Grapes of Grace, part 3

It is understood that the 30 pieces of silver that Judas took in exchange for betraying Jesus were silver shekels, the equivalent of 120 denarii. So when the master came to these workers and offered them work, and, on top of that, offered them a denarius as payment, I’m pretty confident they were quick to jump at the opportunity that was being offered to them.
 

Going on to verses 4 and 5, we read, “… and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ 5 So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same.”

A quick side note here: Notice that the master in the parable didn’t say, I’ll pay whatever is “fair,” but whatever is “right.” All too often our culture today is taken up with what is fair, but not concerned with what is right. William Shakespeare wrote, “I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.”) Typically, when we hear of someone saying that we need to make policy changes on the basis of being fair to everyone, there is an agenda in their back pocket that is not Right.
 

Who of you has ever accepted a job offer? Before you accepted the offer, did you talk about pay? Or did you accept the offer without first settling on the pay, basing your decision solely on the word of the employer that you would be paid whatever is right? In my experience, the pay structure is usually one of the first things that are well understood about the new position. It is the mark that drives most of us to advance in our fields. People are looking to develop their skills, generally not for the reason of being a more efficient, more productive or more, well-rounded, as an employee; rather, we want the higher pay (I’m not saying that is wrong, just noting it.).
 

This further helps us understand the desperate situation that the laborers were in: they were willing to work for only a chance to make something – anything. Because something can be turned into food and eaten, while, “nothing” leaves you with nothing to eat. Nothing is what they came with, and without the master’s intervention, nothing is what they will leave with at the end of the day.
 

Another little piece of this “parable puzzle,” that I think we moderns have a hard time understanding is that when Jesus is referring to the third, sixth, ninth and eleventh hours, it was based on a 12-hour workday which started at 6:00 a.m. and ended at 6:00 p.m. So, the third hour is 9:00 a.m., the sixth is noon, the ninth, 3:00 pm and the eleventh would be 5:00 p.m., just before quitting time.
 

Having this understanding can help us when reading verses 6 and 7. “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?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’”
 

Jump back, just for a moment, to Leviticus 19:13 “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning.” It was because of this command in Leviticus that we read in our parable verse 8 “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.’”
 

The master is good. The master is right in his ways. God is good. God is right in all of His ways. And like the master, God is looking for workers.

Continued tomorrow