day the ones who have been laboring hard who've worked 12 times longer than the first guys who are getting paid and they're thinking boy this is going to be a good paycheck this is going to be great they're getting paid a whole day's wage and they worked an hour.

We worked 12 hours well if they worked an hour for a denarius that's two weeks' wages we're making today and they assumed if this landowner is going to do that for them he's certainly going to do something for us let's just see what happens well what happens is not what they expect to happen they get paid exactly the same amount that those last guys did and that enrages them with the sense of injustice and in verse 11 they start to accuse the landowner they say these last men put in an hour and you made them equal to us who bore the burden of the day's work and the burning heat I think all of us can recognize why they're upset.

And I think I think we might even have been going yeah tell them tell them we've been working all day these guys man they were on a coffee break before they even got started and they bring this accusation now notice the movement here verse 10 when the first ones came then in verse 12 these last men worked for one hour there's that first and last contrast going on here and then the contrast also the amount of work they put in one hour we put in all day and you make them equal this just doesn't seem right to us this just doesn't seem fair to us this is not equitable at all it has all the appearance of being unfair unjust inequitable and the complaint stands all right landowner explain yourself here because I think we deserve better and then the reply friend I'm doing you no wrong didn't you agree with me on a denarius take what is yours and go I want to give this last man the same that I gave you.

Don't I have a right to do with mine what I want are you jealous because I'm generous and it ends with Jesus moving into that remark so the last will be first and the first last what are we to make of this story?

We've seen the setting we've sort of examined some of the highlights of the story itself but what is the significance of this?

Well the significance of this is an answer to Peter's rash remark that he made in verse 27 in the last chapter we've given up everything to follow you.

What's in it for us?

And what Jesus is driving home to him is an understanding that there's a different way to think about service in the kingdom of heaven Peter's not to assume that the heavenly rewards are a quid pro quo of his labor on earth that if I do this then I get that if I do this much that's handed over to me.

No, Jesus wants him to understand that the kingdom of heaven is filled with bountiful riches that overflowing in superabundance.

And none of it is going to come because you've earned it's not going to come because of the length of time you put into service to me.

It's not going to come in the profile of your ministry or the effect of your ministry.

It's not going to be involved in any of that.

It's going to come out of the superabundant riches of God's generosity don't turn the kingdom of heaven into an equation you would use for your everyday work is what he's telling Peter.

Because none of what you're doing here has anything to do with the way God accounts his riches blessings upon his people.

And just like the wage of the last men was twelve times greater than the first men who worked the hundredfold that Jesus talked about when he spoke to Peter is way more than anybody deserves to have and so he's asking the question of Peter and of us do you want a God who's fair or do you want a God who's generous Peter?

Do you want a God who will give you what's due you or do you want to give yourself to a God who give will give you something you've never deserved and give you more than you could ever earn where will you go with this Peter?

Will you give yourself to me or are you still holding back to find out what's in it for you is what he's asking Peter and he's telling us here that all of us who respond to the grace of God are invited in we're invited in not so we could sort of outmuscle each other for the the best paycheck at the end of it all but so that we might all be recipients of a bounty that none of us deserve because our calling is one of grace and our hearts are meant to serve without thought of reward in a this for that kind of way so as the landowner points it out generosity is what dictates the actions not strict fairness as you're accounting it because generosity doesn't contradict fairness it supersedes it supersedes it something else that we're meant to learn here as I said parables take us from the commonplace to the character and conduct of God back down to the consequences for our life we're to learn something about the character not only of the kingdom dimension of motivation of service but also of the character of God himself here as we see the landowner walking through the events of the day.

So let's do that and make some connections here.

The first thing we see is the compassion of the landowner there's a reason why I brought up those observations that we made earlier.

The workers who are hired at the third hour the sixth hour the ninth hour and then the 11th hour at nine noon three and five are all people who have been passed over, who have been counted as somewhat undesirable.

These are people that no one else was giving work to and this landowner hired them because there was something in his heart he looked upon their situation and their state and despite their limitations despite their liabilities he hired them anyway even though he didn't need them he didn't need them he saw them and he hired them he didn't say I need them I'll hire them the first ones he hired because he needed them these last ones he hired because he saw them doing nothing.

And so he looked on their situation and he saw that they were going to end the day in deficit walking back home with the wife wondering where the groceries are and he's going to say I didn't bring any because I didn't have any money to buy any and these men are going to go home instead saying I hardly worked up a sweat and I got a whole day's wage let's have a feast this landowner reminds us of our savior he reminds us that he's called out Galilean fishermen that nobody else gave much much account to that he called out tax collectors Matthew to follow him that he sat with with prostitutes and spoke to them about the wonderful message of forgiveness of God that he reached out his hands and touched lepers that he went to men who were blind and gave them sight that when a raging crowd was surrounding him and wanting to make him king he says stop a minute and he turns around and finds a withdrawing woman who had been suffering with the disease for decades and says you touched my garment I'm going to touch your body and make you whole you see Jesus stops and he looks at us not because he needs us but because he sees us the undesirables the unhirables the weak the frail the something's wrong with them he looks and he reaches in and he touches the sick and raises the dead and extends mercy to everyone in the midst of their weaknesses and even worse their sinfulness what a wonderful sense of compassion we learn here.

But we also sense the gentleness of the landowner here he is affronted with this rebuke by these men who had been hired first who are like why are we only getting one denarius we worked 12 hours and you gave that guy the same you're giving us and what's the first words out of his mouth friend friend friend the landowner's building a bond with these accusing men he's trying to make a connection with them he's he could have just said look take your money and go I paid you what you said you would take but he stops and he says friend he wants something more from these men than just for them to be happy with their paycheck he wants them to feel his generosity he wants them to operate on a new level and so he invites them in see it from my side see it from the way I see it all that I gave you came from me.

What I gave you came from me what I gave them came from me.

It was mine I didn't have to hire you I didn't have to hire them but I did hire you and I did hire them and if I want to give you this and them that it's mine to give would would you be so upset that I'm generous and he wants them to see the generosity and he calls them friend we also see that the landowner is fair.

Now these men didn't think he was fair but he's fair he hired these men at six o'clock he said he'd pay them a denarius and when six o'clock in the evening came he paid those men a denarius there's nothing unfair about that he paid them exactly what they were expecting to get paid exactly what they had agreed to get paid the contract was met in full and if that was taken into a court of law they would have said this is the contract you made this is what he paid you I don't see the problem case dismissed they wouldn't have even gotten that denarius if the landowner had not hired them everything that they had in their hand even though it wasn't valuable anymore to them came from the landowner he was fair he was fair this parable helps us to evaluate our lives and ministry because there are times when we're in service to the Lord that the idea of fairness can sometimes be lost on us.

Think about Jeremiah in the Old Testament for a moment preaching for 40 years to people who never responded to him the only thing they responded to him with was persecution and ridicule and abuse he never had anybody say to him thank you for that sermon ever Isaiah was called to a ministry to teach people who wouldn't understand him.

And God said to him that they'll be ever hearing but never understanding ever seeing but never perceiving and their hearts are callous and their ears are dull and their eyes are closed but keep speaking to them anyway Isaiah and Isaiah looks at that and he says what what how long O Lord and the answer is this until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged until the Lord sends everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken you mean I'm I'm here to empty the land not fill it?

Yes, Isaiah do you think maybe in Jeremiah's heart and in Isaiah's heart there was this sort of what why couldn't I have been a prophet in a better day?

Why couldn't I have been a prophet in a more fruitful place how often there are pastors and church laborers and elders and people praying over dying churches who are saying oh if we were just in a fuller spot oh if there wasn't just more blessings laying down on the ministry here.

It's just not fair.

These men struggled deeply with their role they struggled trying to understand what God was doing.

And Jeremiah is very vocal about it.

I'm just not going to speak but his word was like a fire burning in my bosom and I couldn't I couldn't hold back I had to say it these two men were called to a long life of toil without fruit to struggle with nothing to show for it to end their lives and their ministries with people saying what a what a loser that guy was but God is always fair at the very least and far more abundantly generous than we could ever know.

Henry Morrison who was a missionary in Africa for 40 years was coming back on a on a steamship from ministry there.

And little did he know that also on that ship was Teddy Roosevelt and when they got into New York there was a great crowd waiting for Teddy Roosevelt to come back and Henry Morrison saw the great crowd and as he and his wife stepped off the ship there wasn't a soul there to meet them.

Nobody to say what a great sacrifice of service to the gospel in 40 years of ministry.

Nobody and they went to their apartment and it just burned in Henry Morrison's soul look at all that Roosevelt received all the fanfare all the excitement all the attention all the jubilation all the triumph of this guy's return and all he's been doing is shooting game and we come back from serving the gospel for 40 years and nobody's here and his wife said honey you're forgetting something we're not home yet we're not home yet there's a welcome to be received but you we haven't gotten there yet we learn something about our savior here he's compassionate he's kind he is fair but he's also generous he's generous these men hired at five o'clock they hardly work for an hour imagine that five o'clock they get hired they got to take time to walk into the field they get to the field they say you know here's here's your tools here's here's your bucket I'm not sure what all they needed but by the time they got set up they'd be hardly reaching into the vines to to pick any harvest and they'd hear the whistleblower and they'd like well jobs over like yeah I'll get paid a denarius for that they must have realized just in getting hired that they had no way of affecting what they were about to receive.

They had waited all day and not been hired they they get hired at the very last hour of the day and they get paid a whole day's wage for doing hardly anything where did it all come from the generosity of the landowner the landowner who took the time to go and look and hire and And go again and look and hire.

And go again and look and higher.

And go again and look and higher.

Not because he was needy, but because he saw people in need.

And here we have a Lord who's come down to earth to save sinful people.

Not because he needs us, because he sees our need.

And he comes out toward us.

And he's so generous.

Again, Peter is reminded of that.

Do you want fair?

Well, I'll give you fair if that's all you want.

But why don't you just rather open your heart to generosity?

And maybe you're here this morning and you're thinking, I just need to be a good person for God to accept me.

And if I do this and I do that and I go here regularly and go there regularly, and I'm I treat my family a little nicer and I'm a little more faithful at work and I'm a little more consistent in that, then maybe God will just I'm a good person, and maybe He'll take care of me and let me into heaven.

Do you want fair?

Do you want fair?

I don't think you do.

I think you'd much rather say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, and and to feel the flush of grace overwhelm your soul, to reach into the depths of your darkness and flame a light of righteousness that's not your own into your soul, and to realize that you've been granted an eternal place in his presence without blemish or spot or wrinkle or condemnation.

And you're thinking, what is this wonder that this holy God that I feared and quaked before now receives me?

Wouldn't you rather have that?

Wouldn't you rather have the grace of God?

Of course you would.

And one final point.

This landowner is patient.

He's been pressed at the end of the day, where he's been being generous all day long, hiring people he doesn't need because he sees their need all day long.

And the first men come up and they press him.

They press him with on the correctness of his actions and point out just how unfair it all is.

But he wants them to know he's not interested in that.

He's a man who operates from a different center.

He operates from generosity.

Don't you see it?

He says.

And he invites these workers in.

Are you jealous because I'm generous?

Can't you see it from a different point of view?

Can't you ponder just how right generosity is in relationship to the fairness you're demanding?

And so the landowner is not, he's trying to win over these complainers, not win over them.

And so he's asking them, look at it with fresh eyes.

And the story is left open-ended, right?

We don't know what their response was.

Oh, oh, okay.

Oh, okay, we we got it now.

No end.

He leaves the question hanging.

And then Jesus says, and so the first will be last, and the last first.

It just ends.

Why does it just end?

Because it's a question for the ages.

It's a question for us.

It's a question for us to see the patience of the generous God who has overwhelmed us with grace.

And not to revert back to our old way of this for that kind of thinking.

And to realize from this very God, we're going to receive far more than we've ever thought we could earn, and way more than we can dream.

For eye is not seen, nor is ear heard, nor is it entered into the thoughts of men, the things God has prepared.

He's patient.

So our Lord is compassionate, he's gentle, he's kind, he's fair, he's generous, and he's patient.

How patient?

Take a look at verse 20.

Then the mother of Zebedee's sons approached him with her sons.

She knelt down to ask him for something.

What do you want?

He asked her.

Promise, she said to him, that these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right and the other on your left in your kingdom.

Wow.

Really?

Right after that?

Yes.

Right after that.

How patient is Jesus?

He's really patient.

How patient is Jesus?

Luke 22, just let me read it.

Jesus doing what we'll do in just a minute.

This cup is a new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

He's offering them the very sign and seal of his promise of fulfilling the new covenant and granting them entrance into it.

And right after that, verse 24, a dispute arose among them as to which of them was to be considered the greatest.

Wow.

How patient is Jesus?

That patient.

These very people that, if any of us had watched them for a three-year, a three-year sort of probationary period, and said, Well, make you uh apostles and the foundation of the church and my work of redemption for humanity and the reclamation and restoration of all creation under my rule and reign.

I'm going to give you a three-year probation.

You're going to walk with me for three years.

But before I leave, I'm going to make sure you've got it.

They didn't.

But he never let up on them.

Because these were the very ones that would be the foundation of his new kingdom.

He's that patient.

He's that long-suffering.

He's that generous.

He's that kind.

He's that gentle.

He's that compassionate.

What's there to do but give ourselves to him?

Who wouldn't if you really knew him?

Let's pray.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you.

We thank you for Jesus stopping and calling us into a perspective by way of a parable that casts us into a whole new realm of thought and understanding.

And we pray that it wouldn't just reach our heads, but it would reach our souls and cause us to align ourselves with you and to realize just who you are.

God of grace and mercy and love.

A God who is imminently loving and gentle and generous and patient.

And Lord, may it transform our hearts.

And we pray, Lord, with trembling souls, stamp yourself on our character.

Make us people who are generous and gentle, kind and patient.

Make us Father like you.

We ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.