The Last Shall Be First

“The Last Shall Be First”  // Matthew 20:1-16

Message @ Jericho Ridge– Sun, May 9, 2021 (Series: Gospel of Matthew)

Well, Del, thanks for sharing your story with us.  I loved that last part – about attending church in your PJ’s!  Yet with the announcement this week of our re-start plan here in BC, going to church in your PJ’s might soon be a distant memory – Though I have to say, it is comfortable and the coffee is good!  As we move back toward in-person gatherings, we are going to have to flex some flabby muscles and re-learn some old habits.  It’s going to be hard work to re-learn how to do community well and how to show the kind of love and care that Del and Carolyn experienced when they came through the doors, but I know you, Jericho, & I know that you can do it.  

Well, my name is Brad and I’m part of the teaching and leadership team here at Jericho Ridge.  If you are new or visiting with us, maybe you saw us on Global BC Morning news this past week or heard about us on the radio, and are just poking you head in the door to check things out online, if that is you, a very special welcome to you!    

During our weekend teaching times we are working our way through one of the accounts from the Bible about the life of Jesus – the gospel of Matthew - and we are asking and answering the question “who is Jesus?”  Today, Jesus is going to give us insight into who God is by telling us a story about a group of workers, a vineyard and a payment system that makes it seem like God is raving socialist.  We are looking together at Matthew 20:1-16 and I’d like to read it for us as we dive in together.  

If you have a Bible, great, if not, we would be happy to get one to you. We have given out several to people who have stopped in for prayer with our pastoral team over the course of the past few weeks and so if you need one, reach out and be in touch and let us know and we’d be happy to get one to you. Use the email address .  

I’ll be reading Matthew 20:1-16 from the New living Translation - the words will come up on the screen here for you. 

“For the Kingdom of Heaven is like the landowner who went out early one morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay the normal daily wage[a] and sent them out to work. 3 “At nine o’clock in the morning he was passing through the marketplace and saw some people standing around doing nothing. 4 So he hired them, telling them he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. 

5 So they went to work in the vineyard. At noon and again at three o’clock he did the same thing. 6 “At five o’clock that afternoon he was in town again and saw some more people standing around. He asked them, ‘Why haven’t you been working today?’ 7 “They replied, ‘Because no one hired us.’ “The landowner told them, ‘Then go out and join the others in my vineyard.’ 

8 “That evening he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers first. 9 When those hired at five o’clock were paid, each received a full day’s wage. 10 When those hired first came to get their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they, too, were paid a day’s wage. 11 When they received their pay, they protested to the owner, 12 ‘Those people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’ 

13 “He answered one of them, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you agree to work all day for the usual wage? 14 Take your money and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. 15 Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?’ 16 “So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.”

Jesus lets us know that He is telling this story to help give his listeners and us a clear and vivid picture of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.  This phrase – the kingdom of heaven - is a kind of shorthand for the place where God is in charge and where things happen as God intends for them to happen.  This is why Jesus invites us to pray in the Our Father prayer “God, may your kingdom come, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.  So Jesus is saying to us – this story or parable is going to help you understand what things are like in God’s economy. When God is the boss, this is how it all goes down.  

Jesus actually starts this conversation in Matthew 19:27 where one of his original followers in the first century, Peter, says very brazenly to Jesus – ‘Um, Jesus. We have made a whole TON of sacrifices to follow you (not sure if you have noticed!) But I was just wondering ‘what will we get for all our troubles?  We will get like a special merit badge or some kind of bigger mansion over the hilltop or some kind of seat closer to the throne in the age to come? I was just wondering.  Asking for a friend, of course” ☺  

And Jesus responds by saying that when the world is made new, in the age to come, the real heroes will be revealed.  The ones who served behind the scenes and never made the headlines. The ones who gave up their lives to save others.  The people who faced rejection from their families and yet who chose to follow God anyway.  

There are millions upon tens of millions of people down through global history who were faithful to God yet who never got what they deserved in this life. So Jesus says essentially in answer to Peter’s question: “don’t worry – they will indeed get what is coming to them”. 

And what is coming to them is not only eternal life – a deep and personal relationship with the Creator of the Universe that starts today and goes on forever - But they will also be seen in the age to come for what and who they truly are.  Absolutely amazing people who have given up things so they can be closer to Jesus. And they will, in fact will receive their reward.   

In Matthew 19:30, Jesus is clear: “Many who are the greatest now, will be least important then. And those who seem least important will be the greatest then.” So this parable is actually telling us about a very real and future event that touches all of our lives – a time just beyond the end of each of our current natural lives when we will stand before God and God will give out a kind of payment, recompense for that which is deserved. And some people may be surprised at who gets what.  

This is why – full confession - this is my least favorite parable that Jesus tells.  If I ran the world, I would run it as a meritocracy – which is a fancy word meaning that everyone would get what they deserve based on your work ethic and effort you put in.  Other ancient rabbis in Jesus time told stories like this: about workers who accomplished in 2 hours what it took others the whole day to harvest and so they were rewarded for their amazing labours.  But Jesus unveils a very different picture of reality...  One where the last are first and the first are last.  

So in order to understand what that means, let’s look more deeply at this parable.  I grew up in a farming community and so the notion of the harvest and needing extra help during that intense but brief period of time is seared in my memory.  When the harvest is ready to come in, it waits for nobody and so this is the context of the story that Jesus tells.  It is harvest time. There is a sense of urgency. 

This was true in my uncle’s hayfields in Peace River country but it is especially true in vineyards.  This is because – science lesson here – the grapes grown and used for wine making have natural sugars in them, which are fermented to produce alcohol.  The measurement of units of sugar inside of the grape is called “Brix”.  And you need to pick grapes from your vineyard at exactly the right brix or bad things happen.  

If you let the grapes over-ripen, you have too much sugar in them and they will produce too much alcohol.  If you don’t have enough sugars, the resulting wine will be bitter and unpleasant and flavourless.  The point is that when your vineyard is ready, as a vineyard owner in the ancient world, you hustle on down to grab as many labours as you can get because it is GO TIME.  Like your grapes need harvesting right now!  

This explains the behavior of the vineyard owner in the parable.  He goes first to find workers at 6 AM, the start of the day for agricultural labourers in the ancient world.  These were 12-hour, sun up till sun down work days.  And most people in the first century didn’t have regularly, stable, lifelong employment situations.  They were day labourers. They got up early, went down to the market at the centre of town or the city gate and they waited for someone to come along who would offer them employment for the day.  Their daily bread for their family was dependent on them finding work.  So the vineyard owner finds some willing bodies there and sends them out to work. 

It is also an important feature of the parable to understand is that there is an explicit labour agreement made between the workers who are hired at 6 AM in verse 2.  The owner agrees to pay them the normal daily wage.  This is actually a bit of a generous offer on the vineyard owners part.  The unit of money was the daily pay for a soldier so it was a higher than the going rate.  So these people would have likely jumped at the chance to get out into the vineyard and get to work. This was going to be a good day. 

But the parable progressed and we see that the vineyard owner has a problem.  There just are not enough labourers to bring in the harvest.  So he goes back to the market 3 hours later at 9 AM and sure enough, there are more people there.  So he hired more of them, again, telling them he would pay them whatever is right at the end of the day.  They probably expected that working for 9 out of the 12 hours, they would get ¾ of a day’s wage and so upon that premise, they go to work in the vineyard. But again, there’s more clusters of grapes than there are workers to harvest them.  So the owner goes back at noon, and then again at 3 PM, again and again sending more and more people out into the fields.  The harvest is plentiful.  There’s urgency here of work to be done.  

But then at 5 PM, 1 hour from the close of the official work day, something unusual happens: the vineyard owner is town and sees that there are still some day labours who have not been hired for that day.  And so he says ”go, join the others in the vineyard” and they do.  This 5 pm hire is highly abnormal… only one hour of work out of 12 meant that likely, these labours would have expected to get 1/12th of what the others got.  This was not close to enough to be a livable wage or to feed your family.  So while a hour is better than nothing, it is definitely sub-optimum for both parties.

So imagine the shock and surprise of these 5 PM hires when they are called up by the foreman to line up and receive their pay and boom – the foreman puts into their hands at the instruction of the owner, the full amount for a full day’s labour!  What a bonus! What incredible generosity.  This news would have spread through the line up and while we don’t know what the 9, noon and 3 pm people got paid, we assume they too got a full days wage.  

But then we come to the back of the line, those hired first are paid last.  And there is dissention in the ranks.  They assume that because those who only worked for one hour received a full day’s wage, and that because they themselves worked for the full 12 hour shift, would be paid more.  After all, they would have brought in more grapes. They endured the scorching heat of the mid-day Mediterranean sun.  

But the vineyard owner, who represents God in this parable, gives them a bit of a polite but corrective insight: “Friends,” the owner says, let’s talk reality here for a minute.  You are not objecting to me being just – I am being fully fair to what we agreed on at the start of this day.  What you are upset about is my generosity.”  Jesus is challenging those who believe that the world runs on a merit only based system.  People like, well, me and maybe you – who feel a sense that justice means giving those work the longest and the hardest more than those who sneak in at 11th hour.  In this parable, justice is served BUT mercy is added.  

It is helpful here to note that Jesus’ original hearers would not have been shocked by the merit thing.  They would have been shocked by something else entirely in this story.  Our biggest questions centre around ‘why isn’t the landlord (or God) being fair?” but the original hearer’s biggest questions would have been “What are those crazy workers doing?! Why would you get lippy with the landlord? 

Your negative backtalk might mean you don’t get future work!”  Pipe down. Be quiet. Be grateful that you have received what was owed you and what you agreed to.  Put your head down, show up again before dawn in the market and hope that there is work to be done yet again.  Don’t ruin a good thing by complaining and getting all high on yourself!”    

You see if we think this parable is about merit or fairness, we are missing the point.  Jesus makes three clear statements here in this section that help reinforce that this is not about our assessment of our work but God’s assessment of our character and actions…  

In 19:30 Jesus says “the least shall be the greatest” 

In 20:16 – Jesus says “the last shall be first” 

And then in 20:26-27, Jesus says “the servant shall be the leader”. 

And even beyond what we do, this is about who God is and how God acts toward us.  This parable isn’t about you, it’s about God.  Jesus is saying, very directly, that God is a God of mercy and generosity and that this flows out of the kindness of God toward all that God has made.

I love how clearly this is expressed in Romans 9:15-16.  The author of Romans, Paul, one of the leaders and key thinkers and writers in the early Christian movement says this: “For God said to Moses, “I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.”16 So it is God who decides to show mercy. We can neither choose it nor work for it.”

When it comes to God’s mercy, we don’t get to work for or earn it.  The Scripture reminds us repeatedly that the Lord is rich in compassion, slow to anger, abounding in love and mercy.  And this merciful reward of eternal life gets extended toward all who say Yes to Jesus and enter a life-changing relationship with God.  The thief on the cross who died moments after confessing Jesus as lord gets the same eternal destiny as the Apostle Paul.  Those who come late to the party are still guests at the party (Pastor Wally will have more to say about this next weekend).  

But I love how that point also got reflected out in Del’s story. He came later in his life to faith, but sometimes those who come later outstrip and surpass those who come early but who take no notice of grace.     

So this whole section is clearly about Jesus making a point about the way in which the value system of the world is radically inverted in the Kingdom of God.  In the Kingdom of God, those who are “greatest” are really those who serve.  Those who are “wealthy” are those who give money away to support and care for those who are poor. 

And as it is to be in the kingdom of God, it is to be true in our lives and in the church.  Friends, those who rush into a room and throw their weight around are not the powerful ones around here.  Those who are humble, gentle who love well and who serve behind the scenes, sometimes for decades, are those who are the greatest.  

So there are two take aways from today.  The first is to those who feel that because of their long standing position in the family of faith, and all of the good things that they have done, the hours of service, the pouring into others and the times when they have stood faithful at their post while others have abandoned ship, that they are “owed” higher spiritual wages for higher spiritual sacrifice.  This can particularly be true if you grew up in the church and have this sense of “But I’ve been here the longest.”  

It is very subtle but it can creep in very quickly.  I know because I have felt it in my own life.  A sense of subtle entitlement – “they can’t speak to me that way… don’t they know all of the years of service I’ve put in here at Jericho!”  A sense of pride, “I give a lot of money to this church… my opinion ought to be considered more weightily than those who only throw in a few pennies every now and then!”  This is a 6 AM labourer vision of ourselves… as those who have sacrificed more and therefore are owed more.  

But Jesus says ‘no so with you.  Listen to this conversation from later on in Matthew 20:25-28: Jesus called [his disciples] together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. 26 But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. 28 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 

Jesus uses this story of the vineyard workers to help those of us who have been around the block a few times check out egos and our privilege and our sense of what is owed to us at the door.  Both of the church, and also as we think about the Kingdom of Heaven and what will be ours for all of eternity.  The real prize is Jesus and being with God forever.  Whatever other rewards come your way are just icing on the cake that is heaven. 

So you may need to do some self examination and ask “where do I see myself standing in the line up?”  Am I subtly part of the group at the back of the line who begrudges that God is being somehow unfair and is angling for more?  We are here to serve, to love, to give up our lives for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven and for the sake of the lost around us.  That is our place, Jericho.  I want to have that attitude grow in me and I want to invite it to grow in you as well.  Make that your prayer as we respond in worship.

The second direction this parable heads in is to help us not only understand ourselves better, but to understand that heart and the character of God more clearly.  Jesus came to show us what God is like, and Jesus is telling us clearly that God is unfathomably generous.  God is irrationally merciful.  God is so interested in you and in being in a vital relationship wit you and me that God is still roaming the marketplace when the day is almost done to find you.  And some of you have a distorted or clouded view of God.  Your experiences or your upbringing has led you to the conclusion that God is angry with you or that God has forgotten about you.  

Friend, nothing could be further from the truth.  In this parable, the vineyard owner is still in the marketplace when the day is almost done, searching, seeking… longing to be generous to those who need it.  And that might be you listening or watching today.  You feel like the last and the least and God is saying to you “you might feel that way, but I still want you as part of my team.  I am opening an invitation to be part of my family.  

You may feel like I don’t know as much as Wally or I can’t pray with big words like Gary Stevenson or I can’t love well like Katy Kwon or I can’t sense God’s presence like Miriam talks about or I can’t lead worship like Jesse does…. Friend, they may have said yes to the invitation to go out into the field earlier in the workday than you, but I am here to tell you that there is still time.  The door is still open.  The invitation of the King is still extended to you.  All you have to do is say yes.  There’s room for you.  

And if that is you, we would love to help you take the next step on your spiritual journey.  Simply email or if you are watching on our interactive church online platform, you can click the ‘say Yes to Jesus’ button and that will put you into a private chat with one of our staff team.  You may come at the 11th hour, but you are welcome – not just in God’s family, but also our family here at Jericho Ridge.  

And the reason I know that this is true is that we are all in need, not of what we deserve, that would be justice.  We are all in need of God’s mercy.  Not just once, but day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment.  And so as we respond to God’s word, Ruth Ellen and the team are going to lead us in songs that help us experience and express our need of this mercy and then invite us to display that to a watching world.  I invite you to sing together with me.