This week BibleWorm reads Matthew 20:1–16, often called the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, in which the kingdom of heaven is said to be like a landowner who pays the laborers a full day’s wage no matter how long they’ve worked. We wrestle with the abject unfairness of this wage system and empathize with the workers who have labored a long day in the hot sun. Yet we also marvel at the generosity of the vineyard owner, who gives everyone what they need for the day no matter how much work they’ve done. Maybe, we think, in the kingdom of heaven people are not rewarded for the labor they provide but rather receive what they need to live a full and abundant life. If we read ourselves as the landowners, this becomes a lesson on how we should conduct our own economic practices, not only paying fair wages but giving generously until everyone has enough. And if we read God as the landowner, then this becomes a parable about God’s radical and endless generosity that welcomes more and more people into the kingdom and treats us all as people of dignity and worth.
Episode 139 Acts 18:1-4 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 Unity in the Body
Episode 138 Acts 17:1-9 and 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 Paul in Thessalonica
Episode 137 Acts 3:1-16 Peter and John Heal a Man
Episode 136 Acts 1:1-14 The Ascension of Jesus
Episode 135 Mark 16:1-8 The Markan Easter Story
Episode 134 Mark 15:16-41 Good Friday BONUS EPISODE
Episode 133 Mark 11:1-21 and 14:1-9 The Triumphal Entry and a Woman's Gift
Episode 132 Mark 13:1-37 The End of the World as We Know It
Episode 131 Mark 12:28-44 The Greatest Commandment and the Widow's Offering
Episode 130 Mark 12:1-17 The Parable of the Tenants and the Question of Taxes
Episode 129: Mark 10:32-52 Blind Bartimaeus
Episode 128 Mark 10:17-31 The Eye of the Needle
Episode 127: Mark 9:30-37 Who is the Greatest?
Episode 126: Mark 8:22-9:8 The Mount of Transfiguration
Episode 125 Mark 7:1-23 Controversy over Handwashing
Episode 124 Mark 6:1-29 Jesus Sends Out the Twelve
Episode 123 Mark 5:21-43 Jesus Heals Two Women
Episode 122 Mark 5:1-20 Jesus Heals a Man Possessed by Unclean Spirits
Episode 121 Mark 4:1-34 Parables of the Kingdom
Episode 120 Mark 2:1-22 Community and Conflict
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