The Barefoot Evangelist

Read Matthew 20:1-16 with your family.

Jesus told a story about a man who owned a vineyard. Early one morning, the man went out and hired some workers. A few hours later, he hired some more. He kept going back throughout the day, even hiring people when there was only a little time left to work. When evening came, he paid every worker the same amount of money.

The people who had worked all day were not happy about that! They had worked through the heat for hours. Surely they should get more than the people who had only worked for a short time. But the vineyard owner reminded them that he had paid them exactly what he had promised. Then he asked an important question: why were they angry because he had chosen to be generous to someone else?

Jesus wasn’t really giving people advice about how to run a vineyard. He was teaching them about God’s generosity. We are very good at comparing. Who worked harder? Who deserves more? Who got something I didn’t get? Sometimes when someone else receives something good, we can even feel as though something has been taken away from us.

Jesus invites us to imagine something different. God’s love isn’t a prize that only the hardest workers get. There isn’t less love for you because God loves somebody else too. In God’s vineyard, there is room for the people who arrived early and the people who arrived late – and everyone gets welcomed in.

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