Freely to All

Agricultural practices have changed a lot in my life time.  One of my first jobs for which I received a daily wage was handing tobacco at the barn after the mules had gone to field and returned dragging a sled filled with that money crop.  I was somewhere around ten or twelve years old at the time and for my before sunrise to after sundown labors, I brought home three dollars.  But, it is not just the wages which have changed.  Today's furrows are not plowed straight by a mule and the man behind it, but by a GPS device inside a huge air conditioned tractor. 

Another thing different is the way the farm powered by many, many hired hands is now done so by fewer men and rolling machines which have taken their place.  The parable of the vineyard lifts up a practice which has been largely replaced, but was still present until not so long ago.  So many of the small towns centered in rural areas had places, maybe a corner store or gas station, where men who wanted to work gathered in the morning to wait for a farmer who might come seeking more hired hands.  The parable of the vineyard found in Matthew 20:1-16 is told in such a setting.

 

But, the point Jesus is making has nothing to do with agricultural practices, but the way God gives grace and mercy.  If we come to Jesus thinking that we are going to be more blessed because God sees us as being more deserving, we have come to the wrong conclusion about how God is at work in the world.  The fact that I have been a follower of Jesus since I was a young man does not put me in a place of receiving more mercy and grace from God than the old timer getting ready to get into his deathbed.  God gives not according to what we have done in the span of our years.  Neither does He give according to what we might think we deserve.  He gives freely to all as He pleases.