THE CROSS AND THE CROWN

THE END DAY IN PASION-WEEK, THE LAST SERIES OF PARABLES: TO THE PHARISEES AND TO THE PEOPLE, ON THE WAY TO JERUSALEM: THE PARABLE OF THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD, IN THE TEMPLE: THE PARABLE OF THE 'NO' AND 'YES' OF THE TWO SONS, THE PARABLE OF THE EVIL HUSBANDMEN EVILLY DESTROYED, THE PARABLE OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON AND THE WEDDING GARMENT

CHAPTER V

(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 Passionweek: 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, [a St. Matt. xxiv. 1. St. Luke xxi. 37] 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. [b St. Matt. xix. 30-xx. 16.] 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 Peraea, 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.' [c Matt. xix. 23, 24.] 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 Hil 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.6

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 teh 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 [a St. Matt. xx. 15.] ;that is, it betokens mental or moral unfitness.

Of this the Parable of the Labourers is an illustration. It teaches nothing beyond this. [1 Instead of discussing the explanations of others, I prefer simply to expound that which I have to propose. The difficulties of the usual interpretations are so great that a fresh study seemed requisite. Our interpretation turns on this, that the Parable is only an illustration of what is said in St. Matt. xix. 30.] 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.

We mark, first, the bearing of 'the householder, who went out immediately, at earliest morn, to hire labourers into his vineyard.' That he did not send his steward, but went himself, [a St. Matt. xx. 1.] and with the dawn of morning, shows both that there was much work to do, and the householder's anxiety to have it done. That householder is God, and the vineyard His Kingdom; the labourers, whom with earliest morning He seeks in the market-place of busy life, are His Servants. With these he agreed for a denarius a day, which was the ordianry wages for a day's labour, [1 In Rome, at th etime of Cicero, a day-labourer received 12 as=about 6d., that is, rather less than in Judaea (comp. Marquardt, Rom. Alterth. vol. v. p. 52).] and so sent them into the vineyard; in other words, He told them He would pay the reward promised to labourers. So passed the early hours of the morning. About the third hour (the Jewish working day being reckoned from sunrise to sunset), that is, probably as it was drawing towards a close, he went out again, and, as he saw 'others' standing idle in the market-place, he said to them, 'Go ye also into th evineyard.' There was more than enough to do in that vineyard; enough and more to employ them. And when he came, they had stood in the marketplace ready and waiting to go to work, yet 'idle', unemployed as yet. It might not have been precisely their blame that they had not gone before; they were 'others' than those in the market-place when the Master had first come, and they had not been there at that time. Only as he now sent them, he made no definite promise. They felt that in their special circumstances they had no claim; he told them, that whatsoever was right he would give them; and they implicitly trusted to his word, to his justice and goodness. And so happened it yet again, both at the sixth and at the ninth hour of the day. We repeat, that in none of these instances was it the guilt of the labourers, in the sense of being due to their unwillingness or refusal, that they ahd not before gone into the vineyard. For some reason, perhaps by their fault, perhaps not, they had not been earlier in the market- place. But as soon as they were there and called, they went, although, of course, the loss of time, however caused, implied loss of work. Neither did the Master in any case make, nor they ask for, othr promise than that implied in his word and character.

These four things, then, stand out clearly in the Parable: the abundance of work to be done in the vineyard; th anxiety of the householder to secure all available labourers; the circumstance that, not from unwillingness or refusal, but because they had not been there and available, the labourers had come at later hours; and that, when they had so come, they were ready to go into the vineyard without promise of definite reward, simply trusting to the truth and goodness of him whom they went to serve. We think here of those 'last,' the Gentiles from the east, west, north, and south; [a St. Luke xiii. 30] of the converted publicans and sinners; of those, a great part of whose lives has, alas! been spent somewhere else, and who have only come at a late hour into the market-place; nay, of them also whose opportunities, capacity, strength, or time have been very limited, and we thank God for the teaching of this Parable. And if doubt should still exist, it must be removed by the concluding sentences of this part of the Parable, in which the householder is represented as going out at the last hour, when, finding others standing [1 The word 'idle' in the second clause of ver. 6 is spurious, though it may, of course, be supplied from the fourth clause.] he asks them why they stood there all the day idle, to which they reply, that no man had hired them. These also are, in turn, sent into the vineyard, though apparently without any expressed promise at all. [2 The last clause in our T. R.and A. V. is spurious, though perhaps such a promise was understood.] It thus appears, that in proportion to the lateness of their work was the felt absence of any claim on the part of the labourers, and their simple reliance on their employer.

And now it is even. The time for working is past, and the Lord of the vineyard bids His Steward [here the Christ] pay His labourers. But here the first surprise awaits them. The order of payment is the inverse of that of labour: 'beginning from the last unto the first.' This is almost a necessary part of the Parable. For, if the first labourers had been paid first, they would either have gone away without knowing what was done to the last, or, if they had remained, their objection could not have been ourged, except on the ground of manifest malevolence towards their neighbours. After having received their wages, they could not have objected that they had not received enough, but only that the others had received too much. But it was not the scope of the Parable to charge with conscious malevolence those who sought a higher reward or deemed themselves entitled to it. Again, we notice, as indicating the disposition of the later labourers, that those of the third hour did not murmur, because they had not got more than they of the eleventh hour. This is in accordance with their not having made any bargain at the first, but trusted entirely to the householder. But they of the first hour had their cupidity excited. Seeing what the others had received, they expected. to have more than their due. When they like wise received every man a denarius, they murmured, as if injustice had been done them. And, as mostly in like circumstances, truth and fairness seemed on their side. For, selecting the extreme case of the eleventh hour labourers, had not the Householder made those who had wrought [1 I prefer not rendering with Meyer and the R.V., viz., by 'spent,' but taking the verb as the Hebrew = 'wrought.' And the first labourers could not have meant, that the last had 'spent,' not ,wrought,' an hour. This were a gratuitous imputation to them of malevolence and calumny.] only one hour equal to them who had 'borne theburden of the day and the hear'? Yet, however fair their reasoning might seem, they had no claim in truth or equity, for had they not agreed for one denarius with him? And it had not even been in the general terms of a day's wages, but they had made the express bargain of one denarius. They had gone to work with a stipulated sum as their hire distinctly in view. They now appealed to justice; but from first to last they had had justice. This as regards the 'so much for so much' principle of claim, law, work, and pay.

But there was yet another aspect than that of mere justice. Those other labourers, who had felt that, owning to the lateness of their appearance, they had no claim, and, alas! which of us must not feel how late we have been in coming, and hence how little we can have wrought, had made no bargain, but trusted to the Master. And as they had believed, so was it unto them. Not because they made or had any claim, 'I will, however, to give unto this last, even as unto thee', the word 'I will' being emphatically put first to mark 'the good pleasure' of His grace as the ground of action. Such a Master could not have given less to those who had come when called, trusting to His goodness, and not in their deserts. The reward was now reckoned, not of work nor of debt, but of grace. [a Rom. iv. 4-6; xi. 6.] In passing we also mark, as against cavillers, the profound accord between what negative critics would call the 'true Judaic Gospel' of St. Matthew, and what constitutes the very essence of 'the anti-Judaic teaching' of St. Paul, and we ask our opponents to reconcile on their theory what can only be explained on the ground that St. Paul, like St. Matthew, was the true disciple of the true Teacher, Jesus Christ.

But if all is to be placed on the new ground of grace, with which, indeed, the whold bearing of the later labourers accords, then (as St. Paul also shows) the laboureres who murmured were guilty either of ignorance in failing to perceive the sovereignty of grace, that it is within His power to do with His own as He willeth [b Rom. xi.] or else of malevolence, when, instead of with grateful joy, they looked on with an evil eye, and this in proportion as 'the Householder' was good. But such a state of mind may be equally that of the Jews, [a Rom. ii.; iii. 28-31; ix. 18- 24.] and of the Gentiles. [b Rom. xi, 11-18.] And so, in this illustrative case of the Parable, 'the first shall be last, and the last first.' [1 The clause which follows in our A.V. is spurious.] And in other instances also, though not in all, 'many shall be last that are first; and first that are last.' [c St. Matt. xix. 30.] But He is the God, Sovereign in grace, in Whose Vineyard there is work to do for all, however limited their time, power, or opportunity; Whose laboureres we are, if His Children; Who, in His desire for the work, and condescension and patience towards the workers, goeth out into the market-place even to the eleventh hour, and, with only gentlest rebuke for not having earlier come thither and thus lost our day in idleness, still, ecen to the last, bids us come; Who promises what is right, and gives far more than is due to them who simply trust Him: the God not of the Jews nor of the Gentiles only, but our Father; the God Who not only pays, but freely gives of His own, and in Whose Wisdom and by Whose Grace it may be, that, even as the first shall be last, so the last shall be first.

Another point still remains to be noticed. If anywhere, we expect in these Parables, addressed to the people, forms of teaching and speaking with which they were familiar, in other words, Jewish parallels. But we equally expect that the teaching of Christ, while conveyed under illustrations with which the Jews were familiar, would be entirely different in spirit. And such we find it notably in the present instances. To begin with, according to Jewish Law, if a man engaged a labourer without any definite bargain, but on the statement that he would be paid as one or another of the labourers in the place, he was, according to some, only bound to pay the lowest wages in the place; but, according to the majority, the average between the lowest and the highest. [d Badha Mets. 87 a, towards the end.] [2 Some interesting illustrations of secondary importance, and therefore not here introduced, may be found at the close of Badha Mets. 83 a and the beginning of b.] Again, as regards the letter of the Parable itself, we have a remarkable parallel in a funeral oration on a Rabbi, who died at the early age of twenty- eight. The text chosen was: 'The sleep of a labouring man is sweet,' [e Eccl. v. 12.] and this was illustrated bya Parable of a king who had a vineyard, and engaged many labourers to work in it. One of them was distinguished above the rest by his ability. So the king took him by the hand, and walked up and down with him. At even, when the labourers were paid, this one received the same wages as the others, just as if he had wrought the whole day. Upon this the others murmured, because he who had wrought only two hours had received the same as they who had laboured the whole day, when the king replied: 'Why murmur ye? This labourer has by his skill wrought as much in two hours as you during the whole day.' [a Midr. on Eccl. v. 11; Jer. Ber. ii. 8.] This in reference to the great merits of the deceased young Rabbi.

But it will be onserved that, with all its similarity of form, the moral of the Jewish Parable is in exactly the opposite direction from the teaching of Christ. The same spirit of work and pay breathes in another Parable, which is intended to illustrate the idea that God had not revealed the reward attaching to each commandment, in order that men might not neglect those which brought less return. A king, so the Parable runs, had a garde, for which he hired labourers without telling them what their wages would be. In the evening he called them, and, having ascertained from each under what tree he had been working, he paid them according to the value of the trees on which they had been engaged. And when they said that he ought to have told them, which trees would bring the labourers most pay, the king replied that thereby a great part of his garden would have been neglected. So had God in like manner only revealed the reward of the greatest of the commandments, that to honour father and mother, [b Ex. xx. 12.] and that of the least, about letting the mother-bird fly away [c Deut. xxii. 7.], attaching to both precisely the same reward. [d Debar. R. 6 on Deut. xxii. 6.]

To these, if need were, might be added other illustrations of that painful reckoning about work, or else sufferings, and reward, which characterises Jewish theology, as it did those lobourers in the Parable. [e See,for example, Ber. 5 a and b, but especially 7 a.]

2. The second Parable in this series, or perhaps rather iullustration, was spoken within the Temple. The Savior had been answering the question of the Pharisees as to His authority by an appeal to the testimony of the Baptist. This led Him to refer to the twofold reception of that testimony, on the one hand, by the Publicans and harlots, and, on the other, by the Pharisees.

The Parable, [f St. Matt. xxi. 28-32.] which now follows, introduces a man who has two sons. He goes to the first, and in language of affection bids him go and work in his vineyard. The son curtly and rudely refuses; but afterwards he changes his mind [1 The word is not the same as that for 'repent' in St. Matt. iii. 2. The latter referes to a change of heart, and means something spiritual. The word used in the text means only a change of mind and purpose. It occurs besides in St. Matt. xxvii. 3; 2 Cor. vii. 8; Heb. vii. 21.] and goes. [2 Looking away from the very profane use made of the saying in the Talmud, we may quote as a literary curiosity the following as the origin of the proverb: He that will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay, Ber. 7 a, line 8 from bottom.] Meantime the father, when refused by the one, has gone to his other son on the same errand. The contrast here is marked. The tone is most polite, and the answer of the son contains not only a promise, be we almost see him going: 'I, sir!, and he did not go.' The application was easy. The first son represented the Publicans and harlots, whose curt and rude refusal of the Father's call was implied in their life of reckless sin. But afterwards they changed their mind, and went into the Father's vineyard. The other Son, with his politeness of tone and ready promise, but utter neglect of obligations undertaken, represented the Pharisees with their hypocritical and empty professions. And Christ obliged them to make application of the Parable. When challenged by the Lord, which of the two had done the will of his father, they could not avoid the answer. Then it was that, in language equally stern and true. He pointed the moral. The Baptist had come preaching righteousness, and, while the self-righteous Pharisees had not believed him, those sinners had, And yet, even when the Pharisees saw the effect on these former sinners, they changed not their minds that they might believe. Therefore the Publicans and harlots would and did go into the Kingdom before them.

3. Closely connected with the two preceding Parables, and, indeed, with the whole tenor of Christ's sayings at that time, is that about the Evil Husbandmen in the Vineyard. [a St. Matt. xxi. 33 &c. and parallels.] Asin the Parable about the Labourers sought by the Householder at different times, the object here is to set forth the patience and goodness of the owner, even towards the evil. And as, in the Parable of the Two Sons, reference is made to the practical rejection of the testimony of the Baptist by the Jews, and their consequent self-exclusion from the Kingdom, so in this there is allusion to John as greater than the prophets, [b ver. 36.] to the exclusion of Israel as a people from their position in the Kingdom, [c ver. 43.] and to their punishment as individuals. [d ver. 44.] Only we mark here a terrible progression. The neglect and non-belief which had appeared in the former Parable have now ripened into rebellion, deliberate, aggravated, and carried to its utmost consequences in the murder of the King's only and loved Son. Similarly, what formerly appeared as their loss, in that sinners went into the Kingdom of God before them, is now presented alike as their guilt and their judgment, both national and individual.

The Parable opens, like that in Is. v., with a description of the complete arrangements made by the Owner of the Vineyard, [1 'An hedge' against animals or marauders, 'a winepress,' or, more specifically (St. Mark), a 'winefat', into which the juice of the grapes flowed, and 'a tower' for the watchmen and labourers generally. We may here remark that the differences in the narration of this Parable in the three Gospels are too minute for discussion here. The principal one, in St. Matt. xxi. 40, 41, comp. with the parallels, will be briefly referred to in the text.] to show how everything had been done to ensure a good yield of fruit, and what right the Owner had to expect at least a share in it. In the Parable, as in the prophecy, the Vineyard represents the Theocracy, although in the Old Testament, necesaary, as identified with the nation of Israel, [a Is. v. 7] while in the Parable the two are distinguished, and the nation is represented by the labourers to whom the Vineyeard was 'let out.' Indeed, the whole structure of the Parable shows, that the husbandmen are Israel as a nation, although they are addressed and dealt with in the persons of their representatives and leaders. And so it was spoken 'to the people,' [b St. Luke xx. 9] and yet 'the chief priests and Pharisees' rightly 'perceived that He spake of them.' [c St. Matt. xxi. 45]

This vineyard the owner had let out to husbandmen, while he himself 'travelled away' [abroad], as St. Luke adds, 'for along time.' From the language it is evident, that the husbandmen had the full management of the vineyard. We remember, that there were three modes of dealing with land. According to one of these (Arisuth), 'the labourers' employed received a certaain portion of the fruits, say, a third or fourth of the produce. [d Jer. Bikk. 64 b] In such cases it seems, at least sometimes, to have been the practice, besides giving them a proportion of the produce, to provide also the seed (for a field) and to pay wages to the labourers. [e Shem. R. 41, ed. Warsh, p. 54 b last line] The other two modes of letting land were, either that the tenant paid a money rent to the proprietor, [f Tos. Demai vi.] or else that he agreed to give the owner a definite amount of produce, whether the harvest had been good or bad. [g Babha Mets. 104 a] Such leases were given by the year or for life: sometimes the lease was even hereditary, passing from father to son. [h Jer, Bikk. 64 b] There can scarcely be a doubt that it is the latter kind of lease (Chakhranutha, from) which is referred to in the Parable, the lessees being bound to give the owner a certain amount of fruits in their season.

Accordingly, 'when the time of the fruits drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen to receive his fruits', the part of them belonging to him, or, as St. Mark and St. Luke express it, 'of the fruits of the vineyard.' We gather, that it was a succession of servants, who received increasingly ill treatment from them evil husbandmen. We might have expected that the owner would now have taken severe measures; but instead of this he sent, in his patience and goodness, 'other servants', not 'more,' [1 as in the A. and R. V] which would scarcely have any meaning, but 'greater than the first,' no doubt, with the idea that their greater authority would command respect. And when these also received the same treatment, we must regard it as involving, not only additional, but increased guilt on the part of the husbandmen. Once more, and with deepening force, does the question arise, what measures the owner would now take. But once more we have only a fresh and still greater display of his patience and unwillingness to believe that these husbandmen were so evil. As St. Mark pathetically put it, indicating not only the owner's goodness, but the spirit of determined rebellion and the wickedness of the husbandmen: 'He had yet one, a beloved son, he sent him last unto them,' on the supposition that they would reverence him. The result was different. The appearance of the legal heir made them apprehensive of their tenure. Practically, the vineyard was already theirs; by killing the heir, the only claimant to it would be put out of the way, and so thevineyard become in every respect their own. For, the husbandmen proceeded on the idea, that as the owner was 'abroad' 'for a long time,' he would not personally interfere, an impression strengthened by the circumstance that he had not avenged the former ill-usage of his servants, but only sent others in the hope of influencing them by gentleness. So the labourers. 'taking him [the son], cast him forth out of the vineyard, and killed him', the first action indicating that by violence they thrust him out of his possession, before they wickedly slew him.

The meaning of the Parable is sufficiently plain. The owner of the vineyard, God, had let out His Vineyard, the Theocracy, to His people of old. The covenant having been instituted, He withdrew, as it were, the former direct communication between Him and Israel ceased. Then in due season He sent 'His Servants,' the prophets, to gather His fruits, they had had theirs in all the temporal and spiritual advantages of the covenant. But, instead of returning the fruits meet unto repentance, they only ill-treated His messengers, and that increasingly, even unto death. In His longsuffering He next sent on the same errand 'greater' than them, John the Baptist. [a St. Luke vii. 26] And when he also received the same treatment, He sent last His own Son, Jesus Christ. His appearance made them feel, that it was now a decisive struggle for the Vineyard, and so, in order to gain its possession for themselves, they cast the rightful heir out of His own possession, and then killed Him! And they must have understood the meaning of the Parable, who had served themselves heirs to their fathers in the murder of all the prophets. [b St. Matt. xxiii. 34-36] who had just been convicted of the rejection of the Baptist's message, and whose hearts were even then full of murderous thoughts against the rightful Heir of the Vineyard. But, even so, they must speak their own judgment. In answer to His challenge, what in their view the owner of the vineyard would do to these husbandmen, the chief priests and Pharisees could only reply: 'As evil men evilly will he destroy them. And the vineyard will He let out to other husbandmen, which shall render Him the fruits in their season.' [a St. Matt. xxi. 41]

The application was obvious, and it was made by Christ, first, as always, by a reference to the prophetic testimony, showing not only the unity of all God's teaching, but also the continuity of the Israel of the present with that of old in their resistance and rejection of God's counsel and messengers. The quotation, than which none more applicable could be imagined, was from Ps. cxviii. 22, 23, and is made in the (Greek) Gospel of St. Matthew, not necessarily by Christ, from the LXX. Version. The only, almost verbal, difference between it and the original is, that, whereas in the latter the adoption of the stone rejected by the builders as head of the corner ('this,' hoc,) is ascribed to Jehovah, in the LXX. its original designation (avin) as head of the corner (previous to the action of the builders), is traced to the Lord. And then followed, in plain and unmistakable language, the terrible prediction, first, nationally, that the Kingdom of God would be taken from them, and 'given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof;' and then individually, that whosoever stumbled at that stone and fell over it, in personal offence or hostility, should be broken in pieces, [1 The only Jewish parallel, even in point of form, so far as I know, is in Vayy. R. 11 (ed. Warsh., p. 18 a, near beginning), where we read of a king who sent his treasurer to collect tribute, when the people of the land killed and plundered him.] but whosoever stood in the wayof, or resisted its progress, and on whom therefore it fell, it would 'scatter Him as dust.'

Once more was their wrath roused, but also their fears. They knew that He spake of them, and would fain have laid hands on Him; but they feared the people, who in those days regarded Him as a prophet. And so for the present they left Him, and went their way.