Matthew 20:1-16
September 20, 2026
A favorite movie of mine is A
League of Their Own. It tells a fictionalized version of the All-American
Girls’ Professional Baseball League. When the US entered World War II,
baseball, like so many other occupations, were short of players and of workers.
Wanting to keep the game going, mainly for the morale of the country but also
for continued profit, league owners hatched a plan to start a women’s league.
If Rosie could be a riveter, then why couldn’t Betty be a ball player?
Although women were told it was
their patriotic duty to go to work in the factories and other positions that
were traditionally occupied by men, they were not welcomed with open arms. And
as the movie conveys, they were not welcomed on the playing fields either. The
women’s league was blasted by men and women alike. It was believed that
allowing women to play a professional sport would place traditional femininity
at stake. The movie depicts the women ballplayers having to endure things that
no male player would ever put up with. I’m not talking about harassment. I’m
talking about charm lessons and makeovers. The women had chaperones, even
though many of them were married. And while the men played in pants, the women
had to play in skimpy skirted uniforms.
Crowds for the games were small, and
they were often booed and mocked. They were told that girls can’t play
baseball, even though they were playing baseball. But as the movie progresses, the
tide begins to turn. The league begins to gain fans and supporters. Crowd size
begins to grow. But the tide of the war is also turning. The allies are
starting to win. Mr. Harvey, the owner of the movie’s main team, tells his
marketing man, Ira Lowenstein, that once the war was over all the girl’s teams
would be dismantled. Lowenstein was dismayed. He was the one who pushed for the
teams to be taken seriously. He made sure that the women’s talent was
highlighted and broadcast.
When Harvey tells him that the teams
will be dismantled, he protests. This is how it will be everywhere, isn’t it?
Women were told it was their patriotic duty to go to work, and now they’ll be
told to go back to the kitchen. Harvey responds, “You want the boys coming home
from war to go into the kitchen?” This is profoundly unfair and
Lowenstein knows it, but that is the way of the world.
But is it the way of the kingdom? Last
Sunday we talked about the math of forgiveness. There’s math at play this week
too, although it is written more as a word problem than a multiplication
challenge. It’s about the last being first and the first being last.
These words come at the end of our
passage, at the end of the parable that is unique to Matthew’s gospel. It is
also considered to be one of the most offensive parables in any of the four
gospels. In another one of those tricky kingdom parables, Jesus tells the
disciples a story that is meant to give them an insight into the workings of
God’s realm.
Jesus says that the kingdom of
heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers
to work in his vineyard. It was not unusual at that time for day workers to
gather in one place with the hopes of being hired. The landowner must know
this, so he goes to that place to find the laborers he needs. He contracts with
the workers for the usual daily wage of one denarius. This would have given
each worker enough money to feed their families for a few days.
The landowner takes this first round
of workers to his vineyard and they get to work. But there must have been a lot
of work to be done, because at nine o’clock, the landowner returns to that same
place and sees workers who have not been hired and he tells them to go and work
in his vineyard and he will pay them whatever is right. They agree and they go.
The landowner repeats this process at noon and at three o’clock. At five
o'clock, he must have realized that there was more work to be done before they
could call it a day, so he goes one more time to the hiring spot. He sees
workers standing around and asks them why they aren’t working. Because no one
has hired us, they tell him. So, he hires them. They go to the vineyard to
finish up the day’s work.
When the workday is finally
finished, the landowner tells his manager to pay all of the workers. But he
tells the manager to pay the workers hired last first. The manager does this,
and the workers hired last get one denarius each. I can imagine what the
workers hired first and then earlier in the day were thinking when they saw
this. They were probably giddy with anticipation at the wages they were about
to receive. After all, if these guys hired last got a full denarius, then that
must mean they would be paid twice that amount, if not more!
But I suspect that their eagerness
turned to shock and then to anger with each group that was paid. Because they
were all getting the same amount. The ones hired last were paid exactly what
they, the ones hired first, were paid! How dare the landowner pay them the same
amount!
Their anger becomes fury and they go
to the landowner to complain. These last guys you hired worked only one hour,
but you have paid them the same as us. We worked all day! We bore the sun and
the scorching heat on our backs. Why are you paying us all the same?!
But the landowner seems confused by
their anger. He replies,
“Friend, I am doing you no wrong;
did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you
and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not
allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because
I am generous?”
Are you envious because I am
generous? Are we envious because God is generous? Are we envious and angry
because God shows such scandalous goodness to people we know don’t deserve it?
Are we envious because math in God’s kingdom turns everything upside down?
Think about Jonah. To claim that he
is a disgruntled prophet is an understatement. He is so angry and perturbed at
the thought that God might show the people of Ninevah even a scant amount of
God’s goodness and grace, he willingly disobeys God’s call. God says, Jonah go
to Ninevah. And Jonah turns the opposite direction and jumps on a boat bound
for Tarshish.
To be fair to Jonah, Ninevah was the
capital city of Assyria, and the Assyrians were brutal. They were enemies of
Israel. They sacked Jerusalem. By the world’s standards, Jonah had a right to want
the worst for Ninevah. But to God’s standards, it was a different story.
God is good all the time. All the
time God is good. How often do we say that the phrase with joy? But if we’re
honest with ourselves, when we say it are we referring only to God’s goodness
to us and to the people we love? Do we want to see that same goodness of God
given to the people we despise, to the people we think don’t deserve any
measure of grace or goodness? Jonah didn’t want to preach to the Ninevites,
because if for some strange reason they listened and repented, he knew God
would be good to them. He knew God would forgive them. He was well aware of
God’s scandalous goodness, and Jonah wanted no part of it.
Are we envious because God is
generous? Are we angry that God’s goodness extends to all of God’s children,
and that scandalizes our sense of fair play?
Another way to translate this
sentence, “Are you envious because I am generous?” is “Is your eye evil because
I am good?”
Is your eye evil because I am good?
I think about this in two ways. The
first is that the expression, “the eyes are the window to the soul,” is not
just a nice thing to say. My understanding is that it comes from the belief
that people could get a glimpse into someone’s soul through their eyes. If
someone talks and acts warmly, but their eyes are cold, what do we perceive
about them? So, by saying this was Jesus referring to the soul of the people
who were angry at the goodness of the landowner? Maybe.
The second way that I am trying to get
my head around this translation is the idea that some cultures put a lot of
stock on the evil eye. We can give people the evil eye, and you definitely
don’t want the evil eye placed on you. This is something that you might hear
about in Greece. My sister talks about the evil eye. If someone put the evil
eye on you, it needs to be taken off. Quickly.
When Brent and I went to Greece two
years ago, everything seemed to go wrong on our way there. Our first flight was
delayed. We ended up staying overnight in Toronto and lost a full day in
Athens. When we finally got to Athens, we waited for two hours while they tried
to find my luggage. We finally reunited with my sister and brother-in-law, and
then his car broke down on the way to their home. My brother-in-law has the
family gift of seeing that an evil eye was put on someone, and apparently
someone had gotten to me. He prayed for me, and things got better.
Is this superstition? Maybe. Is it
true? Maybe, maybe not. But whether we can actually put an evil eye on someone
or not, I think deep down we all have moments when we want to. Jonah would have
gladly put an evil eye on the Ninevites rather than preach God’s mercy to them.
He would have preferred death to being called to preach to them. The workers
who went to the vineyard first would have put an evil eye on the landowner and
the other workers too because they resented the goodness shown to them. Is your
eye evil because I am good. Are you envious because I am generous?
The first shall be last and the last
shall be first. Math in the kingdom of heaven turns everything upside down. It
upends our sense of who belongs in and who deserves to be out. It throws
everything we think we understand about the world off kilter because God wants
goodness for all of his children. All of them! And that scandalizes us. That
offends us. That makes us angry and resentful against others and against God.
But God’s scandalous goodness is the good news of the gospel. God’s scandalous
goodness covers us as well. We assume we are the first who will be last, but
maybe to someone else, we are the last who will be first. God’s scandalous
goodness covers us all, so hard as it is, let’s lay down our resentment and
envy and give thanks that the kingdom of heaven is not designed by us but by
God. Let us give thanks for God’s scandalous goodness. Thanks be to God.
Let all of God’s children say,
“Alleluia.”
Amen.
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