us, or else of a wrong state of mind towards others;4 - that is, it betokens mental o r
moral unfitness.
4. St. Matt. xx. 15.
Of this the Parable of the Labourers is an illustration. It teaches nothing beyond this.5
But, while illustrating how it may come that some who were first are 'last,' and how
utterly mistaken or wrong is the thought that they must necessarily receive more than
others, who, seemingly, have done more - how, in short, work for Christ is not a
ponderable quantity, so much for so much, nor yet we the judges of when and why a
worker has come - it also conveys much that is new, and, in many respects, most
comforting.
5. Instead of discussing the explanations of others, I prefer simply to expound that which I
have to propose. The difficulties of the usual interpretations are so great that a fresh
study seemed requisite. Our interpretation turns on this, that the Parable is only an
illustration of what is said in St. Matt. xix. 30.
We mark, first, the bearing of 'the householder, who went out immediately, at earliest
morn (αµα πρωι), to hire labourers into his vineyard.' That he did not send his steward,
but went himself,6 and with the dawn of morning, shows both that there was much work
to do, and the householder's anxiety to have it done. That householder is God, and the
vineyard His Kingdom; the labourers, whom with earliest morning He seeks in the
market-place of busy life, are His Servants. With these he agreed for a denarius a day,
which was the ordinary wages for a day's labour,7 and so sent them into the vineyard; in
other words, He told them He would pay the reward promised to labourers. So passed
the early hours of the morning. About the third hour (the Jewish working day being
reckoned from sunrise to sunset), that is, probably as it was drawing towards a close,
he went out again, and, as he saw 'others' standing idle in the market-place, he said to
them, 'Go ye also into the vineyard.' There was more than enough to do in that
vineyard; enough and more to employ them. And when he came, they had stood in the
marketplace ready and waiting to go to work, yet 'idle' - unemployed as yet. It might not
have been precisely their blame that they had not gone before; they were 'others' than
those in the market-place when the Master had first come, and they had not been there
at that time. Only as he now sent them, he made no definite promise. They felt that in
their special circumstances they had no claim; he told them, that whatsoever was right
he would give them; and they implicitly trusted to his word, to his justice and goodness.
And so happened it yet again, both at the sixth and at the ninth hour of the day. We
repeat, that in none of these instances was it the guilt of the labourers - in the sense of
being due to their unwillingness or refusal - that they had not before go ne into the
vineyard. For some reason - perhaps by their fault, perhaps not, they had not been
earlier in the market-place. But as soon as they were there and called, they went,
although, of course, the loss of time, however caused, implied loss of work. Neither did
the Master in any case make, nor they ask for, other promise than that implied in his
word and character.
6. St. Matt. xx. 1.