NOTES for Mat 20:1-16

How you understand the parable of the eleventh-hour workers depends chiefly on whom you identify with. If you identify with the worker who arrived in the last few minutes and barely had time to do anything, then this is a parable about God's boundless mercy: ‘For the abundantly generous Master receives the last as he does the first; he gives rest to the one [who came at] the eleventh hour as to the one who laboured from the first; he has mercy on the last and cares for the first; to the one he gives, and on the other he bestows gifts,’ as St John Chrysostom says in his Easter homily. To everyone who comes to work in his vineyard, God gives himself, and this is a gift of which there can be neither more nor less.

Perhaps it is far more important for those who have already spent some time living the Christian life, or think they have achieved something in it, to hear this parable. Your response to it can show whether you have learnt anything in this life. To most Jews, Christ's words sounded flagrantly unjust. They believed that they were a God-bearing people, and, unlike some, they had grounds for thinking so. For that reason, they thought, their portion and reward in the Kingdom of Heaven should be higher and greater than those of others. A Christian, whether Jew or Greek, should be marked by a readiness to accept the apparent injustice of Christ's gift. Protesting against this parable shows that you stand in an Old Covenant relationship with God, even if you formally participate in the New Covenant.

In fact, the Lord most likely gave us this parable precisely so that we would understand two important things. First, God's reward to each person is immeasurable, because that reward is his life. Second, God's mercy goes much deeper than the justice we can imagine. As the apostle James writes, ‘Mercy triumphs over judgment’ (Jas. 2:13).