This week, until 22 November, Kevin Mayhew Ltd are offering 10 per cent off No Ordinary Stories: Meditations and Worship Material on the Parables. With the book normally retailing at £19.99, that means a saving of £2.00 using the code STORIES10 when ordering the book from the company’s website. Just type the code into the relevant box at the online checkout between the dates given.
Meanwhile, here’s the fourth of the sessions I’ll be posting this week from the book, to run alongside this promotion.
THE VINEYARD LABOURERS
Reading
For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last. Matthew 20:1-16
Meditation of Andrew, one of the twelve disciples
Do you remember that parable Jesus told –
the one about the father and the two sons,
the eldest of whom complained bitterly
when his brother was welcomed back with open arms
after having wantonly frittered away his inheritance?
Well, it seems to me that, in his story of the vineyard,
he’s provided a sort of sequel,
for it’s on much the same line:
how we should cope with the apparently indiscriminate nature of God’s grace.
It’s hard, isn’t it, not to feel a certain sympathy for that older brother,
hard-hearted though he may have been?
But, compared to those labourers in the vineyards –
the ones taken on first thing in the morning –
there’s no comparison,
the sense of injustice their treatment evokes
almost impossible to overcome.
How would you have felt had you been toiling away there all day,
sweating under the noonday sun,
only to see a succession of late recruits swan along at the last minute
and walk away with the same payment for their efforts as you?
Hardly fair, is it?
In fact, it’s precisely the sort of thing
that would have even the mildest of folk up in arms,
storming off to the boss to protest about their rights.
Only what’s fair in God’s book is not the same as in ours,
his thoughts not our thoughts,
nor his ways our ways.
He calls whom he wishes, when he wishes,
granting his blessing where he sees fit, as he sees fit.
and ours is not to reason why.
Don’t forget, none of us deserve his love;
it is his gift rather than our right.
And don’t forget also that, when it comes to serving God,
the reward is in the doing as much as the ultimate prize,
those who come to faith late having missed out
on a lifetime of fulfilment,
rather than having filched unwarranted riches.
Remember that next time God calls someone you deem undeserving
and you’re inclined to raise an eyebrow at his mercy.
Stop, and think again,
or you may find, far from receiving only the same reward as them,
you receive no reward at all!
Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ,
we know that your kingdom is not of this world
and yet still sometimes we can’t help judging
by this world’s standards.
We have a fixed idea in our minds of those you find acceptable,
those worthy or unworthy to receive your love;
and we regard some as better Christians than others,
more deserving of your love,
more entitled to your blessing,
the service they offer and faith they show
surely meriting special favour.
Yet such thinking betrays our misunderstanding
both of the nature of discipleship and of you –
your sovereign grace which gives freely to all
though none deserve it,
your call to commitment which offers a new quality of life
simply through the joy of knowing you.
Teach us never to measure people by our flawed human values
but to recognise that everyone, whoever they are, matters to you,
and may that be all we need to know.
In your name we ask it.
Amen.