Matthew 20: 1-16
[Jesus said to his disciples] "For the domain of heaven is like a vintner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. After striking a deal with them for the usual daily wage [a denarius], he put them to work. He went out around 9 a.m. and found people standing around in the market square. He bade them go into the vineyard to work as well, saying 'I'll pay you a fair wage.' Again around noon and later around three in the afternoon, he did the same thing. Toward the end of the day, he went out yet again and saw others doing nothing, and said to them, 'How come you hung out here all day and did nothing?' They replied, 'Because no one offered us work.' He bade them go into the vineyard as well. When the day drew to a close, he summoned his straw boss, saying, 'Call in all the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the latest ones I hired down to the first I hired.' So those who started latest lined up to receive the coin. Those who were hired earliest thought they would get more, but they got the same wage. They were happy enough to take it but then muttered about it, saying, 'Those fellows who were hired last worked only for an hour or so, but you have made them equal with us who did most of the work when it was hottest out.' The vintner replied, 'See here, sir, how did I wrong you? You agreed to work for me for a denarius. Take it and go. It is my pleasure to treat all my workers equally. Is there some law saying I can't? Or are you envious because I am generous?' So [as I have said and now demonstrate], the last will be first, and the first will be last."
(Translated and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook.)
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It is possible to go from "For the domain of heaven is like" to "the last will be first, and the first last," for that is the summary of a very involved parable. The synoptics' authors used the "first-last" saying in different ways: Mark at 10:31 uses it as the capper to the colloquy between Peter and Jesus over the former's whining about how he and his companions had left all to follow the latter. Jesus acknowledges Peter's sacrifice, promising that it will yield a hundred-fold return. Peter started out as a self-made poor ex-fisherman, viz. as a loser. Later he will be a winner. Luke appends the "first-last" thing to Jesus' "narrow door" response to the random question, "Will only a few be saved?" In due course John Calvin would provide an answer that question.
Matthew's context for the saying makes being last no more of a problem than being first in that both first and last are treated equally. One cannot help but speculate that the Matthean communities forming in Gentile territory at the end of the first century CE were anxious to welcome converts with few strings attached (see Galatians 2:13-14). To do so and at the same time to hold on to Diaspora Jews no doubt required a diplomatic balancing act. To be sure, there were those who had been Yahweh worshippers from the beginning and whose families were of the tradition as far back as anyone could remember. Others, of course, had come to the new way at different times in their lives. Yet others were relatively new to Jesus Judaism. In the kind of egalitarian community Jesus' ethic demanded, one could hardly stratify the assembly by seniority. The Matthean parable of the workers and the vineyard in that kind of situation was just the right story to attribute to Jesus.
No matter when a person makes the commitment to Jesus Judaism, he or she is fully "in" with all the rights, privileges and responsibilities pertaining thereunto. Because the vintner represents here what the ruler represented in 18:23-25, namely God, the parable (allegory, really) is a profound theological statement to the effect that God controls access to grace and that all sincere comers are embraced at anytime they avail themselves of it - another Pauline theme. Paul lists himself as a late-comer (I Corinthians 15:8-9), yet he is not embarrassed to claim full apostleship.
The denarius -- worth about 20 cents U.S. by 1950s standards -- was considered an adequate day's wage for laborers in first century CE Palestine. Beyond that, the coin represents in this parable the material promise of a contract. It could even be construed as "daily bread," i.e. the means and opportunity to earn one's way in the dignity of useful work. In Jesus' ethical vision, that would be, if not a right, certainly a reasonable expectation any and all could justifiably entertain. The denarius is distributed to each, meaning that the vineyard is an equal-opportunity enterprise in which seniority is not a consideration. It means that the vineyard exists for the worker, not the worker for the vineyard. Thus in this reading of the "first-last" saying, being first or being last has no relevance. What is important is the willingness and readiness to go into the vineyard and work. The vintner for his part must be willing and ready to create full employment.
Matthew's placement of the vineyard parable/allegory is not without significance, coming as it does near the end of the journey from Galilee (see 19:1) to Jerusalem. The last leg of the journey begins at 20:17, and only 17 verses after that, Jesus is depicted as entering Jerusalem in a kind of satirical run-up of one of Caesar's triumphal entries. If that was Matthew's intent, then the parable of the vineyard and its vintner is an economic critique and the weird trip on the back of an ass a political one.
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A neighbor was admiring my wife's rose bushes, noting the profusion of its blooms. Her sister's husband had recently been fired from his job of over 22 years. The neighbor observed that what this country needed was a blooming of "Help Wanted" signs.
The man in question was a victim of an economic coup that had struck at the heart of American democracy. The leaders of the coup are the zealous apostolate of the low-to-no taxes, anti-regulation, smaller government, corporate profits �ber alles religion that has come to power through stolen elections fueled by lies big and small. It marches as to war with the economic and political cynicism of Ayn Rand going on before.
My neighbor's brother-in-law shows up at various workplaces day after day, lingers at their gates and begs to be hired. Nine a.m., and noon, 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. come and go, and there are no jobs. But of course, there are jobs, because shortly after 5 p.m. a weary workforce stumbles through the gate, exhausted by working twice as hard for not much more than half of what they used to earn, bleakly glad to grasp the denarii passed out at the paymaster's cage. They have children at home crying for bread.
These workers clearly were made for the vineyard. Rather, the vineyard was not made for them. The production rate and the sale price of the product are high and the overhead low so as to enrich the owners and perhaps their investors and shareholders. The denarius remains the daily wage no matter how much the cost of food, clothing and shelter goes up. It's such a pittance that the owner can afford to pay it to all, no matter how long each has worked. It makes the owner look like a great man, when he is, in fact, ogre who would not dare answer, "I will, with God's help" to the question, "Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?"
