Did it happen to you?
School sports and setting up
for team games.
Two of the brightest and
best are chosen to be the captains who then take it in turns to pick their
team.
You watch the line get smaller
and smaller and you notice the anguish on the faces of the captains as they struggle
to make their final choices.
You are left, last and least
wanted. Okay, says one of the captains with some reluctance, I suppose we will
have to have you on our team.
When in active ministry I developed
a skill set around paying games and often used to say that I am not merely playing
games when I am playing games! Well, sometimes I did, but most of the time
there was a point and a purpose behind each game, a life lesson that could be learned.
I learned and developed better
ways of getting people into mixed teams rather than use the awful captain and
choose your team.
I left school sixty years
ago but I still remember the feeling, and it lives with me.
(If you would like to know
some of the more creative ways of getting people into teams I have put one idea
below. And do get in touch if you would like any other ideas)
Today the Gospel reading in
the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) was Matthew 20:1-16, commonly referenced as
‘The Parable of the Workers in the Vinyard.’
And although it is helpful
to have chapter and verse sometimes again this can interrupt the flow and cause
a disjunction.
In the preceding chapter 19
we have ‘little children’ leading the way, we have a rich young man being told
to give up on his possession and exchange them for ‘heavenly treasure.’
Then Peter steps up and
steps in commenting on what they have given up for the Kingdom and in following
Messiah Jesus. What are they to expect?
Jesus’ response is to
promise a return of a hundred-fold - and eternal life.
But then concludes be adding
the dictum, ‘But many who are first will be last, the last will be first.’
And then Jesus tells a
story, another of his parables.
And his hearers would have
known that a vineyard owner is a common metaphor for God. (See for example
Isaiah 5)
Here, the way in which this
landowner selects his team does remind of my school days.
However, in this parable
there is a twist.
The story is of the
landowner going to the market early to hire his first batch of workers. He
returns at 9am and finds others standing around and he hires them. He returns
at noon, then returns at 3pm and finally at around 5pm, inviting people to come
and work in his vineyard.
And this isn’t so far from
living memory, men and women lined up at the factory gates or at the dock side hoping
to get work for that day.
Today we might be thinking
about zero-hour contracts!
As in all good parables there are rich pickings in this story.
We are left to conjecture
why there were still people waiting to be hired at 5pm.
However, lining up with all
that has been said in chapter 19 and elsewhere, we do see that it is the poor,
the weak and the vulnerable, the little children, who are welcomed and have a
place in God’s kingdom, often portrayed as leading the way.
Is it too far of a stretch
to imagine those still waiting at 3pm and 5pm as those who were weak, ill, feeble
and not fit for manual labour, unable to work throughout the heat of the day.
However, like me at school,
they are the last to be chosen.
But now comes the twist.
And somewhat intriguingly the
dictum of Matthew 19.30 is flipped around to become, “So the last will be
first and the first will be last.’
“Call the labourers and give
them their pay, beginning with the last and going to the first.”
Now imagine if the
landowner had called those who had laboured longest first, paid them, and sent them on
their way. They may never have been aware of being treated the same as those
who came later and did hardly an hour’s work.
But no, those who came late
in the day receive full day’s pay. It is very easy to see the other labourers
getting increasingly excited and thinking, well, if that is how much they have been
paid, just what are we going to get by way of a bonus.
And imagine their utter disappointment at being treated equally.
These labourers give the
landowner the ‘evil eye’ which in the Bible is a metaphor for envy, greed, and
selfishness—seen in passages like Deuteronomy 15:9, Proverbs 28:22, and Matthew
6:22–23—rather than a supernatural curse.
In Matthew 20:11, Jesus
addresses the question, "Is your eye evil because I am good?", which
is often interpreted as a reference to the evil eye concept. Used here to illustrate
the dangers of envy and comparison, where the labourers grumbled about being
treated unfairly by the landowner who pays them all the same, regardless of
their hours of work. The question posed by Jesus invites reflection on the
nature of envy and the importance of contentment and gratitude in life.
It was written all over the
faces of those captains choosing their teams when I was at school. The anxiety
and disappointment as the choice of students diminished.
But hold onto this thought, and let it sit deep in your soul.
This landowner went out four
times looking for workers for his vineyard.
God continues to seek out
and search for workers in his vineyard.
And for me, this landowner
has a huge welcoming smile as he greets and invites the least and the last to
come and help in the vineyard, not at all begrudgingly.
And if, as we might suppose,
they are those who have ‘challenges’ how wonderfully generous and loving of God
that they are asked not to bear the heat of the day. But given task commensurate
with their abilities and skills.
There is room and a place for
everyone in God’s Kingdom.
But here's the question, how will you respond to God's invitation?
_______________________
O
Christ in the synanagogue in Nazereth,
O
Christ in the pulpit of our Churches,
O
risen and cosmic Christ.
O
voice of the compassionate and righteous God
Give
us no peace until we become workers for your Gospel.
https://youtu.be/iFCdFcbn9f4?si=6TCn7YwR-d7y4NqK
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