Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

⁴ You have just heard too the parable out of the Holy Gospel; that “the kingdom of heaven is like a householder, which went out to hire labourers into His vineyard. He went out in the morning,” and hired those whom he found, and agreed with them for a denarius as their hire. He “went out again at the third hour, and found others,” and brought them to the labour of the vineyard. “And the sixth and ninth hour he did likewise. He went out also at the eleventh hour,” near the end of the day, “and found some idle and standing still, and he said to them, Why stand ye here?”

Why do ye not work in the vineyard? They answered, “Because no man has hired us.” “Go ye also,” said He, “and whatsoever is right I will give you.” His pleasure was to fix their hire at a denarius. How could they who had only to work one hour dare hope for a denarius? Yet they congratulated themselves in the hope that they should receive something. So then these were brought in even for one hour. At the end of the day he ordered the hire to be paid to all, from the last to the first.

Then he began to pay at those who had come in at the eleventh hour, and he commanded a denarius to be given them. When they who had come at the first hour saw that the others had received a denarius, which he had agreed for with themselves “they hoped that they should have received more:” and when their turn came, they also received a denarius. “They murmured against the good man of the house, saying, Behold, you have made us who have borne the burning and heat of the day, equal and like to those who have laboured but one hour in the vineyard.”

And “the good man,” returning a most just answer to one of them, said, “Friend, I do you no wrong;” that is, I have not defrauded you, I have paid you what I agreed for with you. “I have done you no wrong,” for I have paid you what I agreed for. To this other it is my will not to render a payment, but to bestow a gift. “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own? Is your eye evil, because I am good?” If I had taken from any one what did not belong to me, rightly I might be blamed, as fraudulent and unjust: if I had not paid any one his due, rightly might I be blamed as fraudulent, and as withholding what belonged to another; but when I pay what is due, and give besides to whom I will, neither can he to whom I owed find fault, and he to whom I gave ought to rejoice the more.

They had nothing to answer; and all were made equal; “and the last became first, and the first last;” by equality of treatment, not by inverting their order. For what is the meaning of, “the last were first, and the first last”? That both the first and last received the same.