Tag Archives: parable of landowner

Track 1: Our Daily Bread

Exodus 16:2-15
Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45
Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16

When the disciples of Jesus asked him to teach them to pray, he told them to follow this pattern:

Our Father in heaven,
    may your name be revered as holy.
    May your kingdom come.
    May your will be done
        on earth as it is in heaven.
   Give us today our daily bread.   (Matthew 6:9-11)

“Our daily bread” is placed in the front of the prayer. This phrase means the provisions for our lives, of course. But it means much more. It means all that God gives us each day, that we need for each day.

In the wilderness God fed the children of Israel with manna:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other day.   (Exodus 16:4-5)

The manna was the children’s primary sustenance for food. They needed to gather it each day. They needed new manna each day because it would not last overnight, except on the sixth day, because of the following sabbath day. This is a teaching for us. We need a fresh gift of bread from God every new day.

Our bread is not just food. It is all God’s provisions for life.

When Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness to turn stones into bread, he quoted this verse:

Jesus had not eaten for forty days, but he understood that the Father’s word was more important to him. We need daily bread from God that includes his word. We need a fresh word from God each day. We need to meditate on the holy scriptures every day to face the new challenges of each new day.

Let us look at another aspect of daily bread. Jesus was teaching in a synagogue at Capernaum. He was asked:

“What sign are you going to give us, then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you . For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”   (John 6:30-34)

The Jewish people believed that manna from heaven was a miracle and a sign from God that he provided for them in the wilderness, though initially remember that they grumbled about having to eat the manna. Jesus said that God was going to give them another sign, even more significant than the manna. He told them that he was the true bread from heaven. The manna was just a foretaste.

Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which the ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.   (John 6:57-58)

Jesus is also our daily bread, the bread of heaven. What does that mean to us? It means that we need to feed on him as we feed on his word. His teaching was controversial for many of his followers:

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”    (Jochn 6:60)

Unfortunately, controversies about Holy Communion still exist. It would seem that some churches do not see the urgency of partaking his body and blood in Holy Communion. The service of Communion or the Lord’s Supper is every month or an even longer period.

What should be our emphasis? What does Jesus say? He told his questioners:

Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day, for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them.   (John 6:53-56)

Jesus was offering himself as an alternative to death. In him, we have new life and life eternal. Do we have that life today? If we are unsure, God is calling us to come to all of his daily bread.

 

 

Track 2: Angry with God

Jonah 3:10-4:11
Psalm 145:1-8
Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16

Jesus told a parable that many people believe is one of his most controversial:

The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’   (Matthew 20:1-12)

I remember teaching this parable in a Bible study early in my ordained many. A good number of the participants grumbled. Many of us like to keep score, I am afraid. The Apostle Paul wrote:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs;   (1 Corinthians 13:4-5)

In the parable, this is how the landowner replied to the grumblers:

‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”   (Matthew 20:13-16)

Jonah was called by God to preach a revival in the city of Nineveh, which Jonah did not want to do. Nineveh was a notorious city hated by Israel. To Jonah’s surprise, the people in the city repented from the least to the greatest:

When God saw what the people of Nineveh did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.   (Jonah 3:10-4:5)

God had said that he would the city, and Jonah was waiting and hoping that God still do it:

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”   (Jonah 4:6-11)

Too often many of us may have a sense of fairness that God does not seem to follow. This was true for Israel. God spoke through the prophet Ezekiel:

Yet you say, “The way of the Lord is unfair.” Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair? When the righteous turn away from their righteousness and commit iniquity, they shall die for it; for the iniquity that they have committed, they shall die. Again, when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life. Because they considered and turned away from all the transgressions that they had committed, they shall surely live; they shall not die. Yet the house of Israel says, “The way of the Lord is unfair.” O house of Israel, are my ways unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair?   (Ezekiel 18:25-29)

God’s heart is that we all will be saved. The Apostle Paul wrote:

This is right and acceptable before God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.   (1 Timothy 2:3-4)

We are living in difficult times. We are seeing the guilty escaping judgment and, in some cases, the innocent being prosecuted and convicted. How do we respond to this? Would we like to take matters into our own hands?

Let us remember that all judgment belongs to God. Paul wrote:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.”   (Romans 12:19)

Our response should be to pray for 0ur enemies as well as those persons who are in charge. We need revival on the level of Nineveh. Let us preach the Gospel and call upon God. God is allowing a time of repentance. When he closes the door on it let us be sure that we are inside the door. Jesus is the door.