The Labourers in the Vineyard.
I. This parable is directed against a wrong temper and spirit of mind, which was notably manifested among the Jews, but one against which all men in possession of spiritual privileges have need to be, and herein are, warned; this warning being primarily addressed not to them, but to the Apostles, as the foremost workers in the Christian Church, the earliest called to labour in the Lord's vineyard, "the first" both in time and in toil and pains. They had seen the rich young man go sorrowful away, unable to abide the proof by which the Lord had mercifully revealed to him how strong were the bands by which the world was holding him still. They (for Peter here, as so often, is spokesman for all) would fain know what their reward should be, who had done this very thing from which he had shrunk, and forsaken all for the Gospel's sake. The Lord answers them first and fully, that they and as many as should do the same for His sake should reap an abundant reward.
II. But for all this the question, "What shall we have?" was not a right one; it put their relation to their Lord on a wrong footing. There was a tendency in it to bring their obedience to a calculation of so much work, so much reward. There lurked, too, a certain self-complacency in it. In this parable the Apostles are taught that, however long-continued their work, abundant their labours, yet without charity to their brethren, and humility before God, they are nothing; that pride and a self-complacent estimate of their work, like the fly in the precious ointment, would spoil the work, however great it might be, since that work stands only in humility, and from first they would fall to last. The lesson taught to Peter, and through him to us all, is that the first may be altogether last; that those who stand foremost as chief in labour, yet if they forget that the reward is of grace and not of works, and begin to boast and exalt themselves above their fellow-labourers, may altogether lose the things which they have wrought; while those who seem last may yet, by keeping their humility, be acknowledged first and foremost in the day of God.
R. C. Trench, Notes on the Parables,p. 168.
References: Matthew 20:1-16. A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 272; Ibid., Parabolic Teaching of Christ,p. 183; R. Calderwood, The Parables of our Lord,p. 291; G. Calthrop, Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., pp. 55, 496; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 82; W. Sanday, Expositor,1st series, vol. iii., p. 81; F. T. Hill, Ibid.,p. 427; Parker, Inner Life of Christ,vol. iii., p. 72.Matthew 20:3; Matthew 20:4. Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts,p. 114.