FOR THE KINGDOM of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3“About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5So they went.
“He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7“ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9“The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. 10So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13“But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
17Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, 18“We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death 19and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”
20Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.
21“What is it you want?” he asked.
She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”
22“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”
“We can,” they answered.
23Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”
24When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. 25Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
29As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. 30Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”
31The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”
32Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
33“Lord,” they answered, “we want our sight.”
34Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.
Original Meaning
THE PARABLE ABOUT the workers and the vineyard (20:1–16), found only in Matthew, grows out of the encounter between Jesus and the rich young man (19:16–22) and especially Peter’s reaction (19:23–30). Jesus demonstrates how serving him and the kingdom of heaven for the purpose of receiving rewards and gaining personal prominence is the least noble of motivations for a disciple. The paradoxical statement about the first and the last (19:30; 20:16) declares that those who serve in order to receive a reward will be last, and those who serve only in order to respond in obedience to Jesus’ summons will be first (cf. 20:1–16).
The Parable of the Vineyard Workers: Gratitude and Service in the Kingdom Community (20:1–16)
GRAPES WERE ONE of the most important crops in the land of Israel, leading to one of the most important metaphors to describe Israel—the “vine” or “vineyard” of God (e.g., Jer. 2:21; Hos. 10:1).1 Here Jesus uses the vineyard to represent the sphere of worldly activity (cf. Matt. 21:28–46): “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard.” The typical introductory formula, “the kingdom of heaven is like” (cf. 13:24, 31, 33, 44, 45, 47; 18:23), is a clue that Jesus is giving a lesson on the activity of the kingdom in the world. Jesus pictures harvest time, when a landowner hired seasonal workers to help with his harvest.2 He went early to the marketplace, where laborers gathered, waiting for landowners to hire them. The agreed-upon sum of a denarius was expected, because a denarius was a day’s wage for a laborer (see comments on 17:24–27; 18:24–28).
The ancient workday was typically divided into three-hour increments, running from about 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. The landowner hired the first workers at the beginning of the day to work the entire day. At the third hour (9:00 A.M.), the landowner needed more laborers for his abundant harvest, so he went back the marketplace and found people still waiting for the chance to work. Families in the ancient world often went day to day, earning only enough for the food for that particular day (cf. 6:11). If they did not find work, they would not have enough to eat, so they continued to wait for someone to hire them. These laborers agreed to work for “whatever is right” (20:4), expecting most likely to receive a proportionate reduction from the day’s regular denarius. The abundance of the harvest was such that the landowner went again at the sixth hour (12:00 noon) and the ninth hour (3:00 P.M.).
Needing still more laborers, the landowner went back to the town marketplace and found workers who were desperate enough to remain waiting for work. It was the eleventh hour (5:00 P.M.), close to the end of the workday. These workers would have expected only one-twelfth of the amount of those who worked for the denarius. They were also hired to work in the vineyard.
At the end of the day when the foreman or steward of the landowner (cf. Luke 8:3; Gal. 4:2) paid the wages, a shocking development unfolded. The laborers who were hired last were paid the full denarius, the wages expected for a full day’s work. This built up the expectations that those who worked longer would receive a proportional increase in their wages. But no! Those who worked the entire long, hot day received the same wage as those who only worked an hour, which expectedly caused the first laborers to protest that the others didn’t deserve equal treatment. “Little seems more unequal than the equal treatment of unequals!”3
With a measure of gentleness but with the intent to straighten out his attitude, the landowner addressed one of the first hired laborers as “friend.” This man did not have a regular job, so getting the denarius that he had agreed upon was more than what he would have had at the end of the day except for the fortunate intervention of the landowner. He should simply be thankful that he had enough to care for the day’s needs for his family. The central issue was the self-centeredness of the laborer. He was only thinking about himself, not about the generosity and intervention of the landowner or the fortune of the other laborers.
The expression “are you envious” (20:14) can be rendered literally, “Is your eye evil,” indicating that the laborer could not be thankful because he was blinded by his self-centered envy. The “evil eye” in the ancient world was one that enviously coveted what belonged to another. It was a greedy or avaricious eye (see also 6:23). If a disciple’s eyes are fixed on earthly, material treasure as his or her value, personal significance, and earthly security, then the darkness of that evil value is the state of that person’s heart. When we focus on something evil, the eye becomes the conduit by which the evil fills the inner person.
Jesus’ concluding statement in 20:16 repeat. 19:30, but reverses the order to emphasize the conclusion of the parable. Those hired last were unworthy of what they received, yet they were paid first and treated with equality to those who were hired first. And those who were hired first were paid last, and from their point of view, treated unfairly as though they were equal to those who were last. The intended application to Peter (19:27) and his request for preferential treatment and reward is obvious. Although he and the Twelve were the first to give up all they had to follow Jesus, contrary to the rich young man, Jesus includes all true disciples as having done the same thing (19:29).
So this parable is a lesson on gratitude and motivation in service. The parable is not about salvation or gaining eternal life, because salvation is not earned by works (Eph. 2:8–9; Titus 3:5–6). Nor is the parable about rewards for service, because God will reward believers differently according to their service (1 Cor. 3:8; John 4:36). If the denarius stands for rewards, there is no distinction, because every worker got the same reward. Rather, this is a profound parable about what should be the disciple’s motivation for service. We should serve out of gratitude, for it is only through the intervention of Jesus that any disciple receives anything. We should be concerned only to rejoice when others are called to the kingdom without serving as long or as hard as we have.
If we think that we deserve something because of our time, diligence, and commitment of service, we have negated the real value of what we have done. All who respond to the grace of God in Jesus’ kingdom invitation are equal disciples, and we must be careful not to measure our worth by what we have done and what we have sacrificed.4 Our calling is still one of grace, and a grateful heart will serve without thought of reward or without comparison to others. As the landowner points out, to think of rewards and to compare with others will cause us both to question the wisdom and fairness of God and to become envious of other disciples (20:15).
The Third Passion Prediction (20:17–19)
JESUS AND THE disciples continue traveling from Galilee through Perea to Judea (19:1), with the ultimate goal of arriving in Jerusalem for the Passover. Evidently a fairly large contingent accompany Jesus, including the women disciples who ministered to Jesus’ needs (Luke 8:1–3) and who will witness the crucifixion (see comments on Matt. 27:55–56). With the fateful event in Jerusalem only weeks away, Jesus takes aside the Twelve to give them another prediction of his impending betrayal. This is the third of four predictions of his arrest and crucifixion, but the drama is heightened by the first reference to Jerusalem, the first mention of the religious leaders’ condemnation of Jesus to death, and the first mention of the Gentiles who will carry out the execution (see comments on 16:21; cf. 17:22–23; 26:2).
The Example of Jesus for Community Sacrifice, Suffering, and Service (20:20–28)
AS JUST NOTED, several women apparently are accompanying Jesus and the Twelve on the journey to Jerusalem. As Jesus gives the prediction of his impending crisis in Jerusalem, one of those women, the mother of Zebedee’s sons (see 4:19–20), comes up to Jesus with her sons and, “kneeling down, asked a favor of him.” This woman has been a faithful follower of Jesus. Later identified as Salome, she is among the women who attends Jesus at the cross and witnesses the empty tomb (cf. 27:56; Mark 15:40; 16:1). The best clarification of the listings of the women identify Salome as the sister of Mary, Jesus’ mother (cf. John 19:25). So she is Jesus’ aunt, and her sons, James and John, are his cousins on his mother’s side. As Jesus undertakes his last fateful trip to Jerusalem, his mother and aunt may have traveled with the band of disciples. This may at least partly explain why there is no hint of scandal with the other women who travel with Jesus and the band to Jerusalem and who witness the crucifixion and resurrection (e.g., Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, and Joanna; cf. Matt. 27:55–56; Luke 24:10).5
As she kneels before Jesus, Salome shows her deference to Jesus as her messianic Master, but she also comes apparently to exercise her earthly kinship advantage with Jesus. Mark has these two disciples asking the favor for themselves (Mark 10:35–36), which indicates that the desire comes from them as well as their mother.
The mother’s request for a favor is forthright: “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.” She is not pushing her sons into something that they do not want, but together they are demonstrating their commitment to support Jesus in what lies ahead.6 A mother seeking the advancement of her sons through direct petition to a person in authority was a well-known phenomenon, such as Bathsheba seeking the throne for her son Solomon from the aging King David (1 Kings 1:15–21).
This request is likely inspired by Jesus’ comment in 19:28, where he announced the role that the Twelve would have in ruling with him. When Jesus sits on his glorious throne, the Twelve will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Since “judging” speaks more prominently of ruling than condemnation, the mother desires for her sons to have the highest positions of importance when Jesus inaugurates his future kingdom.
Seated at the right-hand side is the most typical place of honor, whether it is the king’s mother at the king’s right side (1 Kings. 2:19), King David at God’s right hand (Ps. 16:11), or the Messiah sitting at the right hand of God (Ps. 110:1, 5; cf. Matt. 22:44). The left side is reserved for the second highest position of importance to the monarch. King Saul reserved those two places for his son and general (see Josephus, Ant. 6.11.9 §235). Relegating a person to the left-hand side instead of gaining the right-hand side can be a place of disfavor symbolically (e.g., 25:33–46), but typically, as here, it is a place of high importance.
Jesus addresses the brothers directly, as he declares that “you [second person plural] don’t know what you [second person plural] are asking” (20:22). They (and their mother) have only a faint idea of what lies yet ahead. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” The “cup” throughout Scripture refers figuratively to one’s divinely appointed destiny, whether it was one of blessing and salvation (Ps. 16:5; 116:13) or of wrath and disaster (Isa. 51:17; Jer. 25:15–29). Jesus is referring to his forthcoming cup of suffering on the cross (Matt. 26:39), to which he has just given his third prediction (20:17–19).
The brothers’ response, “We can,” indicates that they misunderstand Jesus to be challenging them to see if they are willing to endure the difficulties that lie ahead in the battle to establish the eschatological kingdom. They probably hear in the metaphor of the cup both blessing and adversity and declare that they are ready to endure any hardships for the reward of the glory that lies ahead. Perhaps they think of other heroes in Israel’s history who boldly stepped forward in times of crisis and volunteered to fight for God. David, for example, volunteered to fight Goliath to defend the honor of the living God, even though he knew the one who killed Goliath was to be rewarded with wealth and the king’s daughter in marriage (1 Sam. 17:25–37). The disciples will reaffirm their commitment to Jesus and his destiny in the Upper Room (26:31–35), but they have little knowledge of what lies ahead. Their bravado is commendable for its commitment to Jesus and their willingness to face difficulties for the reward of future glory, but they don’t really know themselves or the future.
Jesus looks down the corridor of time to when the brothers will suffer for the kingdom of heaven: “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.” James became the first martyr of the church (Acts 12:2), and John experienced persecution and exile (Rev. 1:9), although apparently not martyrdom. They will share in Jesus’ cup of blessing, but they must submit to the Father’s will for their future, just as Jesus is doing. Jesus has come to fulfill the task assigned by the Father, which is not the path of glory but of servanthood. The disciples will see that there is no less requirement of submission for them as well.
The brothers and their mother must have taken Jesus aside for this request, so “when the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers.” The other disciples are probably indignant,7 not so much because of the immodesty of the request of James and John, but because of the attempt to use their mother’s family relationship to Jesus as an unfair advantage to get what they themselves wanted. All of the disciples had earlier argued about who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven (cf. 18:1), and they had already been promised to sit on thrones in Jesus’ eschatological rule over Israel (19:28).
Jesus then gathers all the disciples together to overturn their strictly human ambitions by making a contrast between the world’s conception of greatness and that in the kingdom of heaven. Greatness among the Gentiles was measured by being in a position to “lord it over” others and “exercise authority over” others (20:25). A person who is a “ruler” or “high official,” can do whatever he wants with others and can serve his own wants. What may have first come to the minds of the disciples was the Roman occupation under which Israel suffered for decades, which meant heavy taxation and foreign military rule. For oppressed people with such hardships, capturing those positions of power and authority is the best way to gain any measure of self-respect and significance. To pursue those positions of power and authority is an ambition that is valued highly among the power structures of the world.
In other words, the prevailing dictum in the world is that ruling, not serving, is the best status for a human. But Jesus gives a different, and shocking, sort of ambition that must be the chief value among his disciples: “Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.” A “servant” (diakonos) worked for hire to maintain the master’s home and property, while a “slave” (doulos) was forced into service. In human eyes, service is not dignified. These are two of the lowest positions in society’s scale, yet Jesus reverses their status in the community of his disciples to being “great” and “first.”
Jesus’ disciples have the ambition to be greatest (18:1) and to be first (20:21), so Jesus gives them the means by which they can do so according the values of the kingdom of God. They must arrange their lives with the goal of giving themselves for the benefit of others. It is no coincidence that Paul adopts these titles to describe himself8 and others9 who gave their lives for the welfare of humanity and the church. John later calls himself a doulos of Jesus (Rev. 1:1), as does Peter (2 Peter 1:1) and Jesus’ own brothers (James 1:1; Jude 1).
The ultimate example for the disciples is Jesus’ own life: “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (20:28). As the Son of Man (see comments on 8:20)—in which he had been revealed to be the Messiah, the Son of God (e.g., 16:16–17), to whom all glory and honor should be paid—Jesus has willingly set aside that prerogative for a higher purpose, namely, to serve by giving his life as a ransom for many. This statement gives an explicit indication of his self-understanding of the purpose for the crucifixion he will soon suffer (cf. 16:21; 17:22–23; 20:17–19).
Jesus will give his life as a “ransom” (lytron), which means “the price of release,” a word often used of the money paid for the release of slaves. In the New Testament, “redemption” or “release” as a theological concept is based on the experience of Israel’s release from the slavery of Egypt. The term may also contain an allusion to the Suffering Servant passage of Isaiah 53, especially 53:6b: “And the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
The phrase “for many” (“for” connotes “in place of”10) signifies the notion of exchange for all those who will accept his payment for their sins. This saying of Jesus prepares the way for the doctrine of substitutionary atonement in the work of his sacrifice on the cross, which involves the greatest cost of all, the life of the Son of Man.11
Merciful Healing of Two Blind Men in Jericho En Route to Jerusalem (20:29–34)
JESUS AND THE disciples have now finished the trek from Galilee with ministry in Perea and Judea and are ready to make the ascent to Jerusalem. Their route takes them through Jericho, where a large crowd follows him and where he encounters two blind men. Jericho was an important place during the time of Jesus.12 This city was not the ancient city of Old Testament fame (e.g., Josh. 5), which was still inhabited.13 The new Jericho refers to the developments surrounding a huge palace complex first built by the Hasmoneans on a three-acre site about a mile south of the ancient city mound, which was greatly expanded by Herod the Great.
Matthew records this healing as Jesus is leaving Jericho, while Luke writes that Jesus is drawing near to Jericho (Luke 18:35). This can be most easily reconciled in the light of the phenomenon of two Jerichos still being inhabited, with Jesus leaving the old site and entering the new Jericho on his way to Jerusalem.14
A similar scene earlier in the Galilean ministry (see 9:27–31) indicates that this type of encounter was relatively frequent as Jesus passed through new areas. His remarkable reputation preceded him. Mark and Luke speak of one blind beggar, whom Mark identifies as Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46; Luke 18:35). They apparently focus on Bartimaeus as the more prominent of the two. The blind men understand Jesus to be the “Son of David” (see comments on 9:27–31; also 11:2–6), so they ask for the gift of messianic mercy to heal their blindness. Although he has experienced increasing rejection from his own people and will face the ultimate betrayal and rejection as he enters Jerusalem, Jesus continues to have compassion on those in greatest need, so he touches their eyes and heals them. Thereupon they follow Jesus.
The contrast in this incident is on the crowds who try to silence the two blind men. Yet the two men are the ones to whom Jesus directs his ministry; the crowds remain only spectators. Those without natural ability to follow Jesus are able through his healing touch to follow him.
Bridging Contexts
JESUS AND THE band of disciples are nearing Jerusalem. Soon Jesus will face his earthly life’s ultimate purpose and test, as he will be arrested and crucified, but then be raised. In the same way that Jesus’ physical presence has been the unifying factor among the disciples, his risen presence will continue to unite them as his community of disciples (18:20). In order to prepare them for when he will no longer be with them physically, Jesus gave the Community Prescription discourse (ch. 18). The narratives in chapters 19–20 go on to illustrate the community themes outlined in chapter 18. The community of Jesus’ disciples is not a theoretical concept but the concrete expression of the way that the kingdom of heaven affects real-life relationships.
Unity in community. Unity is an inherent component of community. Without unity, fellowship disintegrates. There will be many forces at work in this world that will tend to tear apart the community. There are external forces, such as persecution, that Jesus prepares the church to face (e.g., 10:16–25; 24:15–28). But the primary forces that tend to tear apart the unity are internal. Because of pride and self-centeredness, the discipleship community must guard against the manifestation of those characteristics in their relationships.
The arrival of the kingdom of heaven has provided the power for personal and community transformation. The witness to the world of the reality of the kingdom is the transformation of relationships within the community, especially expressed in humility, purity, accountability, discipline, reconciliation, restoration, and forgiveness (see comments on ch. 18). But there are forces at work among the disciples that can destroy their cohesion. In their inquiry about rewards and positions of prominence, Peter and the sons of Zebedee (with their mother) illustrate that the disciples are motivated by the desire for just recompense because of their sacrifice of discipleship (19:27; 20:20–21). That motivation is a stock value of the world, but Jesus turns it upside down. Yes, rewards will be given for faithful and sacrificial discipleship. But if obtaining rewards is the motivating force, it will destroy unity by producing envy, comparison, self-promotion, and competition.
How can this threat be overcome? Jesus supplants it with two kingdom-inspired motivations: gratitude and servanthood. If his disciples are impelled by these two forces, unity is maintained and strengthened, the work of the kingdom is advanced more effectively, and recompense for sacrifice of service becomes simply a by-product. These two revolutionary kingdom principles reflect the deepest aspirations of humans created in the image of God. But they are held captive by the competing forces of self-centeredness and pride.
Gratitude. In the parable of the vineyard and workers, Jesus illustrates that gratitude must be a compelling motivation for the discipleship community. Peter’s question in 19:27 reveals that he is motivated by the thought of receiving rewards for his sacrifice of devotion to Jesus. In the light of that context, the rewards he is expecting are primarily material, since wealth was understood as a reward for godliness and service. But such self-promotion will produce envy and comparison, which will in turn tear apart the cohesiveness of the group.
We can all understand Peter’s thinking, but what Jesus illustrates in the parable is that we must look deeply at what God has done for us. We who have nothing of our own have been called to the kingdom of heaven and endowed with the privilege of being Jesus’ disciples, with the promise of just recompense. When we properly respect that privilege, with a clear recognition of the dire alternative of not being called to the kingdom, a deep well of gratitude is produced in our heart. All that we are, everything that we have, all that we ever hope to accomplish is a pure gift—and the only appropriate response is gratitude.
Certainly we know that we will be blessed for the work we do for our Master, but the reward pales in the light of the gift of life in the kingdom that we have already received. In the light of what our Savior has done for us, the greatest honor we can express for any crowns of reward is to cast them in grateful worship before the throne of the God who created us and all things, as did the twenty-four elders in their heavenly expression of praise (Rev. 4:10–11).
Servanthood. Jesus reveals in the interplay with the sons of Zebedee and their mother that servanthood and gratitude must be the twin motivation for the community of disciples. The sons are eager to endure any kind of sacrifice as long as they will be rewarded with personal prominence in the kingdom (20:20–23). But as is again true, this kind of incentive will tear apart their unity by producing manipulation and competition.
We can again understand the motivation of the brothers and their mother, because this is the way of the world that we all know so well. But when servanthood is linked with gratitude in understanding the gift of the position that we hold as members of the kingdom of God, we can take our eyes off ourselves. There will never be any higher position for us, because we are all equal brothers and sisters of one Father and all equal disciples of one Teacher and Master (23:8–12).
Since our position is established, we can turn upside down the world’s pattern of greatness and find our own greatness in looking for the needs of those within the community of disciples and give ourselves to serve them. Since we can trust unconditionally that our Father supplies our every need (6:11, 25–33) and that the Master we serve has given us an easy yoke that will never take us beyond our strength (11:28–30), we can place ourselves in God’s hands to guide us as we give ourselves unconditionally to the fellowship of believers.
The compelling example that goes before us is Jesus himself. He was so secure in his identity as the Son of God that he could give himself unreservedly, in spite of his earthly circumstances, to serve us. The paradigm of power is turned upside down, so that the apparent weakness of a human on a cross is the greatest display of power that the world has ever known. In that single substitutionary act of service, all of the greatest needs of humanity were met as Jesus became the ransom for sin. That act stands before us as the ultimate example of the servanthood to which we are called within the reciprocating community of disciples and to a stupefied, waiting world.
Contemporary Significance
MOTIVES ARE A tricky phenomenon, primarily because there is always the temptation of having mixed motives. I may want to express unqualified love for my wife by bringing her flowers, but behind it might be the desire to manipulate her just slightly so that I won’t feel guilty watching the Lakers play that basketball game on television! That might be a trivial example, but let’s think about more significant mixed motives. I have a tremendous desire for our neighbors to become Christians, but is it entirely for their eternal good? Or might I just slightly think of my own reputation when word gets out of my evangelistic prowess?
We saw in the SM that Jesus derided the religious leaders for hypocrisy, which in that context meant that they were doing right things for the wrong reasons. They were motivated to perform external religious acts of piety by one overarching objective: to be honored by the people and by the religious establishment (see comments on 6:2).15 I know I can fall into the same trap.
Now Jesus shifts the attention to his disciples. Unless we watch our motives, we also can do the right things for the wrong reasons and fall into the same kind of hypocrisy. The present situation, not unlike that of the Pharisees in chapter 6, concerns the motivation of rewards for service—both material rewards as well as rewards of personal prominence and status. So as we look at this concluding section that deals with the community of Jesus’ disciples, we must evaluate our own actions in the light of two primary motivations for service—gratitude and servanthood. The more we focus on the example of Jesus in his earthly ministry, who came not to be served but to serve, the more we will be able to purify why we do what we do. As I once heard a preacher say, the Rewarder should fill our hearts, not the reward.
The attitude of gratitude. G. K. Chesterton is widely quoted as saying, “Gratitude is the mother of all virtues.” He was continually thankful for the “birthday present of birth,” and he would wish most of all to be remembered for commending to the human race a sense of gratitude. His verse expresses it well:
Give me a little time,
I shall not be able to appreciate them all;
if you open so many doors
And give me so many presents, O Lord God.16
Gratitude is the response of the believing person to the goodness of God’s grace in creation and redemption, making gratitude the authentic hallmark of the disciple of Jesus. We know there is nothing we have that we have not first received. And out of that knowledge comes the wellspring of gratitude that affects what we are, what we do and say, and how we conduct our lives. Gratitude impels our worship (Ps. 126:1–2; Eph. 5:19), motivates our service (Rom. 12:1), and inspires our continual thankfulness (Eph. 5:20; 1 Thess. 5:18). Søren Kierkegaard gives memorable expression to gratitude as the characteristic attitude of the redeemed person: “I am a poor wretch whom God took charge of, and for whom he has done so indescribably much more than I ever expected . . . that I only long for the peace of eternity in order to do nothing but thank him.”17
Chesterton and Kierkegaard, from similar perspectives, reflect the deep truths of this community pattern. The person who has received the mercy and forgiveness of God will have the deepest sense of thankfulness for the new life he or she has received and in turn will extend mercy and forgiveness to others as a natural response. The ability to pardon comes from the eternal, loving act of grace in Jesus’ sacrifice for our sin. The key to doing this is to stop focusing on what others have done to us and to focus instead on what Jesus has done for us.
Rewards. In the parable of the workers in the vineyard, instead of being motivated by “fairness” or reward, the most noble of motivations is gratitude. The profound significance of gratitude is that it impacts not just the one toward whom we should be grateful but all other relationships as well. Those who give to the needy, pray, and fast in the secrecy of the heart will be rewarded (6:4, 6, 18). But rewards are mentioned as the by-product of a life that is free from self-advancement. As New Testament scholar Harold Hoehner contends, “Believers’ motivation in this life should not be the obtaining of rewards as an end in itself. Our motivation should be to please God wholeheartedly in thankfulness for what he has done for us through Christ.”18
Service. What we do in giving ourselves in service of the kingdom of heaven flows from a grateful heart. God created the original man and woman to serve as stewards of his creation. Humans were the highest of his creatures, but he did not create them to dominate the rest of creation. Rather, they were to take care of it for God (Gen. 1:26–29; 2:15; cf. Luke 16:1–13). Tragically, with the entrance of sin came the distortion of this stewardship, so that men and women became self-centered, with the desire to take instead of give, to dominate instead of serve, to hate instead of love.
But when God’s love impelled him to give his Son, a fundamental change occurred in those who humble themselves to receive his gift. That transformation reverses the impulse from taking to giving, from self-centeredness to other-centeredness. Because of the impact of God’s love in our lives, we can now love (1 John 4:19). And because of the transforming impact of God’s gift of grace in our lives, we can now give ourselves to serve others.
I’ve mentioned before that I went oversees to spend a year of combat in Vietnam when I was only nineteen years old. It was a traumatic year, at the height of some of the most intense fighting of the war. I saw many young men lose their lives. I became a Christian just over a year after I returned from the war. Some time later a friend asked me, “Mike, where would you be right now if you had been killed in Vietnam?” And for the first time I was struck by the enormity of the eternal consequences of this life. I had been only a breath away from an eternity in hell. I was overwhelmingly struck with the realization that my life was a gift. My life was not my own but was truly a gift from God. The only appropriate response of gratitude for that gift was to give myself back to God for him to use in whatever way he wanted.
I knew clearly that it wasn’t in just some abstract religious sense that I could transfer my life back to God. I could give every area of my life to God because his grace produced in me a very different sort of person than I was before. I could give to my relationships so that God’s grace flowed through me to others. I could give myself to my jobs, as modest and diverse as they seemed when I was a janitor or a plumber or a Bible study leader for junior high kids, because God was producing through me the kind of product that was his workmanship in my life.
That is what lies behind the concept of the Christian life as being able to be generous and to give all day and every day as a pattern of life. The giving of ourselves—including our careers, our relationships, our talents, our resources, and our time—flows from a transformation of our lives produced by God’s giving to us. The motivation for devoting ourselves to service comes simply from a grateful heart.
Why is it “more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35)? Why does God love a “cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7)? Why was the poor widow’s gift, while less financially, actually “more than all the others” (Luke 21:3)? In each case, it is because the gift came out of the fullness of a grateful life lived in God’s presence. A faithful “giver” is one who lives in unending trust in God and so can surrender his or her entire being to others as a gift of grace. The next time you plan an afternoon off to spend with your child, or go out of your way with a word of encouragement to your secretary, or offer a day at the local homeless shelter, or make a sacrificial gift to your missionary friends so that they can perform their own gift of ministry, make sure that each gift operates out of your conscious reliance on God’s grace in your life.
If you try to draw the gift out of your own resources, you will eventually become exhausted. But if you draw on God’s gift of grace in your own life, you yourself will be God’s gift to others in every activity of your life. The apostle Peter declares, “As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10). That is what it means to serve the community of Jesus’ disciples in the vineyard of the kingdom of heaven from the fullness of a grateful heart.
The ambition to serve. Each year at the seminary where I teach we have a faculty retreat. This year one of our professors led us in some wonderful times of corporate worship. In the first evening, he took us to Psalm 95, which we read together. Then he had us focus on verse 6, which says: “Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.” Then he surprised us all by saying, “Why don’t we all actually kneel before the Lord our Maker?”
Envision this professor. He is originally from the mountain country of Colorado, about six foot four; he looks more like a big lumberjack than a professor. But he also is very bright. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Oxford and has a successful career as a teacher and scholar. As he sank to his knees, it was as though all of those things that made him impressive in the eyes of the world were stripped away, and he was just plain Dave, a servant kneeling before his Master.
Then, all around the room in that dimly lit cabin in the mountains, every single faculty member slowly sank to his or her knees. Everyone there had an academic doctorate; some of them are among the most influential Christian scholars around the world; all of them are respected among church leaders throughout the nation. But everyone symbolically stripped away whatever honors they have earned, whatever positions of prestige and power they may think that they have, and they went to their knees. There, guided by the words of Psalm 95 and viewing God as our Maker and the One we serve, we worshiped God by praying and singing. To a person, everyone later declared that was one of the most powerful experiences of their lives as we united together to declare our servanthood to Jesus.
You see, the academic world and the guild of scholarship is highly competitive. You have to master your own discipline to get your degrees. You have to provide a better solution to theological and biblical problems to get published. And sometimes that means that we as Christian scholars are no more principled than any others. We can become self-serving.
The way of the world. Think of your own career, your involvement in community activities, or even your own church. The way of the world is getting ahead by being more aggressive, more powerful, more intimidating, more demanding than the other person. In our passage, James and John incurred the anger of the other apostles when they approached Jesus and asked for prominent positions in his kingdom. They were ready and willing to endure whatever hardship was necessary, whatever sacrifice was required, as long as they could get positions of prominence in Jesus’ kingdom.
Jesus’ example. Sacrifice is a concept that is readily understood when we think of it in terms of our own benefit. “No pain, no gain” is an old adage. It communicates a well-known and appreciated value—we must sacrifice present pleasure for personal gain. That may mean the pain of exercise for the gain of a healthy physical heart, or the pain of sacrificing to save enough to gain that long-anticipated vacation.
Jesus does not overturn that principle completely, but he does reverse the focus: “My pain, others’ gain.” Jesus’ sacrificial servanthood was not directed toward his own personal benefit but for those who believe in his work on the cross and receive forgiveness of their sins. His servanthood provides us with the example we are now to display toward one another. We sacrifice for the sake of empowering others, not for what we can get out of it. Against the backdrop of human ambition, Jesus explains that in his kingdom the proper goal is not authority over others but service to them.
Hitch ambition to selfless servanthood. But I hasten to add that this does not mean that all ambition is bad. Ambition is bad when it is greedy, when it hurts and uses people, when it exalts us over others, when it is prideful. James and John were ambitious people. They wanted to make something of their lives, they wanted to be significant, they wanted to be of great use in the kingdom of God. Those are strengths when focused in the right way.
But the right kind of ambition involves hitching our aspirations to selfless servanthood. James’s and John’s strength was a weakness because it was greedy and selfish. But when ambition is selflessly directed toward service, God can use it in powerful ways. John’s ambitious drive guided and nurtured the early church in Jerusalem. James’s zeal resulted in his being the first apostle to suffer martyrdom, which became a turning point in the courage of the church. Disciples of Jesus are to be just as goal-oriented as anyone in the world, but our ambition must be linked to selfless servanthood—giving our lives as a source of blessing to those for whom we have responsibility. That starts with our closest relationships and then expands, including our spouse, children, neighbors, coworkers, and fellow Christians.
The reason that this kind of servanthood is possible is because Jesus’ servanthood in going to the cross releases us from the power of sin, which is pride and self-centeredness. The motivation of serving ourselves is broken, and we are able to focus on serving others. Even as Jesus was the redemptive servant, our own authentic discipleship entails selfless servanthood.
The lesson that we all took away from our time of worship at the retreat is that whether we did so literally or figuratively, it was vitally important to drop to our knees before God, intentionally and regularly, and take off all those things that we do and say to impress others with who we are, and to serve Jesus by serving his people. Instead of demanding respect and honor from our students, our calling as Christian professors is to view ourselves as servants of Jesus and as servants of our students, preparing them for their own lives of service to the people of the church or on some mission field.
What we recommitted ourselves to that weekend is what we are all called to consider. The world of academia is not significantly different from the business world, the military, government work, or whatever setting you find yourself in every day. Interestingly, many cultures around the world understand this principle—politicians and government workers are often called “public servants.” In my own home town the local police force has a motto placed on the side of every police car: “To protect and to serve.” “Service” is also the motto of many businesses, from the restaurant to the gas company to the department store to the Internet provider. It represents a human ideal. But what gets in the way of service is self-centeredness. The world cannot experience true servanthood until it experiences release from the selfishness of sin.
Tug-of-war of needs. This principle is not much different from what can happen in our own families and churches. We have all experienced this. Servanthood ends what can be a vicious battle of emotional and relational self-centeredness by allowing us to invest ourselves in others to bring about God’s blessing in their lives.
Many marriages experience what I call the “tug-of-war” syndrome, where each partner tugs to have his or her needs met by their spouse. Wives want their needs met and expect their husbands to do that. But husbands wait for their own needs to be met before they’ll meet their wife’s needs. They can reach a state of equilibrium when each has tugged hard enough so that they are relatively satisfied. But if you have ever been in a tug-of-war, you’ll remember that the equilibrium is tenuous, because it is maintained only through tension. Many couples grow so tired of this kind of continual struggle that they give up.
However, instead of tugging, couples can be taught how to serve. I try to teach this when I take couples through premarital or marital counseling. I ask each couple to perform an experiment. They commit themselves for two months never to ask to have their own personal needs met but only to ask how each can meet the other person’s needs. That is usually a huge paradigm shift, and it can be quite threatening.
Couples usually react incredulously when I propose the experiment. One young woman said, quite honestly, “I’m so used to nagging him that I’ll never get him to help me around the house. He’ll never take me out to dinner now! He just doesn’t think about my needs.”
But when we made it clear how we were going to attempt to follow God’s pattern of grace toward us, she was amazed at her husband’s response. He developed a whole new set of daily priorities, where he consistently asked, “What does she need today that I can supply?” In turn, she was free to make sure that he got what she knew he needed, like the regular Saturday afternoon to play basketball with his buddies. Remarkably, he would often volunteer even to give up that time if he saw that she needed him!
The experiment ends up in most cases as the basis of a new kind of marital relationship, in which servanthood is the operating guideline. The equilibrium couples attain is not one of tension but of grace and service. That kind of graceful equilibrium is possible only by a fundamental transformation when we experience God’s grace and mercy in our lives.
I am awestruck when I ponder the goodness of Jesus serving us. But I am perhaps even more awestruck when I discover that his servanthood is the foundation and example for my own servanthood. Jesus deserved all the honor and glory that humanity could give him, but he thought first of humanity’s needs. This world was lost in the darkness of sin, so Jesus gave up what was rightfully his to give himself as a servant to others.
In spite of whatever rights or authority we may claim, we have one primary example—Jesus, who laid aside all of the glory of heaven to take up a cross so that he could serve us. As we experience his ministry in our lives, we are enabled to experience a transformation of all of our values so that we can serve those around us.
As you consider this challenge, try getting down on your knees. It doesn’t have to be literally. But remember to strip away all that you think makes you important and simply consider yourself a servant—of Jesus and of each other.