Better Than I Deserve
Roger Thomas
Matthew 20:1-15
Introduction: One Bible scholar calls this "one of the greatest and most glorious of all" Jesus' parables (Montefiore in Barclay's Bible Study Series). Most of us would call it one of the most challenging. Maybe, the most confusing. At the very least, when we hear this story we are inclined to say, "That was no way to run a business."
Let me clear the air a bit. This is not a parable about labor relations, minimum wage laws, economics or even social equality. This is parable about you and your God. I am sure that solves all of our difficulties with this parable. Probably not! Let's work our way through it this morning.
Let's begin with the situation of the workers. They were day laborers. They didn't have permanent jobs. They just showed up at the town square or market each morning. Farmers and other employers would come by to find the workers they needed that day. I am not sure that there is any place like that around here. I have lived in cities where the parking lot of Lowes or Home Depot was the place to find day laborers for construction projects. When I lived in the north suburbs of Houston, TX, I remember a certain spot near the intersection of Hwy. 59 and Kingwood Ave. where scores of Hispanic men would gather every morning hoping to get work at a construction site or a farm field.
I understand the workers in the parable because I wasn't always a preacher. I actually worked my way through college doing construction jobs in the summer. I was a manual soil evacuation engineer. Mostly I dug ditches. For a couple of months I did operate a jackhammer (or should I say a jackhammer operated me) for ten hours a day in the middle of old US Route 66. At the beginning of the summer, like the workers in the parable, I would show up each morning at the union hall. I was a dues paying, card-carrying member of the AF/L-CIO Laborers and Hod Carriers Union. (I did a lot of labor but neve ...
Roger Thomas
Matthew 20:1-15
Introduction: One Bible scholar calls this "one of the greatest and most glorious of all" Jesus' parables (Montefiore in Barclay's Bible Study Series). Most of us would call it one of the most challenging. Maybe, the most confusing. At the very least, when we hear this story we are inclined to say, "That was no way to run a business."
Let me clear the air a bit. This is not a parable about labor relations, minimum wage laws, economics or even social equality. This is parable about you and your God. I am sure that solves all of our difficulties with this parable. Probably not! Let's work our way through it this morning.
Let's begin with the situation of the workers. They were day laborers. They didn't have permanent jobs. They just showed up at the town square or market each morning. Farmers and other employers would come by to find the workers they needed that day. I am not sure that there is any place like that around here. I have lived in cities where the parking lot of Lowes or Home Depot was the place to find day laborers for construction projects. When I lived in the north suburbs of Houston, TX, I remember a certain spot near the intersection of Hwy. 59 and Kingwood Ave. where scores of Hispanic men would gather every morning hoping to get work at a construction site or a farm field.
I understand the workers in the parable because I wasn't always a preacher. I actually worked my way through college doing construction jobs in the summer. I was a manual soil evacuation engineer. Mostly I dug ditches. For a couple of months I did operate a jackhammer (or should I say a jackhammer operated me) for ten hours a day in the middle of old US Route 66. At the beginning of the summer, like the workers in the parable, I would show up each morning at the union hall. I was a dues paying, card-carrying member of the AF/L-CIO Laborers and Hod Carriers Union. (I did a lot of labor but neve ...
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