Barbara Brown Taylor

Excerpt
The parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard is a little like cod liver oil: You know Jesus is right, you know it must be good for you, but that does not make it any easier to swallow. Along with the parable of the Prodigal Son, today's parable is one of those stories of forgiveness so radical that it offends, because it seems to reward those who have done the least while it sends those who have worked the hardest to the end of the line.

"So the last will be first and the first last," Jesus says, scrambling the usual order of things, challenging the sacred assumption by which most of us live our lives, namely, that the front of the line is the place to be, that the way to win God's attention is to be the best person, the hardest worker, the first one into the vineyard in the morning and the last one to leave at night. Only according to today's reading, where that will get you is exactly nowhere. According to the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, those at the end of the line will not only be paid as much as those at the front; they will also be paid first. It is just not fair.

One thing that often helps me understand hard stories like this one is to see where they fit. At what point in his life does Jesus tell the story? Where is he and what is he doing? To whom is he talking? What has just happened and what happens next?

If you turn to the nineteenth chapter of Matthew, for instance, to the paragraph just before this parable, you find out that Peter has just asked Jesus what he and the other disciples can expect in the way of reward for their loyalty to Jesus. They have given up everything to follow him, Peter points out. What will he give them in return? Jesus promises them twelve thrones in the world to come. "But many that are first will be last," he says, "and the last fist." Then he tells the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard.

That is what happens before the story. What happens after it is that James and John's mother comes up to Jesus and makes a special case for her two sons, asking Jesus to give them the best thrones in the kingdom, one on his left and one on his right. Politely but firmly, Jesus lets her know that she doesn't know what she is talking about, because his throne will not be made out of gold and jewels but out of wood and nails, in the shape of a cross.

It helps to know where the parable fits, that both before and after Jesus tells it, his own disciples are jockeying for position, wanting good seats in the kingdom, competing for the best seats, each of them trying to be first in line when the doors are propped open and the show begins...