(Matthew 20:1-16)

 1"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3"About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' 5So they went. "He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?' 7" 'Because no one has hired us,' they answered. "He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.' 8"When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.' 9"The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. 10So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.' 13"But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? 14Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?' 16"So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

The Gospel reading for this Sunday is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. The landlord pays everyone the same wages regardless of whether they had worked for a part, or the whole of the day (Matthew 20:1-16). The people, who had worked all day and got paid the same as the people who are hired at the 11th hour, were annoyed thinking that they should be paid more for working for what they had done. The owner (who is God) replies to them saying. “Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

The parable is the polar opposite to credit crunch economics. Here there is enough money for everybody but all are paid equally. The point of the parable is that God’s love is the same for everybody; no one can earn extra blessings by working harder. The righteous and the unrighteous are treated indiscriminately. God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Mt 5:45). Jesus is describing a new reality underpinned by God’s grace – it is not what people do that is important but what God has done for them.

This can feel uncomfortable for three reasons. The parable cuts against the core tenet of a market economy, which says that we should be rewarded for hard work. Having clear tasks to achieve (‘doing-ism’) is attractive because it means that we know exactly what is expected of us. A clear moral code of behaviour and a prescribed set of actions are very appealing. It is easy to seek security in busyness - there are always jobs needing to be done. The Bible can appear to play up this sense of duty. It says that much is expected from people to whom much is given (Mt 13:12). Paul tells us that we should imitate God (Eph 5:1) and follow the example of Christ (1Cor 11:1). People wear wristbands with ‘WWJD’ (What would Jesus do?).

The trouble with having high expectations of ourselves is that we end up feeling guilty and then try to compensate by being quite unrealistic about what we can or should do. Vicars can unwittingly exploit that guilt. Some people like being given a hard time. I might say to you ‘we need to get real and help people to get real’. Our invitation is to accept that we can be real and loving as we are. It is OK to be who I am. There is much that I can do and much that I cannot do. I need to live with the realisation that I am who I am and can do and be only what I can do and be. All else is a running away from reality. I am not going to do anyone any good by retreating into the 'comfort' of feeling guilty. Guilt is a useful place to be only because it is a place from which to move on; it is not a place to live. The generous love, which includes us, also wants us to be real about being alive and free. In such generous love and loving we can be real and really play our part in the world.

The parable denies us the chance of role-security, which is where we get our identity from the job we do. Sometimes there is nothing we can do to make the situation better. When Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane, he takes Peter and the two sons of Zebedee with him (Mt 26:37). Judas has gone to the Chief Priests (Mt 26:14). The remaining eight disciples are simply told to sit (Mt 26:36). They are not told to pray, or to keep watch but simply to sit. The hour of Jesus’ betrayal had come and there was nothing more for them to do. If I had been one of the eight disciples left at the gate of the Garden of Gethsemane and told simply to sit, I would have found it hard. I would have wanted to do something to help. We like to feel that there is something we can do to contribute to a situation (We script ourselves in at the centre of the picture)

There is a quiet, secondary message in this parable, as understated as the quiet responsible characters who work all day. Namely, what we are trying to do and who we are trying to be - we already have it all at our fingertips. Our rightful wages (in the language of the parable) are an absolute certainty. Is it possible that by looking at what others get, we are blind to what we have? Wallowing in guilt and making comparisons between our lives and others are both equally as damaging. Franz Kafka wrote that it is often safer to be in chains than to be free. In his 1994 Inaugural Speech Nelson Mandela quoted the following poem, written by Marianne Williamson:

‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, ’Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’
Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of God’.

• I asked the children at St Stephens what ‘the first will be last and the last will be first’ meant. One child said that if people were standing in a line and someone looked at the line from two different directions. Someone would be first from one direction but last from the other.