(ST. Matt. xix. 30, xx. 16; St. Matt. xxi. 28-32; St. Mark xii. 1-12; St. Luke xx. 9-19; St. Matt. xxii. 1-14.)
ALTHOUGH it may not be possible to mark their exact succession, it will be convenient here to group together the last series of Parables. Most, if not all of them, were spoken on that third day in Passion week: the first four to a more general audience; the last three (to be treated in another chapter) to the disciples, when, on the evening of that third day, on the Mount of Olives, [5286] He told them of the Last Things.' They are the Parables of Judgment, and in one form or another treat of the End.'
1. The Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard. [5287] As treating of the End,' this Parable evidently belongs to the last series, although it may have been spoken previously to Passion-Week, perhaps on that Mission-journey in Peræa, in connection with which it is recorded by St. Matthew. At any rate, it stands in internal relation with what passed on that occasion, and must therefore be studied with reference to it.
We remember, that on the occasion of the rich young ruler's failure to enter the Kingdom, to which he was so near, Christ had uttered an earnest warning on the danger of riches.' [5288] In the low spiritual stage which the Apostles had as yet attained, it was, perhaps only natural that Peter should, as spokesman of the rest, have, in a kind of spiritual covetousness, clutched at the promised reward, and that in a tone of self-righteousness he should have reminded Christ of the yet part of what He, the Lord. had always to bear, and bore so patiently and lovingly, from their ignorance and failure to understand Him and His work. And this want of true sympathy, this constant contending with the moral dulness even of those nearest to Him, must have been part of His great humiliation and sorrow, one element in the terrible solitariness of His Life, which made Him feel that, in the truest sense, the Son of Man had not where to lay His Head.' And yet we also mark the wondrous Divine generosity which, even in moments of such sore disappointment, would not let Him take for nought what should have been freely offered in the gladsome service of grateful love. Only there was here deep danger to the disciples: danger of lapsing into feelings kindred to those with which the Pharisees viewed the pardoned Publicans, or th elder son in the Parable his younger brother; danger of misunderstanding the right relations, and with it the very character of the Kingdom, and of work in and for it. It is to this that the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard refers.
The principle which Christ lays down is, that, while nothing done for Him shall lose its rewared, yet, from one reason or another, no forecast can be made, no inferences of self-righteousness may be drawn. It does not by any means follow, that most work done, at least, to our seeing and judging, shall entail a greater reward. On the contrary, many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.' Not all, not yet always and necessarily, but many.' And in such cases no wrong has been done; there exists no claim, even in view of the promises of due acknowledgement of work. Spiritual pride and self-assertion can only be the outcome either of misunderstanding God's relation to us, or else of a wrong state of mind towards others; [5289] - that is, it betokens mental or moral unfitness.
Of this the Parable of the Labourers is an illustration. It teaches nothing beyond this. [5290] But, while illustrating how it may come that some who were first are last,' and how utterly mistaken or wrong is the thought that they must necessarily receive more than others, who, seemingly, have done more - how, in short, work for Christ is not a ponderable quantity, so much for so much, nor yet we the judges of when and why a worker has come - it also conveys much that is new, and, in many respects, most comforting.