THE HEAVENLY HOUSEHOLDER
‘An householder … went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.’
Matthew 20:1
Consider the details of this parable:
I. Labourers required.—The Lord requires labour, not idleness, on the part of those whom He sends into His vineyard: for ( a) He goes out early in the morning to hire labourers ( Matthew 20:1-2), and again and again hires more ( Matthew 20:3; Matthew 20:5-6), and ( b) He chides those standing ‘idle’ in the market-place ( Matthew 20:3; Matthew 20:6).
II. Not the criterion of reward.—Yet labour is not the criterion of reward, for He sets aside the supposition which the first-called entertained, that they should have received more than the last, because ( a) they had laboured so much longer, and ( b) had endured so much more hardship ( Matthew 20:10; Matthew 20:12).
III. The reward is of grace.—It is a gift, not earned by labours, though accompanied with loving labours: Matthew 20:14, ‘give.’ The gift flows from ( a) God’s sovereign will,—‘ I will give’; ( b) from God’s goodness,—‘I am good’ ( Matthew 20:15); ( c) therefore bargaining hirelings have no real share in it ( Matthew 20:2); nor boasters who rely on their length of labour and sacrifices ( Matthew 20:12); nor murmurers against God, who also are grudgers towards their fellow-labourers ( Matthew 20:11-12; compare Jude 1:16, James 5:9). They get their reward indeed, for God will be a debtor to no man: ‘Take that thine is’; ‘Didst not thou agree with me for a penny?’ ( Matthew 20:2; Matthew 20:13-14). But it is not the everlasting reward. So ( d) the warning and at the same time the comforting conclusion from the whole follows, ‘the last shall be first and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen’ ( Matthew 20:16).
—Canon A. R. Fausset.
Illustration
‘Without attempting to apply every detail, it may well be pointed out how the parable represents the rejection of the Jews and the call of the Gentiles; how the Jews in the days of Abraham, Moses, and the prophets had repeated calls to work in God’s vineyard, while the Gentiles, without knowledge of God, had stood idly outside; how the Jews, by pride, hypocrisy, and self-seeking, merited rejection; how the Gentiles at the eleventh hour were to be called, notwithstanding the envy and opposition of the Jews. Thus, historically, the first were to be last, and the last first.’

AT EVENTIDE
‘When even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers and give them their hire.’
Matthew 20:8
The householder goes out early in the morning, and then, when eventide is come, he, the owner of the vast and beautiful vineyard, calls the labourers.
I. The call.—The voice and the call of the Householder have come to us. They came in the morning of life. Can you remember that morning, you who are stricken in years, you who are toiling in mid-day life? Can you not remember when your dreams, like Joseph’s, were made of such stuff as godly ambition is made of; when you felt that the whole world was before you, and you heard God’s voice bidding you, ‘Go, work,’ in His vineyard. Illustrate from Moses, Samuel, Isaiah. You may remember faintly still how you went forth. But behind it all you feel that the great Householder was He Who determined your lot, and the decision was with the Lord.
II. The work.—Are there not twelve hours of the day in which it behoveth man to work? You went forth to your work, and now each season asks, ‘How are you doing it? Now that one hour and another and another are striking over your head, are you fulfilling the work which you then, with best resolves, intended to do?’
III. The unity in life.—Our early feelings and joys blend with our later ones. At any hour, ‘something attempted, something done’ gives joy.
IV. At eventide.—There is such a thing as a dark, dreary, godless old age; a sunset dark with gathering clouds. The eventide is coming. The Householder is continually calling. Keep the eventide in your thoughts, the reckoning in your faith, that you may hear the Master’s ‘Well done.’
—Canon Rowsell.

CALLED AND CHOSEN
‘So the last shall be first, and the first last; for many be called, but few chosen.’
Matthew 20:16
St. Peter tells us there are many things in the Bible hard to be understood. This is one of them. It is necessary to read the whole discourse in the midst of which it comes. The young man’s question, ‘What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?’ led to the Lord’s warning of the danger of earthly riches. He explained to the disciples the reward of those who fully follow Him, and added, ‘Many, therefore, that are first shall be last, and the last first.’ This solemn truth He explained by the homely parable of the labourers in the vineyard.
I. The dangerous practical perversion to which the parable is liable is twofold. It may foster sloth (people saying, ‘I must wait till I am called before I set to work at all’) or presumption (people thinking that they will fare just as well at the great payment of wages if they begin to work at the eleventh hour).
II. Every baptized Christian is ‘called,’ and the Apostle in his exhortation ‘to walk worthy,’ etc. gives the practical rules for daily life and work. Who then can say that God has not given him enough to do? God has called us to Holiness: our duties await us every morning.
III. God measures our claims upon His favour by our earnestness and our opportunities. He will not ask us how long we have known His will, but whether, since we have known it, we have done it.
IV. Your work never done.—In spiritual things a day is a lifetime. On this side of the grave it is all work; on the other it will be all rest.
—Bishop Fraser.

THE CUP IN SERVICE
Are ye able to drink of the cup …? They say unto Him, We are able.’
Matthew 20:22
It is a grand answer. Both these disciples are accepted. There is no promise given of crown or rule, but they shall be with Him in His sufferings.
I. The promise fulfilled.—Both had the cup. Was it more bitter to one than the other? St. James was called to drink very soon after the Lord was gone, killed by the sword of Herod. By the baptism of blood he went to Jesus. St. John’s reward was different. It was his lot to wait, until when he was a hundred years old the call name, and he entered into the kingdom for which he had so long before desired. They drank, they were baptized, and they are with their Lord.
II. Its modern application.—Jesus Christ is in the world still, and still He calls men to follow Him. Some have the thought of serving Him in His priesthood, others of entering the religious life as Sisters or Brothers. Some may have in mind service in the missions of the Church, not held back by the knowledge that many have there suffered and died. Others whose life is to be lived at home may have seen a light that pointed them to more faithful service there in devotion to Jesus, in the lot where He has called them. It is the cup of Jesus they all desire; it is work, suffering, danger for Him, and He will be with them in it. There is a thought for us all, not to be afraid of enthusiasm in our religion, not to be ready to check it in ourselves or others. Many fail; they have not learnt to say, ‘We are able.’ And how many there are who have not responded to some special vocation of God we shall never know.
III. Not always the same cup.—The cup was not the same for both the Sons of Thunder. So now there are different ways in which prayers are answered, and the gifts of God come in different ways. If another seems to have a special call, do not be jealous. God has a call for you, whether greater or less you do not know. Be true to your own call.
—Bishop E. W. Osborne.
Illustration
‘The night before his consecration a Bishop of Mashonaland was presented with a beautiful cross engraved with the Greek word Dunametha, “We are able.” No man has greater need of enthusiasm in his work, far off in the interior of Africa. Think what that cross must be to him. In long journeys by train or in bullock-waggons, by the side of gold mines, amid, perhaps, reckless Europeans, or in native kraals, amid untaught, copper-coloured men and women; in heat by day and freezing cold by night, when baptizing with joy many followers of Christ, or hearing some sad story of dejection or disappointment, the cross and its message are ever there, “We are able.” It tells him of the two great souls who first said the words, and were accepted. It tells him of the call that came to him, and of his response when God chose him for a bishop, and so awakes in him, again and again, the spirit of enthusiasm, of devotion. And if ever in weariness and sorrow he waits on his knees for help, the cross upon his breast will tell him of the nearness of Him for whom he carries it, and he too will hear the voice, “You shall indeed drink of My cup; but fear not, for I am with you.” Will he not again rise up, and, joining himself in spirit with the other two, say humbly and confidently, “We are able”?’

A PATTERN OF MINISTRY
‘The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.’
Matthew 20:28
It is true not only of the first beginnings of our Lord’s reign on earth, when He was the despised and rejected of men, but all through.
I. To whom did He minister?—To all men, and to the whole man, body, soul, and spirit; no one, nothing, was outside the sphere of His ministration.
II. Why did He minister?—Because He would help the helpless; For us men and for our salvation He came down from Heaven.’ He came to give the glorious liberty of the children of God in place of sin’s slavery; to replace the tyranny of evil by the freedom of Divine Grace.
III. Through what channel did He minister?—Through the channel of a common humanity. ‘He was made like unto His brethren.’ He was and is the ‘Son of man.’
IV. In what spirit did He minister?—A spirit of humility, self-sacrifice, patient endurance, and toil.
V. How did He minister?—Through the law of association. He did not only deliver a message and proclaim a Gospel, but He built a Church, a city of God, where they might go in and out and find safety, a Kingdom, a concrete fact, a visible reality, in which all men might be gathered in.
—Dean Ridgeway.