The artificial division between chapters should not influence our reading of the parable in this week’s gospel text. Jesus is not introducing some new idea or topic with this illustration. He is continuing to answer the question Peter posed in 19:27: “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” The parable which begins in 20:1 was not so much a demonstration of “many who are first will be last, and the last will be first” as it is an ongoing discussion of the coming kingdom of God which will be established by divine justice and grace.

The first hint that this parable has a wider application than redistributed pecking orders is the setting of a vineyard. Not only was a vineyard a familiar agricultural scene for Jesus’ Galilean listeners; but a “vineyard” was freq…