THERE is no doubt that this parable is a difficult one. It seems natural that the workers who were hired first should feel that they were being treated shabbily. After all they had worked much longer than the others and surely deserved recognition for this in some bonus. However when we look closely at the story, it is clear that the landowner is doing nothing wrong or unjust. The pay of a denarius was a fair wage for a days work, and the workers hired at the beginning of the day had agreed to this when they came to work. The fact is that the workers hired first were being paid a fair wage, and the wage they had agreed to work for. The landowner was simply being gracious and kind to the others, who had no opportunity to work all day, when he paid them a days wages also. That which makes us today feel that the landowner was being unjust and unfair is the problem that is causing all our problems today in society.

That Jesus was speaking to the attitude of the Jews of his day is clear. They expected to be treated better than all other human beings, and felt they deserved better from God than any other. After all they argued that they had been chosen by God so long in the past, and served God all that time; surely they deserved to receive more than others. The fact was that the Jews had forgotten how poor their service for God was, and failed to realize that their supposed merit was all outward, and still left their hearts in gross corruption.

The 'day' surely must represent time until Christ returns, when all will stand before Christ at the judgement. All those who have responded to Christ's invitation to receive salvation and enter the company of the redeemed, and who have lived for Christ and worked for him, will receive the gracious blessing from Christ, which is the gift of eternal life and the salvation of their soul. Surely this is the meaning of the denarius! When the Jews were chosen in the Old Testament to be the people of God, it was the gift of acceptance with God, and eternal life that was the promised result of serving the Lord in faith and trust. The promised land was and is always membership of heaven, God's eternal dwelling place.

This parable emphasises one great truth that salvation and eternal life is the gracious gift of Christ to all who believe. The landowner called people at different times during the day, but all received the same pay. None deserved the whole, but were all given this blessed gift of eternal (i.e. A denarius). The fact is that when we have done everything we can, we still fall short of the perfection Christ requires if we are to receive eternal life by our own merit, and so we can only know eternal life if it is bestowed in grace, that is unmerited favour. Even those who are called early in life still have the obligation to be perfect if they would merit eternal life by their own efforts, and none of us can even begin to approach the perfection which is in God, so eternal life must be a gift of grace if we are to attain it.

Let us notice that except in the case of the men hired first, there is no agreement for pay. Each one called had to trust the landowner, and find in the end that that trust was not in vain. If salvation was not by grace, none would be saved i.e there would be no workers called to work in the vineyard.

The men hired first had no sense of the fact that they could not claim that their work was perfect, even though they had worked all day. They had no sense that they had to trust the landowner to give them even the denarius at the end of the day. The landowner could have come to them and pointed out the blemishes in their work, and then refused to pay them a denarius. It was grace that made the landowner overlook the imperfections, and hand over the denarius. So it is that however long we have been believers, and followed Christ, we can't claim any favours on the ground that we have been believers for so long a time. It is a fact of all of us, that even our best efforts fall short of the glory of God, and that we sin daily. However long we have worked in the vineyard of Christ, we do not deserve the wages, because our work has fallen short all along the line.