Jesus told his disciples this parable: "The reign of God is like the case of the owner of an estate who went out at dawn to hire workmen for his vineyard. After reaching an agreement with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them out to his vineyard. He came out about midmorning and saw other men standing around the marketplace without work, so he said to them, You too go along to my vineyard and I will pay you whatever is fair' At that they went away. He came out again around noon and midafternoon and did the same. Finally, going out in late afternoon he found still others standing around. To these he said, Why have you been standing here idle all day?' `No one has hired us,' they told him. He said, You go to the vineyard too.' When evening came the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, Call the workmen and give them their pay, but begin with the last group and end with the first.' When those hired late in the afternoon came up they received a full day's pay, and when the first group appeared they supposed they would get more; yet they received the same daily wage. Thereupon they complained to the owner, This last group did only an hour's work, but you have put them on the same basis as us who have worked a full day in the scorching heat.' `My friend,' he said to one in reply, I do you no injustice. You agreed on the usual wage, did you not? Take your pay and go home. I intend to give this man who was hired last the same pay as you. I am free to do as I please with my money, am I not? Or are you envious because I am generous?' Thus the last shall be first and the first shall be last." (Matthew 20:1-16)

For me without a doubt this is one of the most difficult passages of Matthew's gospel to handle, and I think the difficulty arises for several reasons.

One is, why is it that if the householder or the owner of the estate has a Stewart, why does the owner go out and do the hiring rather than the Stewart? And then, why does he go out at particular times of the day? You might answer, well, he needs workmen to get the harvest in. Well, he can't be a very good owner of an estate if he dilly-dallies and hasn't made prearrangements to have enough workers to brine in the harvest. It's like someone harvesting wheat down in the Palouse and deciding we're going to have a tractor without a combine, or we're not going to have any trucks to carry the wheat to the granaries. It's not a far-thinking owner, and you wonder how such a man could hold on to such an estate for any length of time. It's difficulties like these that make the passage obscure.

The early church saw this passage as very allegorical, and when you look at passages or parables allegorically, this stands for that, and that for this. If you take it that the vineyard is the Kingdom of God, or Israel (and there's good ground to take this as such), if you also take it that the owner is God, then it puts God in a less than ideal light. So how are we supposed to handle this parable?

One of the clues that I find is that this parable is very similar to Luke's parable of the Prodigal Son. The one who prompts the action, the one who is always on the scene, so to speak, is the Father, the owner. The one who is prodigal or profligate or extravagant in Luke's parable is the Father. The one who is prodigal, profligate or extravagant in this parable is the owner of the vineyard. What we are dealing with here, then, is a kind of symbol for salvation. God is generous in His salvation, but people can be very envious even of God. The owner of the vineyard in this parable points this out: "Or are you envious because I am generous with my money"--! am generous with my graces, with salvation. Then the one who has worked all day and is grumbling because he got a just wage is very similar to the older son in the parable of the Prodigal Son, who is very irritated that his father has welcomed the brother home after the brother has squandered the father's living. In other words, what is operating here is the desire in human beings to dictate to God how He shall use His grace, how He shall give His rewards, how He shall recompense people.

And if we look at our own lives and examine them, we see how easily, how often and how quickly we fall into the same condition as the older brother or the "disgruntled" person who has worked all day. There are many areas in life where we can be envious. Other people, we think, have an easier time of it than we, don't have to make the sacrifices, aren't called upon to live as hard as we are. Nations can even be envious of other nations. I suppose this is not a good thing to say, but Third World nations can often be envious of Second and First World nations, because of so-called or perceived affluence. Or relatives in the "Old Country" are envious of those in the "new Country. " Or older people can be envious of younger people because they seem to enjoy better health, greater alacrity of mind, greater agility. Or the sick can be envious of those who are not so ill, because they're not sick. And all of us can be irritated with God, if we only admit it. We can be irritated with God because we don't like the way God handles people, we don't like the way God rewards people, we don't like the way God forgives people.

Most of us are not willing to admit it, because it sounds like blasphemy, and yet it is there. Why should God give His graces, His salvation, to such a person? The movie that illustrates this very well, I have used before, is Amadeus. Remember Salieri, "I have sacrificed so much, I have dedicated so much, and here comes this bumpkin Mozart who has all of this talent, all of this ability. God, you are not fair." There is also an added factor, that sometimes we think we can storm God by the overwhelming amount of our own endeavors. In other words, we often think that the harder we work, the harder we do it, the reward of eternal life, of grace, will depend upon us. And we think that we will determine what will be given. But we have to remember always that it is God's free gift. And when you come right down to it, it's nothing we can earn. It's nothing that we can demand, it is simply given because God wishes to give it.

You might say in a very great respect that that is "one of God's great weaknesses." I put it this way: It is one of God's great mysteries. What is there in us, that God could love us? Really, when you think of it, God has everything, He is totally perfect, He creates everything, keeps everything in existence. What then can we add to His stature, to His awareness? You have to answer, to be perfectly honest, we can add not a blessed thing to God. Why, then, is He so generous? And the answer is simply, because love is generous, because love wants to do it, because love doesn't count the cost. And for this we can only be grateful, and yet how many times are we like the elder brother, and how many times are we like the workman who has worked all day, and we feel that we have been slighted, we have been cheated, when we have truly been given great gifts.