Matthew 20:1-16 (Year A, Proper 20)

The one where Jesus finally portrays "goodness"

The gospel reading for Sunday, September 24th is Matthew 20:1-16. It tells the parable about the landowner who hires day laborers, pays some of them "too much", and makes the first workers upset. 

It helps to know

Famous Early Interpretations. For Hippolytus, this is Christ going out for eleven hours to seek and save peoples at five times: the prophets, then the apostles, the crowd of witnesses, the wanderers, and then the sinners. Many Fathers (e.g. Cyril of Jerusalem), explicitly connect the thief on the cross to the men hired at the eleventh hour. 

For Origen, these five hours are five periods of covenantal history which also correspond with the five senses: Adam (touch); Noah (smell); Abraham (taste); Moses (hearing); Christ (sight). This harmonizes with Jesus' announcement of his ministry in early John, "It is the last hour" (John 2:18; compare, for example, Jesus' ministry announcement in Luke 4:16-21).

For others, like Eusebius, Jerome, and Ambrose, the five hours are the five stages of the human life. For them, it's always the right time to be baptized and start the Christian life with the promise of a sure reward. (Sources here.)

The most popular text that interprets Matt. 20:1-16 may be John Chrysostom's Easter homily, which is read annually by the Orthodox at Pascha:

"If any have labored in fasting, let him receive now his denarius... If any have only arrived at even the eleventh hour, let him not be afraid for his slowness: for the Master, Who is munificent, receiveth the last even as the first... both first and second, receive your reward. Ye rich and ye poor, dance with one another. Ye abstemious and ye slothful, honor the day. Ye that have fasted and ye that have not fasted, be glad today. The table is full… let all enjoy the banquet of faith: Receive all ye the wealth of goodness!"

The Context: A Discussion of Goodness, Perfection, and the Commandments. Matthew doesn't present this parable in a vacuum. He presents it in the context of the conversation with the Rich Young Ruler (19:16-26) and Peter's question about rewards for the disciples (19:27-30).

The Rich Young Ruler's first words are, "Teacher, what good (agathon) must I do to have eternal life?" (v. 17) Jesus responds by asking why the man would ask "about the good (peri tou agathou)," since only "One is Good (heis estin ho agathos)." Evading the topic of "doing good," Jesus refocuses on what has been given to man: "If you wish to enter life, keep the commandments (tas entolas)." When this dead-ends, Jesus says that the one who wishes to be complete (teleis) should go, sell his possessions, give to the poor, thereby funding the treasury of heaven, and then follow him (v. 21).

Jesus won't address "goodness (agathon)" again until he puts it in the mouth of the landowner (20:1-16) in, literally, the final word of the story. After his display of generosity to the late-comers, he addresses the grumbler: "Is your eye envious because I am good (egō agathos eimi)?" (v. 15) 

The ESV translates agathos as "generous" at this point, at once obscuring the semantic connection between the stories and interpreting "goodness" for us as "generosity."

For Matthew, the Rich Young Ruler has some damn gall, addressing "goodness" with Jesus. Jesus, who relaxeth not the commandments, nor teacheth others to doeth the sameth (Matt. 5:17-20), pivots to the commandments, and then discloses the path to completion. If you wish to be complete..." (teleis; cf. "You will be (fut. tense) perfect (teleioi) as your heavenly Father is (pres. tense) perfect (teleios)," 5:48).

For humankind, Matthew sees "goodness" (ho agathos) as keeping the commandments (tas entolas) unto perfection (teleis). Goodness, which we will be, and which God is, has to do with a generosity that looks like it looks in Matt. 20:1-16. 

The Conventions Broken by the Landowner. There are three:

1. That the landowner owns a "vineyard," a specialty crop rather than a subsistence one, indicates his elite status (v. 1). Elite landowners did not hire their own day laborers, but delegated this to foremen. Neither would they have done it once (v. 1), nor would they have done it five times in one day (vv. 1, 3, 5, 6). 

2. Landowners did not ordinarily pay a full day's wage to day laborers who worked partial days. When they did perform what anthropologists call "general reciprocity," it was because they were kin. So the landowner treats these peasants like kin. 

3. Although the landowner used an "Honor Challenge Formula" in his response to the grumblers, appealing to a verbal contract ("I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?"), he broke expectations by losing his cool. The "Take... and go (hupage, recalls "Get [hupage], Satan!" and "Get [hupage] behind me, Satan") command. The clarification of his own freedom: "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?" And the criticism: "Is your eye evil because I am good?"

These breaches of convention characterize the land owner: intimately and personally invested in the adjudication of all of his laborers’ contracts, a model for how to say “we’re a family” in the work place before Michael Scott tried to do it, and passionately invested in persuading his laborers of his view of justice and on the lookout for bubbling anger. Bosses: be like God.

God's Old Question to Angry People. The last question the landowner asks is a question God has asked before. For starters, the ESV obscures Matthew's good v. evil language. They have, "Do you begrudge my generosity?" where Matthew has, "Is your eye (ophthalmos) evil because I am good (agathos)?"

The question has come up before, but in other words. To Cain, whose offering had not been regarded by Yahweh, and who had become angry, "Why are you angry (chara), and Why has your face fallen? If you do well (yatav), won't your face exult?" (Gen. 4:6-7)

To Jonah, who had become "angry (chara)" (4:1), Yahweh asks, "Do you do well (yatav) to be angry (chara)?" (4:4) The lectionary tradition has long recognized the resonance between the question to Jonah/Cain, and the question to the grumbly workers. I wouldn't be surprised if this is what had led the Fathers to identify the grumbly workers with the Prophets in their own interpretations.

Matthew 20:1-16

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 

“And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, 'You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.' So they went. 

“Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 

“And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, 'Why do you stand here idle all day?' They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.' 

“And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.' And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 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 a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?' 

“So the last will be first, and the first last."

Lectionary Resonances

Jonah 3:10-4:11. I've already mentioned it. The landowner asks the first laborers a version of the same question Yahweh asked Jonah (Matt. 20:15; Jon. 4:4). Jonah's complaint is a complaint about God's goodness: "You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster" (v. 2). This is the "perfect" which Jesus says God is and we will be (Matt. 5:48), and this is the "good" which Jesus says only God is (19:17). As the landowner pities the late-comers to his labor force, Yahweh "pities" the 120,000 Ninevites in their ignorance, knowing not "their right hand from their left" (Jon. 4:11). In Matt. 18:21-35, Jesus insisted on forgiveness, and Sirach 28 had commended mercy on the basis of mortality: "Remember the end of your life, and cease from enmity" (28:6). In our texts, I feel a swelling theme of Jesus describing goodness as a profound commandment-keeping and -teaching that is crystallized in profound generosity and forgiveness that will end in our own participation in God's perfection. (If you've read my last two posts, I hope you've felt the same.)

Psalm 145. Maybe two themes. First, the quote, "Yahweh is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love" (v. 8), repeats Jonah's appropriation of Exod. 34. Second, the psalmist focuses on "the glory of your kingdom" and "your mighty deeds" (vv. 4-7, 10-13). Matthew 20 depicts the glory of his kingdom, and the mighty deeds that splendify it. 

Philippians 1:21-27. Two themes here as well. First, as he reflects on his labor, Paul struggles not against rivals and other laborers (vv. 12-20, "Some proclaim Christ... seeking to cause me distress... What then? ... In this I rejoice!"), but between his two desires: "to depart and be with Christ... to remain in the flesh" (vv. 23-24). He is too desirous of Christ and affectionate for his brothers to grumble. Would that we all were. Second, he wants to see all the laborers labor in unity: "With one mind striving side by side" (v. 27). It's a different Greek word, but Paul does call out "grumbling" in the next chapter (2:14).

How I might preach this

I think that we all could use a refresher on the concepts of "goodness," "perfection," and "the commandments." Matthew has a theological vision for these concepts that grates against the visions many of us have received. So I like bringing Matthew 5:48 ("You will be perfect; God is perfect") to bear on this discussion ("God is good. If you wish to be perfect...").

A sermon could also address the differences in social status addressed in these passages. Most of us are day-laborers, and we are called to respond to Christ, get to work, joyfully receive, and not grumble. Some of us are landowners, called to distribute our resources and our displays of kinship generously, both in our charity (Ch. 19) and our employment contracts (Ch. 20). Just as the Sabbath Command addresses rest-taking and rest-granting, so this text addresses wage-receiving and wage-granting. 

A sermon could also address our future status. It peeks through in so many places. One, Jesus says, "If you wish to be perfect..." (19:17). Two, Jesus tells Peter that power is coming, "You also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging..." (19:28). Right now, only God is good. As for you? Keep on keeping the commandments (cf. Matt. 5:17-20; 19:17). Three, if you're already like God in authority (elite landowner? contract writer?), well, then, you have to be "good" like him, now. You'd better give the poor / the day laborer way more money than you want to give him. And you'd better treat way more people like family than you want to. And you'd better be ready to give way more pep talks to the people under your authority. You are now what we all will be one day: Laboring sons who inherit our Father's kingdom. We all need to learn economics and mercy, justice and the way of unity, eager desire for Christ and satisfaction with the rewards he chooses to give.