Key Theme: The Upside Down Kingdom
[Core Gospel Concepts: Kingdom, Love]
Context: ● Before telling this parable, Jesus meets with a rich young leader who ends up not following Jesus because his love for his possessions was too great (19:16–22). The disciples were shocked because in their culture wealth and position were connected with righteousness and blessing. How could someone who seemed so righteous and had received so much blessing not enter the kingdom of heaven? In his shock, Peter asked Jesus, “We’ve given up everything to follow you. What blessing will there be for us?” Jesus then assured them that there is great reward in giving up the world to follow Him (19:23–30). He even promised that the disciples will sit on twelve thrones and rule with Him. And “many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.”
● Ironically, after hearing this parable, we see the disciples are still thinking about those thrones in heaven when James and John ask to be the ones to sit to the right and left of Jesus (20:20–28). They are still slow to figure out what Jesus is teaching!
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
“About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.
“He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6 About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
“ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
“The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they
began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
“But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”
Optional Memory Verse: Matthew 20:16: “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”