Matthew 20:1-16
September 21, 2008
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
In the county where I live, the city of San Rafael is the center of all the construction suppliers and where big box home repair centers like Home Depot are concentrated. When I drive to this area to buy retaining wall blocks or landscaping plants and bags and bags of mulch, I cannot miss seeing the many clusters of men waiting to be hired for the day.
When I come to a red traffic light stop, they stand up and look at you intently hoping as to say, “Are you the one?” I try to avoid making eye contact. Many of the men are looking my way, some waving their hands to catch my attention. I try not to look. Sometimes when they do catch my sight, then I need to wave them off.
The men are all about the same size but of different ages, and some of them look strong, and some of them look tired, and all of them look hungry, hungry to work. You can see some of the same faces every day. As the morning turns to afternoon, there are fewer of them, but not by many; I don’t think a lot of people are hiring these days. I can see that those who were hired have locked up their bicycles around the trees.
As the summer months end, I see that the grassy areas where the men have stood have now been worn down to just dirt. I’m not sure what time they give up and leave; maybe it depends on the heat of the day, or how long the sun stays up, or the mood of the group, or the man himself. Maybe, each man says, “Today, I wasn’t chosen. Maybe tomorrow will be different.” By evening when only the moon is out, this area in San Rafael is empty of any day laborers.
The Parable
In this text, Jesus tells a story of the “laborers in the vineyard.” The facts are simple. A landowner needed some temporary workers for the day, to work in his vineyard. So he went out “early in the morning” and after agreeing on “the usual daily wage,” put them to work. At about 9:00 AM, he saw some idle people uptown and asked them if they wanted a job. He put them to work. The same thing happens at noon, 3:00 PM and 5:00 PM. An hour later, he summons the 5:00 PM crew and sends them away with a full day’s pay, doing the same with the 3:00 PM, noon, and 9:00 AM crews. When the first crew arrives, they believe that if the 5:00 PM gang got a full day’s pay for one hour’s work, they—having been in the vineyard for almost 12 hours—will surely get a hefty paycheck. They were wrong.
The landowner gives them the “usual daily wage” upon which they’d agreed. This upsets the hard-working crew of the first shift, and they complain about it “against the landowner.” The owner, however, says he can do as he wants with his money and that they got what they had agreed upon. He suggested that they’re just “envious because I am generous.”
Early Laborers
While we have interpreted this parable is about God’s generosity, we can’t help but to identify with the early bird laborers. As hard-working and over-achieving Asian Americans, we can empathize with those workers who worked long hours under the scorching sun since many of our ancestors probably worked in the rice patties of China or in the produce fields of the San Joaquin Valley.
We feel the workers’ frustration and perceive that the landowner’s discretion with his funds is another sign of exploitation. Those who have much can afford to play with the lives of those who need them in order to survive. We see that by the actions of the landowner, they pit laborers against each other by implying that those who feel slighted are envious of the owner’s generosity and not the owner’s disregard for the worth of the daylong labor and the conditions in which it occurred. We are troubled by this parable because it seems like these unjust socio-economic conditions tend to destroy human relationships. Imagine how the day laborers now feel about each other because of the landowner’s actions.
In this particular situation, all who wait in the marketplace or in San Rafael to be hired are poor; those who work today could just as easily be idle tomorrow. Appearing to privilege the last-hired by giving them the same wage as the first-hired does nothing to change the social and economic status quo that keeps day laborers dependent on the needs and whims of the rich and powerful. If anything, it breeds resentment among those who are pitted against each other just to find work, effectively preventing them from establishing solidarity with each other to challenge the structures that perpetuate their economic oppression.
Although we want to spiritualize this parable, let’s stay with this understanding for a little bit more. Note what the landowner says to the potential hires in verse 6-7: “Why are you standing here idle all day?” “Because no one has hired us” comes the reply. The reason why these laborers are still idle is not because they don’t want to work or that they are lazy or that they just like to hang out at the street corner. They are still idle because there’s not enough work. Not enough work is a factor beyond their control. The fault does not lie with the unemployed day laborers—it rests with the economic system that leaves people begging for a daily wage in order to pay for their daily bread.
Some of you are aware that we as a church have been ministering to people who have come to us with great problems. In speaking with them, they all want to work. They want another chance to put in a day’s work, receive a fair paycheck, and possibly begin to build up enough stability and normalcy to survive. But we know that these day laborers are vulnerable to exploitation, regularly exposed to employer abuse, hazardous working conditions, and the risk of being swept up in the net of government agency-led workplace immigration raids. The existence of day laborers is not as much a problem of securing our borders so that illegal aliens wouldn’t be able to come to the United States but a problem of a global economy. There are times when I need a strong day laborer who is able to lift those 50 pound retaining wall blocks when my back is hurting. What might a day in America be like if there were no migrant workers?
I want you to care for these people and to do whatever we can even if it’s just a free Sunday breakfast so that day laborers won’t be left out on the street corners anymore.
Late Laborers
Now that we have addressed the socio-economic message of this parable by identifying with the early laborers, there’s also a spiritual meaning in this parable for us to understand. We see this in the late laborers—those who were hired at 5:00 PM.
Jesus introduces the parable by saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.” He went out again at 9:00 AM in the marketplace and hired some more and told them that he will pay them whatever is right. He went out at noon and then at 3:00 PM and finally at 5:00 PM when he saw that some more were still idle so he hired them as well.
At the end of the day around 6:00 PM, the landowner paid everyone the same wage regardless of the number of hours that they worked. It may be unfair we might shout when we put ourselves in the shoes of the early laborers. But if we see ourselves as those day laborers who were finally hired at the end of the day and still received a day’s wage, it’s alleluia! It’s TGIF!
When we understand the landowner to be God, the wages that he paid out to all the day laborers are grace. Jesus tells us that God offers grace to any who believe, regardless of when they come to the faith.
It’s like this. One of those irritations in life is checking out at the supermarket. You’ve been waiting for awhile now and the person before you has a huge amount of food in her cart. Just then a new checkout aisle opens up and who goes there? Not the next in line, or even the second in line because you are boxed in, but the ones who are freest to move, the ones at the back who have waited hardly any time, if at all.
It’s nice that in banks and airports they have put in those mazes of belting so when people stand politely and move forward in the maze, the next one at the front of the line will get the next teller or the next metal security checkpoint. It took years for someone to figure that system out but it certainly feels like a fairer one. Costco needs to learn about this. You may feel that it’s unfair but the supermarket clerks treat all their customers as preferred and special. If God is the checkout clerk, he welcomes those customers who were able to free themselves to get to the new aisle with hardly any waiting.
What the parable is teaching us is that God is always eager to welcome people to faith, and that God is looking for workers right up to the end of the day. God is not concern about how long you have been in the church; he’s only interested that you are here right now. God is saying that if you have been here for a long time, you know how much blessings and grace you have received. You have more than enough to survive and live on—you already have received a day’s wage for daily bread.
Jesus is teaching us that God is looking for laborers for his kingdom right up to the end of the day. Those of you who have come to FCBC in the past year or last month or perhaps this is your first time ever at our church, you also receive a day’s wage. You also have God’s grace.
I can just imagine that if you came at 5:00 PM and worked just for one hour and still received a day’s pay that it’s highly likely that you might be the first one to show up at work on the next day at 6:00 AM. You want to work here because it’s good pay. You want to be at this church and participate in God’s kingdom because God has already given you his grace. Might you be here early in the morning to serve God tomorrow because you are so grateful now?
When I was growing up, one of the more popular Christian images was the “Praying Hands.” I remember I had a little hanging wooden plaque of the praying hands. There were two German brothers who both wanted to become artists. The older brother decided to send his younger brother to Paris for art school while the he remained in Germany to work in a mill in order to pay for his younger brother’s art lessons. Finally the day came when enough money was saved to have the older brother join his younger brother in Paris. The fine motor skill needed to be a great artist had been taken from the hands of the older brother by the rough work in the mill. He could not draw anymore.
The older brother returned to the mill and his younger brother returned with him and opened up an art studio. One day as he was watching his older brother pray, he noticed the strength in his brother’s hands and sketched them. Albrecht’s “Praying Hands” can be seen everywhere as the hands sacrificed so a younger brother could fulfill his dreams of becoming an artist. The younger brother must have been grateful for his older brother’s sacrifice even when the older brother was first in line.
Strong hands that have worked in the mill or callous hands from building retaining walls or blistered or scratched hands from picking California vegetables, and even soft hands of a fine artist (or girls and young women hands making handicrafts) are all hands of laborers who just want to work for a daily wage for daily bread.
Hiring all the Day Laborers
We have spent this message understanding what this parable means socio-economically from the perspective of the early morning laborers and then spiritually from the perspective of the end of the day laborers. But the good news message of this parable whether it’s socio-economically or spiritually is that all the day laborers were eventually hired. That’s the good news that everyone receives a daily wage to buy daily bread and everyone is welcome into the kingdom of God regardless of tenure. God freely distributes grace to everyone.
Our prayer as Christians is that we want to get all the day laborers off the street corner. We want them to have jobs to support their families and to contribute to the life of our communities and our country.
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, we who have borne the heat of the day gather with our brothers and sisters who joined us in the mid-day and at the eleventh hour, thank you for giving us daily bread. Those who almost gave up on having bread found in you one who would employ them late in the day are honored and happy that their children would not have to beg today. We all are thankful for your generosity of grace, especially at the times when we did not work a full day or that we have not giving up all that we have. Teach us to be as generous as you are; believing that when we share our resources, we participate in the miracle of multiplication to feed the world. In the name of Christ Jesus, we pray. Amen.