Mark 1:29-39 –Jesus Heals, We Serve

Lesson Focus

Jesus heals us so that we might engage in active and intentional Christian ministry.

Lesson Outcomes:

Through this lesson students should:

1.     Comprehend that our healing from sin and death prepares us to engage in Christian ministry.

2.     Examine their lives to see if they are ministering as a result of their healing.

3.     Examine the ministries of our church to see if they are faithful to our mission of bearing witness to the kingdom of God in word and deed. 

Catch up on the story:

Mark’s narrative is off to a fast start.  He introduces us to John the Baptist, a preacher who begins to prepare the way for Jesus’ coming.  John the Baptist, and the context in which he is set, places the narrative that follows squarely within the scope of Israel’s hope for the future found in the Old Testament.  Jesus, then, is seen as a continuation of what God has been doing for Israel in the past.

Jesus is baptized at the hands of John.  It is his public commissioning.  Even though the crowds do not hear the voice of God proclaiming his pleasure with his Son, we, the readers, hear it.  There can be no doubt that Mark wants us to understand that Jesus is the divine messiah who has come to set Israel free.  Immediately after his baptism Jesus goes off into the wilderness and is tempted by the devil.  While the narrative is sparse, Jesus does not succumb to the temptation and emerges from the wilderness to begin his public ministry.  Jesus begins to preach about the coming kingdom of God.  He also begins to call men to follow him and be his disciples.  His mission will consist of preaching and healing.  Both of these things he will do, not as the crowds have experienced others doing these things, but as one with authority.   

      

The Text:

The setting of our text for this week is the small city of Capernaum.  Jesus, his followers Simon, Andrew, James and John, have been in the synagogue on the Sabbath.  Jesus has begun to teach and cast out unclean spirits.  Word is beginning to spread about this Jesus fellow.  His authoritative teaching and his works of power begin to be known in the surrounding area. 

Scene #1:

While the passage takes place entirely in Capernaum, there are three distinct scenes.  Scene one is the home of Simon’s mother-in-law.  Jesus and his entourage enter the home and we are immediately told that Simon’s mother-in-law is in bed with a fever.  A few things need to be noted here about fevers.  They were not seen as a symptom but a terrible force that could bring about death.  A simple fever could become life threatening very quickly.[1]

Simon mentions the ill fortune of his mother-in-law to Jesus upon entering the home.  There are a few possible reasons that Simon could have chosen to point out the situation.  First, it could have been a veiled attempt to ask Jesus to heal his mother-in-law.  Although at this point in the narrative, Jesus has yet to heal anyone.  He has cast out an unclean spirit so it might stand to reason that the disciples believe he has the power to heal as well.  Second, Simon may have mentioned the fever as a precaution and warning for his guests.  Contact with a sick person was frowned upon, not from our normal understanding of contagions, but because it would have made the individual ceremonially unclean, and thus keep the person from full participation in community life.  Finally, Simon could have mentioned the fever as an excuse for the lack of hospitality that would normally have been provided by his mother-in-law. 

Whatever the reason may have been, Jesus acts immediately and decisively to rectify the situation.  Jesus takes the sick woman by the hand and lifted her up.  Immediately the fever left her!  No words were spoken, no spell was cast; Jesus’ touch was enough to make her instantaneously well.  As we have already mentioned, touching a sick person would have made Jesus ceremonially unclean.  In the same way, men did not touch women who were not a part of their family.  Additionally, Jesus performs this healing on the Sabbath, which could be constituted as work.  Thus, Jesus touches an unrelated sick woman and heals her on the Sabbath.  In performing this act in the way he did he breaks more than just a few social and religious taboos.[2]  Mark, however, does not believe that Jesus is doing anything wrong, but that he is faithfully bringing about God’s kingdom. 

Excurses: Sabbath

Touching a woman, a sick woman at that, could be overlooked.  Working on the Sabbath was a greater offense, one that would land you in serious trouble with the religious authorities.  A proper understanding of Jewish Sabbath theology is important to grasping why Jesus heals on the Sabbath.  For the Jewish people, the Sabbath had become a symbol of rest and peace (shalom -wholeness) that would happen when the messiah finally arrived ushering in the age to come.  Creation, and all it’s inhabitants, would be relived of all the turmoil, disease, destruction and death that existed as a consequence of the fall. This rest and peace was much anticipated and longed for by Israel and her religious leaders.  Honoring the Sabbath was a mini preview of the peace and wholeness that would accompany the coming of God’s dominion. 

Jesus, by beginning his work of healing on the Sabbath, intended it to be seen as the first act in bringing about the end-time Sabbath rest and wholeness here and now.  What better way to honor the Sabbath than by offering healing to a woman who was in the midst of suffering?  Like the exorcism that took place earlier in the chapter, Jesus’ healing of Simon’s mother-in-law is part of the breaking in of the kingdom of God.[3]  Unfortunately, Jesus’ actions on the Sabbath would not be seen this way by the religious leadership.  

After Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law, she immediately gets up and begins to serve Jesus and his companions.  There is no trace of the fever or the malady that might have caused it.  The word that Mark uses here for “serve” comes from the word diakonos.  In Mark, and the larger Christian tradition, this word, from which we get Deacon, is associated with Christian ministry.  Simon’s mother-in-law is healed and immediately sets about serving Jesus and his companions in response to her healing.  In many ways, this should be a model for us as we experience Jesus’ healing in our lives.  As we are healed, our response should be to rise and engage in Christian ministry!       

Scene #2:

Word begins to spread quickly of Jesus’ deeds of power.  He has taught with authority.  He has cast out unclean spirits and now he has healed a woman of her fever.  Not only has word spread about his actions, but about his whereabouts as well.  At sundown on the Sabbath people begin bringing their sick and demon-possessed.  They begin to gather at sundown because sundown marks the end of one day and the beginning of another.  This is unlike our conception of time with the beginning of a new day beginning at dawn.  The crowds, now that the Sabbath was over, did not have to fear that they were breaking the Sabbath by bringing their sick to Jesus.  Realistically, some of the sick would need to be carried, constituting work.

Mark tells us that the whole city comes out to the door of the house where they were staying.  It is unlikely that they showed up en masse, but perhaps as a steady stream of those seeking help from Jesus.  Regardless, Jesus heals many people with various kinds of diseases and casts out many demons.  The demons were instructed not to speak because they knew whom Jesus was.  Why would Jesus need to instruct the demons not to speak?  It could possibly be that it was not yet the right time for Jesus to proclaim who he was.  Or, Jesus may not have wanted the proclamation about who he is coming from the mouths of demons.[4]  Either way, Jesus shows his power over the demons by not only casting them out but by keeping them from divulging what they know. 

Scene #3:

We are not told how long into the night Jesus was with the crowd.  It may have been late into the night due to the large crowds.  Mark tells us though, that Jesus gets up early in the morning while it is still dark and sets out to find a place to pray.  He arrives at a deserted place, perhaps one that he had used before.  Soon enough, Simon and the others realize that Jesus is not in the house where they had been staying.  They set out to find him and upon doing so they encourage him to come back into town. 

The reason that Simon and the others use for a return to Capernaum is because everyone is looking for him.  Behind this suggestion may be an urge to stay where they are because they have enjoyed success there.  Jesus’ reputation is growing among the people.  Greatness can be achieved when you have the support of the people.  Perhaps Peter is already thinking about the positive political ramifications of a man who has such great power. 

Jesus, however, refuses to go back to Capernaum.  He tells us that his primary mission is preaching the message of the kingdom of God.  Jesus insists that they must go to the neighboring towns (which were not bigger than Capernaum, but smaller) to preach.  This is, after all, what he has been sent to do.  So, we are told, Jesus heads out throughout the region of Galilee preaching the message of the kingdom of God.            

       

So What?

I think two things are important for us as we consider this text.  First, the way Simon’s mother-in-law responds to her healing and second, Jesus’ laser-like focus on his mission. 

As soon as Simon’s mother-in-law is healed she gets up and serves Jesus and his followers.  As we have said above, the Greek word that Mark uses carries with it the sense that as she was caring for Jesus’ needs she was engaging in intentional ministry in service to the kingdom of God.  Whether or not she totally understood her actions in that way is, perhaps, inconsequential.  For this is how Mark wants us to read her response.  Mark has been up front with us, his readers, about who this Jesus really is.  He is the divine Son of God.  While the characters in the story will need some time to figure this out, Mark’s narrative is largely about helping us to discover what it means to be faithful disciples of Jesus. 

Our faithful discipleship begins with our healing.  For some, in early Christianity, anything that has enslaved us, any sin, any addiction, was seen as life-sucking fever.  “For each and every one of us suffers from fever.  When I grow angry, I am feverish.  So many vices, so many fevers.”[5]  Christ has come, however, and touched our hand, lifting us up and freeing us from our fever.  We are never freed just from our fever, though.  We are freed so that we might serve.  In our healing we are given the immediate opportunity to get up and to serve in Christian ministry.  We become more mature disciples of Christ when we are actively and intentionally engaged in serving in some kind of Christian ministry. 

Secondly, our passage indicates Jesus’ laser-like focus to his mission.  Jesus could have stayed in Capernaum while word of his deeds of power spread throughout the land.  No doubt many would have made a pilgrimage to him so that their loved ones might be healed.  From this he could have begun to garner great political support as well.  Jesus, however, was not tempted by this initial success and the desire to build on it.  He knew the plan.  The plan was to proclaim the kingdom of God throughout the land. 

At times, we are not as laser-like focused on our God given mission as Jesus was.  Too often the tendency is to stick with whatever is causing us to have success.  In fact, the temptation is to spend a lot of time trying to find that one thing that will bring us successes.  It’s not wrong to be successful, but we can be tempted by it to neglect our real mission of bearing witness to the kingdom of God in word and in deed. 

Critical Discussion Questions:

1.     How does this text reveal to us the nature and character of God/What is God doing in this text?

a.     God is beginning to bring about the pace and rest that we long for.  Through healing and exorcisms, Jesus is, in a small way at first, allowing creation to rest. He is granting us freedom from the various things that plague us. 

2.     What does holiness/salvation look like in this text?

a.     Our growth as disciples is contingent upon our response to the healing we have received at the hands of Jesus.  Like Simon’s mother-in-law we are to rise from our infirmities so that we might begin to engage in active and intentional Christian ministry. 

b.     Our growth as disciples also means that we resist the temptation to chase after all that might be successful at the cost of being faithful to our mission of bearing witness to the kingdom of God in word and in deed.  While we are committed to excellence in ministry, we are also called, at times, to focus our energy on things that might not be seen as wise in the minds of the world around us. 

3.     How does an encounter with this story shape who we are and who we should become?

a.     This passage calls us to respond to the healing we have received at the hands of Jesus and engage in active and intentional ministry.

b.     It also calls us to examine our ministries as a church to see if they are true to the mission of bearing witness to the kingdom of God in word and in deed.  

Specific Discussion Questions:

Read the text aloud. Then, read the text to yourself quietly.  Read it slowly, as if you were very unfamiliar with the story.

1.     What are the possible reasons why Simon informs Jesus of his mother-in-law’s sickness? 

2.     What is significant about the way Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law?  Keep in mind; it would have been taboo for a man to touch a woman who was not related to him. 

3.     Some early Christians looked metaphorically at the fever that Simon’s mother-in-law.  The fever was a stand in for anything that causes us to sin.  What kinds of “fevers” have plagued your life in the past?  What kinds of fevers do you suffer from now?  How has Jesus healed you from those things in the past?  How might Jesus heal you now?  

4.     Simon’s mother-in-law’s first response is to get up and serve Jesus and his followers.  What is this important?  Have you gotten up after your healing and begun to serve?

5.     Why might Simon really want Jesus to stick around in Capernaum?  What reason does Jesus give for moving on? 

6.     Jesus exercised laser-like focus on his mission to proclaim the kingdom of God all around.  He refused to be tempted by the immediate and initial successes he enjoyed in Capernaum.  As a church, are we ever tempted to go with whatever is successful at the expense of faithfulness to our mission?

7.     Jesus had a single-minded focus on his mission of preaching the kingdom of God. Simon’s mother-in-law, once healed, became a servant of Jesus and supported his mission.  As a church, the third part of our mission statement is to bear witness to the kingdom of God. List some of the ministries in our church that help us do that.

8.     What keeps us from focusing on and participating in those ministries?

9.     Have an honest conversation about whether or not you are like Simon’s mother-in-law. Are you one who has been healed by God’s grace and is now serving and ministering? What would it take for you to take the next step toward faithful service and ministry?

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[1] M. Eugene Boring, Mark: A Commentary, The New Testament Library (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox   

   Press, 2006), 66.

[2] Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B.  

   Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001), 98.

[3] Ibid., 100.

[4] R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2002), 110.

[5] Jerome, Corpus Christianorum, LXXVII, 468 quoted in Lamar Williamson Jr, Mark: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009) 55.

Jonah 4 –I’d Rather Die!

 

Lesson Focus:

God is a gracious God, merciful and slow to anger while abounding in steadfast love.  He is ready to relent from punishing.  Most of the time, this is not who we are. 

Lesson Outcomes:

Through this lesson students should:

1.     Identify one of Israel’s core beliefs about God as “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.”

2.     Examine their lives to see if they identify with Jonah in any way.

3.     Repent for the ways in which they have not viewed their enemies with the eyes of God.

Catch up on the story: Jonah has finished preaching God’s message of repentance to the people of Nineveh and they have responded favorably.  The destruction that God had planned to do to the city, he will not do.  Jonah decides to sit on a hill overlooking the city to see what happens to it.

General Outline:

Told you so!

Jonah begins to see the people of Nineveh repent.  His fundamental belief that God is, “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing” (4:2) is confirmed.  Normally, when a prophet finds his belief in God validated it is met with great joy.  God has done a great thing on the behalf of the people of Nineveh, Jonah should be happy.  But he isn’t.  Instead he is hopping mad.  Not just kind of miffed, but smoking mad.  The kind of mad that makes you want to break things.  The kind of mad that might just cause you to say things…bad things.  For Jonah, he is so mad he doesn’t want to live any longer! 

We are told once again why it is that Jonah ran away in the first place.  All of his life he was taught that God was a God of mercy and grace, who looked kindly upon those who are repentant sinners.  But this promise was solely directed toward his people, the people of God, Israel –or so he thought. 

Deep down inside Jonah knew that if he went to preach to the people in Nineveh they would respond, they would repent, and God wouldn’t destroy them, giving them the end Jonah thought they should have.  And he was right.  Jonah went and preached. Nineveh repented, and God spared them.

Keep in mind, in Jonah’s day, Israel has been going through great hardships.  They have suffered under foreign power, had great economic difficulties, both of which severely affected life and heath.  And here it is that while Israel continues to suffer, God now offers salvation to the wicked people of Nineveh.[1] It is from this context that Jonah’s call and his subsequent resistance comes.     

Fretheim points out that if anything is sin, Jonah’s response this entire time has been sin –it has been a rebellion against grace.  “Resistance to God’s gracious activity on behalf of others, however evil they may be.”[2] How often in life do we have the same kind of attitude about God’s grace toward others?  On a global scale, sometimes we would rather see God’s wrath poured out on the enemies of the United States, than see any kind of attempt to love them as ourselves.  

How do we respond when we see our enemies, both personally and nationally, as not getting the punishment that they deserve?  Are we like Jonah, do we get mad? I don’t think any of us would get mad enough to ask to die.  Or do we rejoice because God’s grace is at work in our enemies’ lives?  Wesley said, “No one is a stranger to God’s grace.” I think we can confidently say his grace is at work.

After Jonah states that he was right from the very beginning about how things were going to turn out God asks, “Is it right for you to be angry?”  Jonah doesn’t answer, he only climbs a hill overlooking the city to wait and see what happens to the city.  He still holds the perverted hope that destruction will come to the people of Nineveh.  While Jonah doesn’t quite get it yet, that he really doesn’t have a right to be angry over Nineveh receiving God’s grace –he, after all had been a recipient of God’s grace just two chapters ago– the reader is left to answer God’s question. 

Jonah then sets up for himself a little shelter, which is apparently inadequate to provide protection from the sun and hot wind.  So God, being merciful and gracious to this stubborn and sinfully angry man, causes a small bush to grow to give him protection.  Jonah goes from being crazy angry, to being ecstatic.  Perhaps the offering of shade and protection gave him hope that Nineveh would be destroyed, instead of it being a display of God’s grace toward Jonah, even when he does not deserve it!   By the next day God sent a worm to destroy the bush.  As the sun began to shine and the wind began to blow, Jonah once again wants to die.   

God gets the last word…

Once again God asks Jonah if he is right to be angry.  This time, however, it isn’t about Nineveh, but about the bush.  God is wondering if Jonah has a right to be angry about a bush that he did not cause to grow or even ask for, but which was given to him.  We are shown that Jonah hasn’t been changed a bit by his experience of being in the belly of a whale or watching God’s grace at work in the lives of a foreign people.  Rather stubbornly Jonah replies, “Yes, angry enough to die!”

The final two verses of the book of Jonah are God’s response to Jonah.  If Jonah should be concerned about a bush, which he did not cause to grow, then why shouldn’t God be concerned about the well-being of an entire city filled with people and animals, all of which are God’s creatures?

The point has been made.  God’s grace is available for all of creation because God cares for what he has made.  This is regardless of what “God’s chosen people” have to say about it.  Yes, God should be concerned about the city of Nineveh and so should we. 

The final question rings in Israel and Jonah’s ear through this book, “Why is God saving Nineveh when we are in such a mess?”  God does still care for Israel, but they had many, many chances to escape punishment. Finally, they had to be punished, and at the time of Jonah, were still reaping the consequences of their sin.  Nineveh, however, responded right away.  Ultimately, God cares for all his creatures, and his grace is available to all. 

So What?

The story of Jonah ends with a question. “And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”  It’s a rhetorical question, to be sure, but we never get a hint of how Jonah might have responded.  Did he begrudgingly answer that, of course, God should be concerned about all that he has created?  Or did he respond with continuing recalcitrance that, no, God should not care for those wicked ones when he has not properly cared for Israel?

The author of Jonah wants us to identify, not with the people of Nineveh or even the sailors on the boat Jonah used to try to escape God.  The author of Jonah wants us to identify with Jonah.  He wants us to examine our lives and our attitudes to see if there is any Jonah in us.  Are we perhaps bitter about our own rough spot in life, even though we are trying our best to be faithful?  Do we look at the way in which the wicked prosper, when by all accounts God’s judgment should be upon them, and become infuriated?  Do we get angry when God’s grace and mercy is extended to those who have committed great acts of evil?  Do we see our enemies as we want to see them, or do we see them as God chooses to see them? 

We are often caught seeing our enemies in the way that we want to, ways that cause us to demand our own brand of retributive justice, justice that demands a payment.  On the other hand, God gently calls us to see our enemies, indeed all people, in the way that he does, with the eyes of a creator.   

Critical Discussion Questions:

1.     How does this text reveal to us the nature and character of God/What is God doing in this text?

a.     God cares for all of his creation, cares enough to give them grace particularly when they do not deserve it.  God even gives grace to those who have been stubbornly rejecting the giving of it to others.

2.     What does holiness/salvation look like in this text?

a.     Salvation looks like God giving grace to those who choose to repent, even if we don’t think they deserve it.  Salvation looks like not being destroyed even after being extremely evil. 

3.     How does an encounter with this story shape who we are and who we should become

a.     This text calls us to examine how we understand God’s grace.  Are we greedy with it?  Should only those who think and act like us, or those who are willing to think and act like us, receive grace?  The book of Jonah calls us to comprehend and share the magnitude of God’s grace.  It calls us to give grace, to share God’s love with those whom we would just as soon see dead.  And as hard as this may be, it calls us to rejoice when others receive grace and divine favor, even when it seems like we, who have been faithfully following God, have not received grace. 

Specific Discussion Questions:

Read the text aloud. Then, read the text to yourself quietly.  Read it slowly, as if you were very unfamiliar with the story.

1.     At the beginning of the chapter we are told that Jonah prayed to God.  What is the content of Jonah’s prayer and what does it say about how he understands God?

2.     Why is Jonah so very angry that Nineveh is saved?

3.     Jonah climbs a hill to watch what happens to Nineveh.  Then, God causes a plant to give him shade.  Later, God causes the plant to wither.  Why does God provide the plant and then take it away? 

4.     Is Jonah’s response to the plant withering appropriate?  Why or why not? 

5.     At the end, God questions Jonah.  Jonah is concerned with a plant that he did not plant.  Should God not also be concerned about a city whose inhabitants he created?  Why does God ask this question?

6.     Imagine yourself in Jonah’s place.  How would you respond to God?

7.     Are we like Jonah, do we get mad?  Or do we rejoice because God’s grace is at work in our enemies’ lives?

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[1] Terence E. Fretheim, The Message of Jonah: (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Pub, 2000), 120-21.

[2] Fretheim, 118-19.

Matthew 20:1-16 – The Parable of the Benevolent Master

Lesson Focus:

God’s grace is his to give to whomever he wishes, whenever he wishes. 

Catch up on the story:

Once again, the parable under consideration is a result of a question, or questions that have been put to Jesus.  The first question that is put to Jesus is the question of the rich young man in verse 16 of chapter 19.  The man asks Jesus what he must do to have eternal life.  Jesus tells him to keep the commandments.  The man has done this diligently.  Finally, Jesus urges the man to go and sell all that he has and give his money to the poor.  That way he will have treasure in heaven.  A call to follow Jesus is also issued.  The rich man goes away sad because he was very rich.  

Jesus then turns to his disciples and declares that it is very hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.  In fact, it will be easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle!  The disciples are astounded by this declaration (Remember, riches were often seen as a sign of God’s favor).  This leads us to the second question.  Peter, who has indeed left everything to follow Jesus, wants to know what he will receive for his sacrifice and faithfulness.  Indeed, the disciples, and those who are faithful in sacrifice will receive much in the way of eternal reward.  But, Jesus ends the chapter with a warning as well, “But many who are first will be last, and the lasts will be first.”  The meaning of this warning will become clear as we examine the parable.    

Critical Questions: 

1.     How does this text reveal to us the nature and character of God/What is God doing in this text?

2.     What does holiness/salvation look like in this text? 

3.     How does an encounter with this story shape who we are and who we should become?

The Text:

The parable begins, once again, with the iconic words “For the kingdom of heaven is like…”  As we have said before, Jesus is comparing a known world and rule to living in the reign of God.  In other words, Jesus is painting a picture of life as it should and will be when Jesus’ kingdom is fully established.  Jesus is now in the process of bringing the kingdom of heaven here on earth, a process that involves inviting his followers to become good citizens of that kingdom.  There is a steep learning curve, so Jesus sets about teaching via parables. 

What is the kingdom of heaven like?  The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who has a vineyard that needs to be harvested.  So, the master himself sets out early in the morning to hire workers for the day.  Day laborers (see Important Terms) would congregate in the market place in hopes that they might be hired for the day.  It may not be common in our fair city, but there are places in our country where day laborers, usually immigrants or migrant workers, gather at local business in hopes that they might get hired for the day.  This happens at places like Lowes and Home Depot.  Usually those who are being hired, both then and now, were from the poorer segments of the community.

As the parable begins we are immediately struck by the idea that the landowning master himself goes out to hire the laborers.  Later on in the parable we will meet the master’s manager who is tasked with the job of paying the workers.  Why would the master go out himself when he could send his manager instead?  And, he does not go out just once, but multiple times!  Perhaps this points to the nature of the King at the center of the kingdom of heaven.  What we confess about who God is in Jesus Christ is that he is the God who goes, the God who leaves his position of comfort so that he might mingle and personally call us to work along side him.  The King at the center of the kingdom of heaven is a King who issues his call to participation in the kingdom not just once, but early and often. 

The master enters the marketplace and hires the first workers he sees.  He agrees to pay them the usual daily wage.  What is translated “usual daily wage” is really “a denarius.”  Then, a little later in the morning, the master goes out again to hire workers.  This time he agrees to pay the workers, “whatever is right.”  No amount is settled upon, the workers will have to trust that the master will not take advantage of them.  It may also be that the workers had no other hope of being hired for the day, so any amount of pay would be better than nothing.  Again the master goes out at noon, three o’clock and toward the end of the day at five o’clock.  Each time he agrees to pay the workers whatever is right. 

The end of the day arrives and the master instructs his manager to pay the workers, beginning with the ones who arrived the latest.  Each worker will receive the normal daily wage.  When the late arriving workers received their own pay, the workers who had worked the entire day began to get excited because they believed that they might receive more than what had been promised them. 

They quickly learn that this is not the case.  The workers who were hired first only receive the normal daily wage, the same amount as those who had been hired at the very end of the day.  As you can imagine, they begin to grumble.  I imagine if we all were put in this similar situation that our reaction would be much the same.  “I worked all day along!  And it was hot!  How can he give more to the guy who only worked an hour?  It’s not fair!”  The master’s treatment of workers who were hired later in the day goes against everything we are taught is fair and right.  “You get what you work for.  If you want a lot, then you have to work hard for it” and “Those who don’t work very hard or long shouldn’t get the same as those who work hard.” 

The master of the vineyard turns those notions on their head.  In fact, the master points out that he has dealt fairly with the workers who are now grumbling.  The master has paid the promised wage.  Besides, can’t the master do with what he has in the way that he wants to?  Of course he can. 

Jesus then closes the parable with the same warning he began with, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”  What do we make of this parable and its warning?  We might spend some time discussing who the workers are, or whom they represent.  Many have speculated about the identities of the workers.  Some of the early church fathers believe that the workers represented different time periods of human history from Adam to Christ. Others have speculated that the workers represent people who receive Christ at various ages of their life.  The workers who were hired at the end of the day represent the elderly.  Some have speculated that the later workers were the Christians while the ones hired early in they day were the Jews. 

The identity of the workers, I do not believe, is the main point of the parable.  It is, rather, the identity of the master that matters most in this parable.  As we have already said, the master is a missionary master; he goes out, personally, to recruit workers.  He calls early and often.  Not only that, he is an extravagantly benevolent master.  He promised that what he would pay the workers would be fair and right.  With the first workers he gives them the normal daily wage.  But with the later workers he becomes extravagant!  One commentator wonders if “Jesus is hinting at the goodness of grace, at a judgment that will be more generous than our conscience usually allows us to believe?”[1]  After all, is it not up to God to do with what belongs to him in the way that he chooses?  God’s generosity is far beyond our usual ability to comprehend.     

The warning that Jesus gives about first becoming lasts and lasts becoming firsts speaks deep to our hearts.  How often do we pride ourselves on being workers who have shown up early to work in the Christian faith?  Many of us have been Christians since an early age.  We have heard the call of the master and have responded.  But do we get envious when those, perhaps who have not worked as hard or as long, receive or will receive the same blessings we have?  Do we think of ourselves more highly than we ought because we have worked so long?  If so, we are in danger of becoming lasts.  The unthinkable grace and love of God is God’s to give to whomever he wishes, whenever he wishes.  May we rest in the knowledge that God has given that great grace to us, not because we have deserved it, but because he desired to give it. 

So What?

The kingdom of heaven is like great and unmerited grace.  The King of that kingdom, Jesus Christ, calls us to come and participate in his kingdom, to join the work, and promises to reward us fairly.  Only, the King doesn’t cease calling.  All those who listen and respond get to participate in the kingdom and receive its rewards, even those who respond very late in the day. The King is more than just fair, the king is extravagant, giving disproportionate payment to those who, often times, we believe shouldn’t get very much.  God’s grace is his to give. 

We are warned, though.  We will become lasts, not from a failure to work, but from an over-sized vision of what we think we deserve in comparison with others.  Rather, we should rejoice in the great gift of grace that God has given us.  We should rejoice and find comfort in the fact that the master we serve is extravagant in his blessing to all.  And then, we must exercise the same great grace.    

Important Terms:

Day Laborer:

“Day laborers fall into a class of people in advanced agrarian societies known as ‘the expendables’…  For them, as Thomas Hobbes noted, life was ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.’  Owing to the specters of ‘malnutrition, disease and deprivation’ that haunted them, they were unable to maintain marriages, or reproduce themselves, but the ranks of the expendables were continually replenished by ‘the steady stream of new recruits forced into is ranks form the classes immediately above it,’ the unclean and degraded, the peasantry, and the artisans.  The expendables were largely composed of the excess children of peasant households who could afford to pass on their inheritance to only one child, usually the eldest son; the holdings of these peasants were to small to support more children.  ‘The best that most of them [the expendable] could hope for was occasional work at planting and harvest time and charity in between…’ Between 5 and 10 percent of the population ‘found itself in this depressed class…’”[2]   

Critical Questions: 

1.     How does this text reveal to us the nature and character of God/What is God doing in this text?

a.     God in Jesus is an active God who goes out early and often to call workers to participate in his kingdom work.  God is gracious with what is his own, giving regardless of merit. 

2.     What does holiness look like in this text? 

a.     Holiness looks like our becoming like the master who goes out early and often to call and invite others to work alongside of us.  As we grow in grace, as we become more like the master, we learn to become extravagantly generous with what God has given us.  

3.     How does an encounter with this story shape who we are and who we should become?

a.     We are called to participate in the extravagant nature of the kingdom of heaven.  We should become like the master who goes out, early and often, into the public square and call others to join in and begin as workers in the kingdom of heaven.  We should become like the master by being extravagantly generous with the grace and love that we have received from the master.  

Specific Discussion Questions:

Read the text aloud. Then, read the text to yourself quietly.  Read it slowly, as if you were very unfamiliar with the story.

1.     Refresh your understanding of the context.  As a group, go back and read Matthew 19:16-30. 

2.     Why do you think that the master himself goes out to hire workers?  Why do you think he continues to go out throughout the day?

3.     Why does the master not settle on a given wage for the workers he hires later in the day?

4.     The master instructs his manager to pay the workers beginning with the ones hired last.  Why do you think this is? 

5.     Why does the master give the workers who were hired at the end of the day the same amount as the first workers hired?  Do you think your reaction would have been the same as the reaction of the first workers hired?

6.     If we are the workers in the story, what does this say about us?  How might we become like the master in the story?

7.     What does Jesus mean when he says, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last?”

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[1] Frederick Dale Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary: The Churchbook, Matthew 13-28, Revised & enlarged edition (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2004), 320.

[2] William R. Herzog II, Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed, 1st edition (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 88-89.