A parable on performance...

This week, we are addressing the distorted view of God as the talent show judge. Yesterday, we discovered that as our culture reinforces life as one big performance that is being judged by those around us, this reality seeps into how we view God. And as a result, we can find ourselves in a place where we view God as the talent show judge and our day to day lives are driven by two questions.

The first question is basically, “If life was a talent show and God was the judge, God would rate my performance as a…” The second question, the deeper question that often drives our view of God as the talent show God is “If I do not do enough for God….”

And as a result of our lives being driven by these two questions that flow from viewing God as the talent show judge, we often choose to live a life that endlessly attempts to please a distant and difficult to please God. We choose to live a life of perpetual performance and we experience the feelings of regular rejection when we fail to perform well. A life that continually hears the whisper of the word “more, you need to do more” in our ears. And we end up in a place where we live a life that substitutes activity for God for intimacy with God.

When we view God as a talent show judge, we create of ourselves a God that we can never please. When we view God as a talent show judge, God becomes a nameless, faceless, unpleased being that is constantly evaluating our performance. And most importantly, when we view God as a talent show judge, we demand and expect ourselves to live up to, to impress, and to earn what God had already offered us long before we began to perform.

However, to view God as the talent show judge who is constantly evaluating our performance and who we can never please and never do enough for is a distorted view of God. We see this reality revealed in a section of an account of Jesus life that is recorded for us in the Bible called the gospel of Matthew. And it is in this section of this account of Jesus life that we discover a timeless truth that can enable us to rid ourselves of the distorted view of God as the talent show judge and replace it with an accurate view of God. So let’s jump into this section of the gospel of Matthew together, beginning in John Matthew 20:1:

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. "When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.

Matthew brings us into this section of his account of Jesus life by giving us a front row seat to a conversation that Jesus was having with His disciples. However, to fully understand the nature of this conversation, we first need to understand the context in which this conversation took place. Just prior to this conversation, Jesus had a conversation with a rich young ruler, who had asked Jesus what he needed to do to obtain eternal life.

The rich young ruler responded to Jesus questions about keeping all of the Ten Commandments that concerned how he related to those around him by proclaiming that he always obeyed them. You see, the rich young ruler took pride in his performance for God. However, Jesus explained to the rich young ruler that he needed to demonstrate that he obeyed the commandments about worshiping God and nothing other than God by selling all he owned to follow Jesus. However, the rich young ruler walked away from Jesus because he loved his money, possessions, and treasure more than he loved Jesus.

Jesus then explained to His disciples that is was harder for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of Heaven that it was for a camel to pass through the eye of a sewing needle. Jesus point was that money, possessions and treasure compete with Jesus for our devotion and for those who are rich, this competition often results in a choice to treasure their treasure instead of treasuring Jesus as their ultimate treasure.

This encounter between Jesus and the rich young ruler led to a conversation between Jesus and His disciples about the rank and rewards that followers of Jesus would receive in the kingdom of heaven. And in the middle of this conversation about rank and rewards in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus tells the disciples a parable. Now a parable is an earthly story that is designed to reveal a deeper spiritual truth.

In this parable, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.  Jesus explained that the landowner entered into an agreement with the laborers to pay them a denarius for their wages and then sent them into the vineyard to work. In Jesus day, a denarius was the equivalent of a day’s wages. So this landowner was paying the laborers what was generally accepted as a fair pay for a fair days work. Jesus then continued the parable in Matthew 20:3-7:

"And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; and to those he said, 'You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.' And so they went. "Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. "And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, 'Why have you been standing here idle all day long?'  "They said to him, 'Because no one hired us.' He said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.'

To understand what is happening in this parable, we first need to understand a little about what working in a vineyard entailed. Now in the agricultural society that Jesus lived in, a typical workday would begin at 6 a.m. and end at 6 p.m. Laborers would be hired during the harvest season to go into the vineyards to hand pick the grapes off the vines. There was no special automated machinery; this was manual, intensive, time sensitive work.

Jesus explained that as the landowner looked over his workforce, he saw that he could hire some more men. So the landowner went out about the third hour, which would be around 9 a.m. and saw others standing idle at the marketplace. Jesus explained that the landowner approached these men standing at the marketplace and offered them a job, saying “go into the vineyard and whatever is right I will pay you”.

Notice that the landowner did not enter into a prearranged agreement with these laborers; he only stated that he would do what is right. The landowner is simply stating to these laborers that they will not be shortchanged or treated unfairly. Jesus then explained that the landowner went back to the same marketplace at the sixth and the ninth hour and did the same thing. This landowner went out at noon and at 3 p.m. and hired more workers.

Now a natural question that arises here is “Why would laborers still be standing at the marketplace at noon and 3 p.m.? The workday is more than half over, isn’t it?” Most likely, either these workers showed up late or they were less motivated to work than the earlier workers. However, the landowner could still hire more workers, so he entered into the same agreement that he entered into with the workers that he hired at 9 a.m.; “go into the vineyard and whatever is right I will pay you”.

Then, in verse six and seven Jesus explained to the disciples that, at the eleventh hour, the landowner went out to the marketplace and found others still waiting to be picked up for work. To these laborers, however, the landowner asked a question: “Why have you been standing here idle all day long”?

In other words, “What have you been doing all day? Why have you not been hired? What’s your problem? Are you not worthy to be hired?” The laborers respond to the question simply; “because no one hired us”. You see, no one hired these laborers because they were the least desirable workers. They showed up to work late; they were not as prepared or as motivated as the other workers; they did not have the best resume or work history.

The landowner then hired these workers and sent them into the vineyard for the remaining hour that was left. At the end of that hour, when the workday is over, it was time to pay the laborers. Jesus then revealed what happened next in Matthew 20:8-9:

"When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.'  "When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius.

At the end of the day, as a day laborer, you would be paid for the day’s work. You were not under a contract; you are not a salaried employee; you simply received your pay and went on your way, because tomorrow you would begin this process all over again. So at the end of this day the landowner called his foreman and directed him to pay out their wages, beginning with the last group and ending with the first group.

What would happen is the foreman would call all the laborers to line up in a line according to the time that they were hired. The laborers would then come forward, one at a time, and receive their pay for the day. Now remember, the only laborers who entered into a prearranged agreement for a denarius for a day’s wages were those who were hired first; all of the rest of the laborers have no idea of exactly what they are going to get paid. All the landowner said was that he would pay them what was right.

Now, if you were a day laborer who was hired at 5 p.m., would you really expect to receive much in terms of pay? Probably not. After all, you hardly worked compared to those who had been there all day.

Yet Jesus explained that when the laborers came forward to receive their pay, they each received a denarius which, as we saw earlier, was the generally accepted pay for a fair days work. The reason that a denarius was considered a fair days pay for a fair days work was because a denarius was what was needed financially in order to provide for one’s family.

You see, the landowner did not pay them what they deserved; the landowner paid them what they needed. Now a natural reaction at this point could be “But hold on there, just wait a minute. These are the least desirable workers; these are the slackers, the Johnny come latelies. They did not earn a full day’s wages; that’s not fair”.  Well, if you think that is not fair, then you will really think that what happened next was not fair.

Friday, we will look at what happened next…