Collective Bargaining in the Reign of God (Matthew 20:1-16)

To the peasants Jesus was addressing, this is how the story would have been heard: the rich vineyard owner goes out to exploit the expendable people who otherwise can't feed themselves. (They are literally some of the most vulnerable people in the world.) Then the vineyard owner humiliates them by forcing them all to take the same pittance—regardless of how much they’d worked. In essence, the owner said to these desperate workers: “Your labor has only the value I give it.”

Rich landowners, in other words, would have been difficult to imagine as the hero in any story about peasants in Jesus' day. It would be like Jesus speaking to an immigrant community in New York City, and starting it by saying, "For the kingdom of heaven is like a sweatshop owner … or a payday lender.”

---

Subscribe to us on iTunes!

Sermon text: [ web][1] | [ doc][2]

[1]: [2]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fMnLhctK5OSa-KWsMTslwI94P7m-dtPW/view?usp=sharing