The Kingdom Turned Upside Down
Jesus tells his disciples a parable (Matthew 20:1-16) about a landowner who goes out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.
He returns again at nine, at noon, at three, and even at five o’clock—gathering all those still waiting to be hired.
At sunset, he pays every worker the same wage, no matter how long they have laboured.
Those who worked from dawn are outraged. They feel cheated, overlooked, pushed to the back of the line.
But the landowner replies, “Are you envious because I am generous?”
Jesus concludes the parable with that unsettling but beautiful reversal: “The last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Reversal of Values, Expectations, and Hierarchies
This is not simply a lesson in the payment of wages.
It is a description of the Kingdom of Heaven—a Kingdom where God overturns the hierarchies that have developed in the modern world.
Where those who assume they are first discover they are not, and those who believe they are last find themselves welcomed to the front.
A Personal Glimpse of an Employers Benevolence
I can identify with the workers in the vineyard, to some extent, because many years ago, when I was a teenager, I worked for a time as a casual labourer at a fruit cannery.
This meant I queued up with my friends every morning, hoping for a day’s work canning the ripe fruit – this was the only work available to us at the time.
There were many young and older women in the queue, and we just hoped that by the time we got to the front, there were still jobs available. We were usually lucky and allocated a job (just for the day).
There were about a dozen production lines working hard to get the fruit through the peeling and slicing machines and then packed into tins.
Early in the afternoon, the foreman would start shutting lines down according to how much was still available to can. We were then paid according to how many hours we had worked that day.
The work was hard – the conditions tropical – and you had to really need the wage to do it.
But it was an excellent company to work for – and believe it or not, when we were laid off early, sometimes we found that we were paid for an hour or two more than we had worked.
Of course, this might have been a miscalculation on our part, or a mistake in the Wages Department, but we took it as a token of our employer’s benevolence.
And when this happened, from time to time, we were thrilled—and worked even harder the next day.
Why Jesus Told This Story
The parable told in Matthew’s gospel about the workers in the vineyard is Jesus’ response to Peter, who had asked;
“We have left everything to follow you. What then will we have?”
Peter is asking from the front of the queue. He assumes that those who came first will receive the most.
Jesus answers with a story that dismantles that question.
He is not reassuring the latecomers. He is challenging the early starters.
He is warning his disciples—and us—against spiritual entitlement.
Jesus is saying, in the Kingdom of Heaven, those who believe they deserve the most may find themselves last.
And those who believe they deserve nothing may find themselves first.
This is not meant as a punishment, rather it is a mercy.
It is God’s refusal to let human pride determine divine generosity.
The Race to Be First Today
Much of modern life trains us to compete for being first—first in success, first in recognition, first in comfort.
We can experience this in the commercial world that has developed over the centuries to become a consumer society.
Through clever marketing strategies, we have developed a desire to have the latest shiny gadgets, luxury homes, and exotic holidays.
According to where we are in our lives, we can also desire to have respect, power, recognition, a thousand Facebook likes, and a hundred thousand Instagram followers.
We desire to have these things and a lot more too, as modern-day economics and clever advertising have convinced us we need them to be happy and live a fulfilled life.
But this model of living is the basis of suffering that many of us experience due to greed, envy, aggression, pride, and vain ambition.
It is not that we do not need to have certain things like shelter, food, warmth, self-esteem, etc. to survive – and there is no reason for us not to enjoy on top of that some of the shiny gadgets and goodies available to us today – after all, we live in the times we live in.
It is the importance that we place upon attaining those things – and the lengths to which we will go to hold onto them is where the issue lies.
Because an excessive desire to have will never be satisfied with what we get – and will always leave a longing to have more.
Jesus Came to Demonstrate a Simpler Way of Living
He came to show a way of life that emphasised sharing and caring for each other, a way of life where all were seen to be equal.
For a just reward separates us from the rewarder. ‘Take what is yours, and go!’, the vineyard owner in the parable said to those who grumbled – in other words, the debt is paid, and our relationship concluded.
Jesus was teaching that relationships are more important than rewards.
The Kingdom’s Upside-Down Logic
This parable is about the choice of the landowner (who represents God).
He offered a decent wage for a day’s work and went on to provide those he found later still looking for work with the same amount – because he knew they needed it.
The landowner in the parable does not reward people according to the hours they worked. He rewards them according to his goodness.
He gives the same wage to those hired last because he sees their need, not their productivity.
And when I think back to those days at the fruit cannery — the way we were treated (in all aspects of the work) lifted us and encouraged us.
The landowner in Jesus’ parable does this on a far greater scale.
He gives not according to hours worked, but according to love.
And that mercy is offered to us all — equally, freely, undeservedly.
And this is the central message of the parable:
God gives us what we need – and not necessarily what we think we deserve.
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