The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard #14

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, sometimes called the Laborers in the Vineyard or the Parable of the Generous Landowner, is a story Jesus told about a landowner who pays every worker the same wage regardless of how long they worked. It appears only in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 20:1-16) and is one of the Bible’s best-known pictures of the generosity of God’s grace.

The Parable

Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. He agreed with the first group to pay a denarius for the day and sent them in (Matthew 20:1-2). He went out again at the third hour, the sixth, the ninth, and finally the eleventh, each time finding others standing idle in the marketplace and sending them to work with a promise to pay what was right (Matthew 20:3-7).

At evening the owner told his foreman to call the workers and pay them, beginning with the last to be hired and ending with the first. Those who came at the eleventh hour each received a denarius. The workers hired first expected more, but they too received a denarius, and they grumbled that the latecomers had worked only one hour while they had borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat (Matthew 20:8-12). The owner replied to one of them that he had done him no wrong, since they had agreed on a denarius. He told him to take his pay and go, and asked whether he was not free to do what he wished with his own money, or whether the man’s eye was envious because the owner was generous (Matthew 20:13-15). Jesus concludes that the last will be first and the first last (Matthew 20:16).

Context

The parable is a response to Peter’s question after the rich young man went away sorrowful. Peter asks what the disciples will receive, having left everything to follow Jesus (Matthew 19:27). Jesus promises them a great reward, and adds that many who are first will be last and the last first (Matthew 19:30). The parable ends with nearly the same saying, which frames the whole story and shows that it addresses attitudes toward reward and rank among disciples.

A denarius was the ordinary daily wage for a laborer, so the first workers received exactly what they had agreed to. Day laborers in that world lived hand to hand, and those still waiting at the end of the day faced hungry families, which makes the owner’s payment an act of mercy as well as generosity. The hours were counted from sunrise, so the eleventh hour was about an hour before sunset.

Meaning

The scandal in the story is the owner’s generosity. He is not unjust, but he refuses to reward according to hours worked, and those who assumed they would receive more resent it. The teaching is that God’s kingdom does not operate on the logic of earning, and that those who envy God’s mercy toward others have misunderstood it.

Christians have interpreted the different hours in various ways. Chrysostom and many early writers took them as stages of life at which a person is called, from childhood to old age, while others saw them as successive periods of salvation history. Protestant readers commonly find here the doctrine of salvation by grace alone, and Catholic and Orthodox readers often stress that God’s generosity is the source of every reward. Most agree that the passage is a warning against resentment and a comfort to those who come late.