Land is the source of all wealth, but land alone is not, and has never been, enough. To generate wealth, one must always add something to that land. That something is labor. Without labor, there can be no wealth.
The householder here has land, and on that land, he has a vineyard. But without labor, without someone to serve him in the tending of that land, whatever wealth he might gain from it will literally die on the vine. So he heads for the village square—the local labor market—in search of people to be of service. There, he encounters workers and engages them at various hours of the day as contract labor based on a set per diem.
And there’s the rub.
The parable suggests something that bugs many of us about service in the Kingdom: its lousy labor regime.
As servants, we don’t get to renegotiate our contract; there is no collective bargaining, no Labor Relations Board. Once we’ve said yes and agreed to the terms and conditions, we’ve sealed the deal. Henceforth, we don’t get what we “earned;” we don’t get what we “deserve.” We just get what we get, on a set per diem. And that’s grace. Embrace it.
When we “have borne the burden and heat of the day” in our service, we want to change the terms of the agreement. We want a bonus. We want a raise—or at least time and a half for overtime.
But there are no raises in the Kingdom—no bonuses, no overtime. Those of us who said “yes,” well, we just do what we do, and then we just get what we get.
Such are labor relations in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Small wonder, then, that the Kingdom is beset by so much labor unrest.