Readings:
Exodus 10:1 - 12:13
Matthew 20: 1-28
Psalm 25: 1-15
Proverbs 6: 6-11
Matthew reading: This parable about the landowner and the workers hired to work in his vineyards was the source of some heated arguments at the Probationers' Seminar that I attended in Benoni last week, with opinions sharply divided between those who saw the landowner as an exploitative capitalist pig who short-changed the workers that worked the full day, and those who commended what they saw the landowner's benevolent generosity by agreeing to pay all of the workers the same wage.
I'm inclined to go for the latter view. Firstly, without going into extensive extra-Biblical research, one cannot tell for certain whether the going daily wage - one denarius - was a fair and acceptable wage or a slave-level punitive wage. Let us give the writers the benefit of the doubt and assume, for purposes of this reflection, that the daily wage was a fair one. Secondly, the parable is introduced with Jesus' words: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like...". This tells me that the intended illustration is one that must be good and desirable if it is to represent the Kingdom.
So what, then, is this parable telling us? I believe that the key message is one of Jesus bestowing his grace in equal measure on all who call upon his name. Such grace is not dependent on our works, but on Jesus' benevolent generosity and love. Although we do not deserve it, we will all receive the same measure of Jesus' grace - not too much or too little, but in good and sufficient measure.
When I answer the assignment question, good scholarship demands that I present a number of possible points of view. However, my understanding of a Jesus who loves us to the extent of being willing to lay his life down for us makes the above point of view (for me) the most plausible one.
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