The Last Will Be First
About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ he asked. Matthew 20:6 · Berean Standard Bible
At five o'clock — just one hour before the workday ends — he finds still more people standing around and asks, 'Why have you been here all day doing nothing?'
These are the last ones, the overlooked ones. Most employers would have passed them by at this point.
The landowner approaches the last group of workers with a question, not a judgment.
Almost everyone else has given up on these workers. But the owner hasn't. He finds them and gives them a chance too.
At the eleventh hour (approximately 5 PM, one hour before quitting time), the landowner finds still more idle workers and asks why they have stood all day without work.
The eleventh-hour hiring is the parable's crucial detail: these workers have contributed minimally but will receive maximally.
The landowner encounters the final group of unemployed workers near day's end.
With only one hour of daylight left, the landowner finds workers still waiting. Their inclusion is the scandal that drives the parable.
4‘You also go into my vineyard,’ he said, ‘and I will pay you whatever is right.’
5So they went.
6About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ he asked.
7‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
8When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last ones hired and moving on to the first.’
Read all of Matthew 20 — Workers hired at day's end receive the same wage as those who sweated since dawn. God's generosity offends our scorekeeping instincts.
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