Still Standing Around?

“Why are you standing around all day?” (Matthew 20:6, Peterson).

I have recently revisited a familiar story from the New Testament. It is often called “The Parable of the Householder.” But really it is a story about mission.

Just following his remarkable encounter with “the rich young ruler” (Matthew 19), and just verses before his triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21), Jesus relates the story of the householder (Matthew 20:1-16). It is the story, really, of an unusually urgent harvest. The story takes place at the end of the growing season, apparently: we can imagine ripened grapes falling off the vine. The householder cannot wait another day! An entire season of preparation – planting, pruning, cultivating, and so on – will go to waste unless harvest laborers can be found. Urgently. Immediately. “Early in the morning,” we are told, the householder hires laborers (v.20). At mid-morning he hires another crew, and once again at noon. At mid-afternoon he hires a few more – and still the harvest is incomplete. At the end of the day, yet once again, the householder returns to the market to hire a few hands more. “Why do you stand here idle all day?” he asks them. “You go into the vineyard, too!” (vv.6,7).

The rub of the story, as you might remember, comes at the very end. Those hired at the end of the day receive the same wage as those hired at the very beginning – what seems an astounding inequity. Those hired in the morning may have worked ten times longer than those who joined the team late in the afternoon. And they are paid the same!

But the great focus of the story is the harvest itself. This is a harvest, you see, that forces us to bend the rules a little. It represents a task so urgent, a priority so compelling, so gripping, that every effort and resource must be applied. There is no place for “standing idle” – when there is harvest work to do. There is no room on the sideline. The harvest is ready. Every available hand must join in!

This is a theme, of course, that appears elsewhere in the New Testament as well. “I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting,” Jesus exhorts his disciples (John 4:35). “The harvest is plentiful,” Jesus explains elsewhere, “but the laborers are few” (Matthew 9:37). “When the grain is ripe, at once [the farmer] goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come” (Mark 4:29).

I have heard it estimated that more than sixty thousand of our human family die every day that goes by – without hearing the name of Jesus. “Why do you stand here idle all day?” Jesus asks us still. “You go into the vineyard, too!” (vv.6,7).

You may enlist in the effort early or late; newcomers and old-timers are welcome. You may add to the effort a great energy or small; every contribution is needed. On the harvest team there is room for everyone, every spiritual gift and every material resource, as we gather the harvest in.

This is the message of this challenging parable. Let’s not be found “standing around.”