A sermon on Matthew 20:1-16 preached by the Rev Dr Geoff Leslie
A video recording of the whole liturgy, including this sermon, is available here.
This is a terrific story in Matthew’s Gospel today. It’s about a cultural custom that we don’t really have in the West anymore. It’s about day labourers.
The most recent time I’ve heard about day labourers is in relation to the roundup of illegal immigrants in the USA. I was interested to hear that one place the ICE agents could find illegal immigrants was in the car park of the American equivalent of Bunnings. Desperate immigrants would work as day labourers. Someone would come out of the shop with some shelves to put up in their garage, or some paint, or some wood, and the poor man with no job, no visa, and no food would offer to help do the work. If someone said yes, then they would eat. If someone said no, then they wouldn’t eat for the day.
This parable probably reflects a work pattern that is found in many peasant societies even today, and certainly has been throughout history. People who don’t have a regular job go to a place where employers turn up and hire them for a day’s work. It’s precarious. I’ve seen it. I was in Lebanon, and I saw a group of people standing outside a shop. I asked the person who was driving me around, and he said, “Oh, they’re waiting for a job — just like the people in Jesus’ parable.” If someone comes out and hires them, they get work. That kind of day-labourer work is very common in many parts of the world. But think how precarious it is!
In this story, it’s probably harvest time, and the farmer needs all the workers he can get. “Why do you stand around idle?” he says. “I’ve got work for you.” It’s a picture, of course, of God looking for people to work for the Kingdom of God. Some people have spent a lifetime quietly serving the Lord, and others have not. And the Lord comes and says, “Why are you standing around idle?” And they say, “Because no one has employed us.”
Maybe these people who are still standing there at five o’clock at night are the least desirable workers — maybe they’re like the people who were last picked for sides for football or basketball. Maybe they’re the wrong gender, or the wrong race, or the wrong class. Or maybe they’re disabled in some way — they might have a maimed arm, or a limp — and so people don’t want them to work; they don’t think they’re getting good value for money. But this master does not discriminate. He will take anybody. He has work for all, and a full reward of grace for all.
Which probably reflects Jesus’ typical pattern. He’s been coming to the people of Israel, and many of them think of themselves as the called ones — the ones doing God’s mission in the world. But there’s a whole group of people who are excluded: the harlots, the tax collectors, the sinners, and those in need of healing and inclusion — the lost sheep, the wayward sons. And Jesus comes to them and says, “Come on, I’ve got work for you. You can be part of the workforce. You can be part of the kingdom of God.”
So the question that struck me in this parable today is: why are you standing around idle? Maybe this is you. Maybe this is me. God needs workers in the kingdom of God. Are you one of them?
You do not need to become a minister, or a pastor, or an evangelist. We serve God by doing our daily tasks with love of God and love of our neighbours in mind. We are all called to live lives of generosity, of care, of responsibility, of sharing God’s blessing, of goodness and integrity. God is looking for people who will worship him, and then live their worship in lives of powerful grace and goodness.
Now, it might be serving in the church. I had a phone call last week from a pastor in Longreach, Queensland. He said he’s training up young people to go out and set up preaching stations, or fellowships, in the small towns round about — and when I say round about, I’m talking about Longreach, so it’s probably a five-hour drive to the next town. He’s got eleven young men that he’s training — I don’t know why they’re all men, that might be his theology — and he sends them out to preach at these little places. He said, “If you hear a bad sermon, rejoice — that means someone is learning, someone’s having a go, someone’s learning on the job.”
That reminded me very much of when I went to Barham. There was a fantastic history in that place. In 1877, a missioner came out walking across the plain leading a large horse. His name was George Slade, and he tried to establish Baptist churches throughout that part of Victoria. He would go to shearing sheds, he would go to logging camps, he would go wherever people were — to farms and families — and he’d baptise some, or marry some, or pray for some, or preach a sermon, in different places, trying to establish a church.
When he left, there was one church — Kerang Baptist Church. In 1880, they called their second pastor, F.J. Wilkin — a famous name in Baptist circles. When Wilkin came to Kerang in 1880, it was the only church, but he trained up preachers — young men — and sent them out to preaching stations all around: little places with names you wouldn’t know, like Ganawarra and Lake Charm. When Wilkin left Kerang in 1899, after nineteen years, there were twenty-two churches. One church in 1880, twenty-two in 1899. Why? Because he didn’t let people stand around idle. He said, “I have work for you in the kingdom,” and he sent them out. But it’s not just expecting people to work. They must be affirmed, authorised, permitted, encouraged, trained, taught how to do it, trusted, and supported.
There are hundreds of small churches across our state now with no minister, where one or two good people are trying to “bear the burden of the day in the heat”, as the parable says, while others are standing around idle. And the master says, “Why are you idle?” They say, “Because no one asked us. No one’s employed us.” Maybe we need people to step up and help share the work.
There’s a need for people to preach, to pray, to read, to sing, to counsel — that’s the fun stuff. And there’s also the boring administrative stuff that’s needed to run every church. The church structure needs to prioritise letting people do the important ministry stuff, and try to reduce the administrative burden — the drudgery of running a church. People may be idle because they’ve been given the boring work. When I was a pastor, I never minded setting up the chairs or keeping the church records — I was getting paid, I didn’t mind doing that. But the volunteers aren’t getting paid. Why give them the boring work? I’d try to give them jobs where they could minister and make a difference in people’s lives.
And besides, churches can be exploitative. They can expect too much from their volunteers. Why do you stand idle? Because the last time I volunteered, I got exploited.
And there is a time — we have seasons in our lives. In some seasons, your work is in the church. And in other seasons, maybe it’s appropriate for you to spend more time not working in the church, but blessing the community through your work, through community groups, or taking care of your family, or looking out for people in need in other capacities. That’s not being idle — that’s just as important work, and an important season.
Volunteers are getting hard to find in all organisations, particularly since COVID — you know the 80–20 principle: in any organisation, 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. Maybe we should lift our game and try to relieve the burden on some of those volunteers. We need volunteers in our community groups right across the community — in walking groups, U3A, theatre groups, choirs, and so on. We need people to volunteer so that these things can keep going. And they are ministries, because in those places you can gather in the lost and lonely, you can care for people, you can provide a sense of community and belonging to people who otherwise would be lost and alienated. You can provide a sense of care, a sense of purpose.
So why are you standing around idle? There is so much to be done. We serve God in church, we serve God in our families, our workplaces, our neighbourhood, our community. The good news is that no matter your field of work, you can make it a ministry — offering to God a conscious commitment to serve God and love your neighbour.
Soon we will be saying the final benediction, where we reaffirm the covenant, and as we do that later on in this service tonight, I want you to think about these words and say, this is God saying to me: don’t stand around idle. Go and be the kingdom of God in the place where I have placed you.
The world is a scary place at the moment, wracked with division and anger and uncertainty. And God needs people who will be the light in their community — people who will breathe peace into the world, people who will notice the needy and lend a hand — people who, as the Philippians reading said, “will live as citizens of heaven, conducting themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ”. That’s what God needs: people who will live as citizens of heaven, conducting themselves in an appropriate and worthy manner, so that others can trust them, others can come to them, others can learn from them, others can see something of God in them.
Why do you stand around idle? You’ve got a life to live, and a work to do, and a worship to live out. So you need never stand around idle. You have a job to do, and it’s God’s kingdom you are serving.
And at the end of the day — everyone is invited. Everyone is rewarded. And everyone is loved.