GOD'S STUNNING GENEROSITY

…each one of them received a full day’s pay. 

Matthew 20 

The parable of the “Vineyard Workers” is enough to make wine growers all over the world cringe! This parable is not an instruction on to operate a successful vineyard. If you followed this example, you would surely be bankrupt in no time! No, it’s a story about how God treats us, a story about God’s stunning generosity! The whole purpose of this parable is to shock in order to instruct! This parable is insane, according to human thinking, but that’s the whole point of the parable! That’s its genius! It tells of God’s unexpected, almost insane, love for us, no matter when we started loving him back! That’s why it is called “the gospel” and “gospel” means “good news!” 

Those who had “worked all day in the sun” were the religious authorities. Those “hour before quitting time” workers were the “tax collectors and sinners,” those who felt unworthy in God’s eyes, the simple people who followed Jesus! You can imagine how both groups reacted when they heard the punch line, “Give them all a full days pay!” It’s very close to the message of another parable, the father who loves both his sons, the one who stayed, as well as the one who strayed! The message is simple: God loves all his children, not matter what they have done or failed to do back for God! The tax collectors, sinners and rejects were delirious with joy when they heard that message! The Scribes and Pharisees, who taught that God’s love depended on people’s behaviors, were outraged. In the words of Jesus, they were “envious because I am generous.” They made the mistake that there is not enough love to go around! 

One of the worst things to happen to the church was when it started to “conditionalize” the “good news: God will love you if you do this and God won’t love you if you do that!” It is not uncommon to hear some religious people tone down the “good news” because it is “too dangerous.” Their worst nightmare is that if people really believed the message of this parable and the church really taught it, all hell would break loose! People would start doing any damned thing they want! That is exactly what worried the Scribes and Pharisees. In reality, the opposite was true in Jesus’ day, as it is in ours! I have come to know, from 50 years of preaching, that it is the message of unconditional love (I love you no matter what) that attracts people to Jesus, while the message of conditional love (I’ll love you back if you love me first) repels people from Jesus. It's not that what we do is not important. Our behaviors have consequences and we have to live with those consequences, but God does not withhold his love from us because of those behaviors. 

What do you believe? Are you one of those people who still believes that God’s pays us back with love depending on how many hours we have loved him? Are you one of those people who still believes that God turns his love on and off, depending on what we do or fail to do? If you are, really listen to the message of this parable. If it sounds too good to be true, then you got the message! God’s incredible unconditional love does sound too good to be true, but the fact of the matter is, it is true!