Charlie Loften: The questions we wrestle with as Christians about who God is, how do we live out our faith, what is the Bible, what is the truth of the Bible, what are we supposed to believe? How are we supposed to live? There are really big, deep questions that we ask each other, that we ask God, that we wrestle with ourselves. And that's why the Cultivate podcast exists, to help us go deeper in our understanding of who God is, his word, and the way that he's called us to live. Everyone, welcome to the Cultivate Podcast with The Grove Church.
I'm Charlie Lofton. I'm the lead pastor there, and I am here with Bagel. Hello. Bagel Bagel Boone.
Abigail Boone: I think
Charlie Loften: they're gonna just go Bagel.
Abigail Boone: The Bagel Boone sounds
Charlie Loften: nice. Bagel Boone is kinda cool. Bagel.
Abigail Boone: Does anybody know Cher's last name? I did think this last Sunday, you called out for me and you said Bagel, and I immediately turned around. And I was like, that's how you know.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. So I know. That's why I
Abigail Boone: said name is stuck.
Charlie Loften: It's not just a bit that we do during the podcast. No. Bagel. Yep. Oh, hey.
Hey. He's talking to me. Talking to me. Creative director, podcast producer, great friend, hat aficionado.
Abigail Boone: This is one of my classics that I wear all the time, I feel like.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. You actually have a I feel like you have a series of Onyx hats.
Abigail Boone: So they recently launched I don't know if they got a new merch person or something, but they just, like, stockpiled with tons of really awesome stuff. And so Onyx has been emerging on the scene in Northwest Arkansas, not coffee wise, merch wise. Oh, okay. Coffee, obviously well established. But, like, they've never had good merch, in my opinion.
And then all of a sudden but it's fun because they only have certain hats at certain stores.
Charlie Loften: Okay.
Abigail Boone: So you're compelled to go to the different ones and find the ones that you like.
Charlie Loften: Am I compelled? I am. You are compelled.
Abigail Boone: You should be.
Charlie Loften: I should be compelled. No. I mean, I I I have enough I have enough hog and Disney merch. I don't I don't know that I need another I don't know I need another third merch.
Abigail Boone: Or a man who doesn't drink coffee. You don't need an on exact.
Charlie Loften: Coffee. Correct. Correct. Correct. Alright.
So we are months now, I think, into a series through the parables. Yes. Been working our way through them, done some Q and As to kinda make sure we understand how it's going. And I I keep going back, and I'm like, oh, no. There's still a lot more to do.
Abigail Boone: Lot more parables.
Charlie Loften: And this one is called the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. And I feel like I need to say this. I don't no one will care. When I was a teenager Mhmm. In my church growing up Did you work in a vineyard?
We would our youth group would do puppets for the kids' ministry. Okay. And there was this audio sketch that, you know, you have the puppets, and you weren't having to do the voices. You were just pantomiming. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And it was on this parable, and it was hilarious. I mean, it was just really, really funny.
Abigail Boone: Were there vineyards for you to walk through, or were you the workers?
Charlie Loften: We were the workers. We were the workers. There was one person that was the, he was the main guy, and then he had an assistant, and then there were all the workers coming through. And it was just workers in the cornfield was what it was called.
Abigail Boone: That's different than a vineyard.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. I guess more contextual to El Dorado. No one no one's listening, was like, Man, I remember doing puppet shows in the '80s, and I probably know what that is. But to me, it's like I hear this, and I think it was There's someone out there. They had southern my brother, but he doesn't listen to the podcast.
Anyways, and so anytime I hear about this this this I I hear the voices, and they had Southern accents. I mean, this is what's going through my brain.
Abigail Boone: We should get that set up for Grove Kids here. I feel like if we got you and, like, Jason, a a group of, like, animated people, they would eat it up. Puppet shows?
Charlie Loften: Yeah. It's important, though. And we'll do this. This is only for the people on YouTube. This is it's important.
So you got my hand here flat. Yeah. If you're really gonna do a puppet, then you have to be able to do it where you're just
Abigail Boone: Just your thumb.
Charlie Loften: Your thumb is moving because most people do puppets like this
Abigail Boone: And I don't. Which
Charlie Loften: is not how you talk. You talk like this, just your chin. It's actually not
Abigail Boone: Yeah.
Charlie Loften: It's not that you're you're you're That's dexterity. Your fingers are moving. I know. Fingers are moving. And the the lady that was in charge of the puppet, she would if you wanted to to become, you know, to to beginner, right, part of your training was she would put two hymnals on top of your hand.
And you would just be And then that's all that you could do.
Abigail Boone: Anyone watching or listening, you should actually try it because that's pretty hard to do.
Charlie Loften: That's really hard to move your thumb up and
Abigail Boone: down You do it so fast.
Charlie Loften: And to leave your fingers where they don't move up and down.
Abigail Boone: I can't do it as fast as you're doing it.
Charlie Loften: Right. So this, you to be able to, you know, talk as quickly as you need to talk. Right?
Abigail Boone: Interesting. Alright.
Charlie Loften: Puppeteer. Alright. Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, Matthew chapter 20, starting with verse one. For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
About nine in the morning, he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, you also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right. So they went. He went out again about noon, and and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon, he went out and found still others standing around.
He asked them, why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing? Because no one has hired us, they answered. He said to them, you also go and work in my vineyard. 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. The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius.
So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more, but each one of them also received the denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. These 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. But he answered one of them, I'm not being unfair to you, friend. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius?
Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money, or are you envious because I am generous? So the last will be first, and the first will be last.
Abigail Boone: Oh, that's a spicy line there at the end. Yeah. Are you envious because I'm generous?
Charlie Loften: Yeah. So make sure we just kind of understand the basic framework here, and then I wanna get your impressions of what's happening here. So a denarius is essentially what would be considered a day's wage. That was considered a day's wage. We talked about that a little bit, we talked about the immersible immersible servant.
Right? And so it's just what you would expect for a day. So these are, you've got a landowner who needs his land work, and you've got a group of what we would now call, we've been called for a while, day laborers. People who don't have jobs per se, but if there is work that is needed, they will hang out in a certain part of town and wealthy people who need work for that day go to this place and they can hire them for the day, and we'll pay them a day's wages at the end of the day. There's still things like that that happen now.
Seems controversial now to say this because of the way our politics works, very often it'll be at a Home Depot or whatever, and there will be day laborers hanging out there, Hey, I can do painting or cleaning or whatever, pay for the day, pay me in cash at the end of the day, and then go on with your day, right? And so this is the same basic situation. So it's important for us to understand as we put our mind around this, of, Okay, that's the nature of this. And if this landowner does not come and pay them, it's not like, oh, well, it's okay, I'll expect to work three or four days a week. I've got plenty of money otherwise.
I this is I get to eat tomorrow because I work today. I mean, these people did not have savings accounts. They were day to day, you know, because they didn't have jobs, so they're day to day and eating. So is the basic framework of this story. Okay?
What are your general impressions from the parable?
Abigail Boone: Seems like he does have a lot of
Charlie Loften: money to give. Yeah. He's wealthy, for sure.
Abigail Boone: It's not like he's being tight with I can only hire this amount of people. And it seems kind of funny that he keeps his question is, Why are you all just standing around doing nothing?
Charlie Loften: Right.
Abigail Boone: Like, I guess it was probably cultural that they wouldn't just hop in, but also funny that he's like, why aren't you working? Right. That interaction seems funny to me.
Charlie Loften: Well, here's a question that I have because it seems like he goes out there first thing in the morning and just sweeps everybody up and says, You guys all come and work for me. And then he goes back and there are more people there. And he goes back again and there's people there. It doesn't seem like he goes there, there's 10 guys there, he grabs five, comes back later, grabs two more, and then he's taking everybody who's there. And so it seems like that there are people that if you want to be there, you need to be there by six They
Abigail Boone: were just hoping that there was more work. Right?
Charlie Loften: And that there were people that weren't showing up until nine Right. And then there were people that were showing sometime between nine and noon. Yeah. And sometime between noon and three, three and five Right. That people were and so there is a sense in which I think if you understand what's going on in the story, that it's not only were these people not working the full day and got the full wage, there's something negative to be thought about them by the fact that they were out there at five.
You know, the interactions, wait, what are you still doing out here at five? It's not like they had been there since six. No. They had only been there at most since
Abigail Boone: three. That early bird did not get the worm. Right.
Charlie Loften: And so you could say
Abigail Boone: He's letting the laziest still
Charlie Loften: Yeah, get an that these people also have some laziness to them. It's not just that, Man, we were out here all day and nobody hired There was something that was preventing them. Maybe it wasn't laziness, but there was something that was preventing them from being, to use your words, the early bird.
Abigail Boone: Well, it does seem like in that, even you give in the context of day workers today, I work for a construction company, there's a lot of people that will do that kind of stuff because they have crews of who knows how many, and they're working all around North Arkansas. So there are people that'll just come in for the day and help out.
Charlie Loften: Okay. Don't know that we can just kind of just blow past that because someone who didn't know you, or maybe even someone who does know you, like, just kind of casually say, I work for a construction company.
Abigail Boone: Yeah. That's confusing.
Charlie Loften: That's I don't
Abigail Boone: think And not entirely accurate. I don't think I
Charlie Loften: I think the way that most people would take that phrase is not what
Abigail Boone: you mean by site. I do social media for a custom home builder.
Charlie Loften: Oh, there
Abigail Boone: you go. So I am out on the job site often. Taking pictures and videos. Taking pictures from literally laying the slab to the closing day, and so I'm interacting with these workers all the time.
Charlie Loften: See, I know you well enough to To know what I mean. Put all of that together really fast, I knew exactly what you meant. But I did also hear the phrase, I work for a construction company,
Abigail Boone: which I was like He's not really a construction company, he's a he's home a still Anyways.
Charlie Loften: If you said, I work for a home builder, people would be
Abigail Boone: Yeah. Okay. Anyways, all of those crews start so early. Oh, yeah. And a lot of it probably is temperature wise.
Charlie Loften: Mhmm.
Abigail Boone: You don't wanna be out there in the dead of day with the sun beating down on your backs.
Charlie Loften: Right.
Abigail Boone: So there's no shot that they're going back to see if there's any other extra helpers in the middle of the day. Right. So you have to
Charlie Loften: be the early bird. Right. So the question then for this, Jesus is talking about what the kingdom of heaven is going to be like. And He describes it this way, and I think we can very easily say that the owner of the vineyard is
Abigail Boone: God. He's in retirement.
Charlie Loften: He's God. It's God. Yes. It's God. Okay?
And so we learn from this that God is very generous. He is inviting people all day long and is very generous.
Abigail Boone: On the this part feels extremely similar to our culture today that I would be very angry if I was making the same amount as, like, the intern Right. That was only there a little bit and didn't have as much responsibility. Like, that's a very similar sentiment that we could relate
Charlie Loften: to Or just think that, like, you're, you know, think about maybe summer jobs that you had, right? Like, I'm working at a grocery store, I'm working at this fast food restaurant, I work ten hours, I earn $10 an hour, I got $100 This other guy came in at the very end of my shift and worked one hour, okay, dollars 10 for that one hour. No, he got $100 as if he'd worked the whole shift. Like, your brain kind of goes You would quit. Yeah, it's not fair.
The complaints that these guys have, is a reasonable complaint. If fairness is a thing, right, especially I think for us, they think more in terms of day wage. I work a day, I get a day. I don't know if they had an hourly rate mentality, but especially for us with an hourly rate mentality where it's like you get paid by the hour, I worked twelve hours, you worked one hour, we come away with the same wage.
Abigail Boone: People who aren't good at math can still do that math.
Charlie Loften: Right. Something is wrong. I am being treated poorly. But we have to figure this out. Is the person that starts at in the metaphor, who is the person that works at six?
Abigail Boone: Who is he talking to, though? That's not in there.
Charlie Loften: If you go back to the previous chapter, we have Jesus talking to his disciples. He's talking to his disciples and telling them what the kingdom is going to be like. Okay. So who is the person that works at six? Who is that person?
Abigail Boone: The disciples would probably think then. Right?
Charlie Loften: Yeah. I mean Like, they're the ones that have been with Jesus this whole time. They're doing everything. Here's the problem in and, again, this is in a post resurrection. We talk about this a lot.
Right? A post resurrection, post Paul, Christian, Protestant evangelical theology.
Abigail Boone: Yeah.
Charlie Loften: And what and how we understand what salvation is and the grace and generosity of God, there is nobody who is working all day Sure. And getting a fair wage. No one is getting a fair wage. Yeah. You know, in fact, you know, Romans six twenty three, we talk about the difference between wage and gift.
Right? I mean, there's what you earn from sin is death, but what you get from God is a gift. Really? And so three whatever. And so once you get to the people who are getting more than what they deserve Mhmm.
Well, that's that's that's all of us. Yeah. And some people you know, I don't know if you ever heard, oh, man, person kinda came through in the eleventh hour. Have you ever heard the phrase eleventh This is where that comes from.
Abigail Boone: Yeah.
Charlie Loften: Okay? And so someone who shows up late just in time.
Abigail Boone: Yeah.
Charlie Loften: And we'll use that in a spiritual context, we like to talk about a deathbed confession. Right? You know, it's like I I was terrible my whole life, and as I was dying, I asked to receive Jesus' holiday. They came to Christ at the eleventh
Abigail Boone: hour. Well, this feels more like a Pharisee type complaint.
Charlie Loften: Right. But the but the question is, I think I the the thing I think we need to understand is that we're all eleventh hour people. And so the natural thing, and we're gonna look at some parables a little bit later in the next couple of weeks that are more explicit here and kind of Jews versus Gentiles. Right? The Jews got asked first and were not completely and totally faithful, and then the Gentiles came in later.
Right, were invited in later, and the first group represents the second group. There's a little bit of that in the prodigal son that we've already looked at, the guy, man, I've been here the whole time, why are you being gracious to this person? And so I think there is some of that there, of just kind of like, hey, I've been a faithful follower of the God of the Old Testament my whole life, and now you're just going to let in sinners and tax collectors and Gentiles and all these people in here, and it's like, why are you being so kind and gracious to them? Your kindness and grace to them is a slap in my face of someone here who has been faithful the whole time.
Abigail Boone: So to them, this would have been more like the Jew Gentile rather than the Jew who turned around his life in his old age.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. I I think I think that's probably how they would have initially taken it. Mhmm. Someone who has been faithful to God for their whole lives or for generations, my family has been faithful to God for so long, and now you've got these latecomers, and your generosity and kindness to them is actually a slap in my face. I think that is how we should understand that they would take it.
But I think as we look at it, we should not place ourselves in the role of the people who got there first. Right? Because you could theoretically. You could theoretically come in and say, Well, you know, I came to faith when I was a kid and baptized when I was a kid and never really rebelled against God and was faithful in my youth group and went on staff with a college ministry, and then I've been a pastor forever, and I've I've been a faithful Christian now for for almost fifty years now. Right.
And how like, I think if I really understand what Jesus is saying here, I I am still an eleventh hour person.
Abigail Boone: I I know I reference these all the time, but AA is the king of acronyms and different sayings, but they compare kind of someone who got sober when they're 13 to someone who got sober when they're 60. They both have a yet, which stands for you're eligible to. So it's like, don't take any pride that
Charlie Loften: you got sober when you're there. You're same playing field as this guy over here. Because if I start to, as someone who came to faith at a young age, identify with guy who starts working at the first hour, then I'm starting to believe that I earned it. Because that's the thing about the day laborer, right? I mean, I've worked a whole day and I got a day's wage.
I earned this. But actually, you go a little bit deeper, I wonder how many, if any, of these guys really fully earned the denarius because it doesn't seem like it was just like, oh, I've just got so much work here to do, and like, Please, can you come help me and I'll just give you this money because I desperately need the work. It just seems like that from the very beginning to the very end of the day, the owner of this vineyard is just a very generous That's
Abigail Boone: why I said he feels like a retired person. Right. He's not trying to crank out a big production line or anything like that. He's just got
Charlie Loften: I'm busy work to get just to make a lot of money and do all this stuff so I can get even it feels like he is already rich, doesn't need more money, and is just incredibly generous, and that even the person that came in early didn't really He didn't need
Abigail Boone: them as much as he didn't need the last person.
Charlie Loften: Right. And that even everybody's invitation to, air quotes, work in my vineyard result is of my generosity. I didn't need you here. That's not explicitly Because
Abigail Boone: if he's that wealthy, he already had workers.
Charlie Loften: Yeah, it just feels like it is at least implied that this guy was being generous the whole time.
Abigail Boone: They needed money more than he needed workers. Right. So with this is, I know he's talking to his disciples. Maybe pharisees were there, but not. He's probably just talking to his disciples.
What would have their before this parable, would have they assumed that, like, God is someone who only welcomes people who come early? Or, like, what was their understanding of God before He lays out this parable?
Charlie Loften: The biggest thing that I think that they would have taken away from this is your favor with God is dependent exclusively on how hard you work and how faithful you are. And so someone who has been faithful to God for a longer period of time would have more favor with God than a tax collector who later in his life decided to turn his life around. You know, they would have been, the big shift for them would have been God's favor is not based on your effort, but on God's generosity. I don't know that they would I think it would have been mind blowing for them a little bit, the concept of a gracious, generous God. Not that God was unkind or ungracious, but He is an employer.
Yeah. Right? If you work a fast food job and they hire you for $10 an hour and you work ten hours and you get $100 you don't think, Man, McDonald's is really generous.
Abigail Boone: Right. You paid what I was due.
Charlie Loften: We had a contract and we exchanged it. You don't think bad about them, and you're thankful for them for giving you a job. But also, I earned that money, give it to me. Yeah. Right?
There's no, I worked hard and you paid me what I was owed. Mhmm. You know? That's not a good or a bad thing. I mean, would be bad if you didn't pay what was owed.
If you gave more than that, that would be generous. Think that they thought of God as fair and someone who paid a fair wage. And so I follow the law, I do all the things, and God will reward me by giving me what is owed to someone who works this hard. And for Jesus to say, it's actually not that at all. In fact, what God gives is not based on how hard you work, but based exclusively on his generosity.
Abigail Boone: Well, and then also, you can stop me if this is pushing the parable too far, but it's kind of an interesting paradigm shift. It keeps making me think of my grandpa, of, like, all the random activities of yard work that I would do, and I'd be like, I collected all the gumballs, and he'd be like, I'm so glad you felt like I needed that. I'd be like, ta da. And it's almost like, what is actually, I mean, if you are working for someone who's in the prime of their industry life and they're trying to pump out whatever, they're fulfilled when they meet their quota of inventory or whatever. Right.
But if you're just working for someone that's fulfilled when they get to be generous to someone, it doesn't matter the outcome or the hours put in, they were fulfilled by being able to be generous to someone.
Charlie Loften: Yeah, I think, again, at its core level, the disciples walk away from this with God's favor is based on His generosity, not how hard I work. But I think there is a depth and richness to this. I think this parable expands and unfolds a little bit once we understand the crucifixion and the resurrection and what does it mean to really yeah. Well, I think I think I think I think one just kinda blossoms a little bit, and and we do understand that the invitation that God makes is not to work in His field. The invitation is to experience His generosity and His goodness.
And so, I don't think the disciples could have gotten there at day one. At day one, it would have just been like they're just chewing over, wait a second, though, but they didn't. Because people later in the day, they didn't earn it.
Abigail Boone: Right.
Charlie Loften: What do you mean they didn't earn it? Like, I would've been and and Jesus but I think it's one of those one of these parables that over time, we experience more depth and richness in what he's talking about because we do live on the other end of seeing the gospel fully demonstrated over Good Friday and Easter.
Abigail Boone: Well, there's just so much of a vineyard owner or farm owner, whatever, that, like, way to please them is to produce
Charlie Loften: Mhmm.
Abigail Boone: And to earn whatever. But if there's no ability to produce enough, then how do you please them?
Charlie Loften: Yeah. I mean, so, again, it's one of these things. It's almost like when we talk about, well, what does it mean to follow God? And we as we're categorizing these parables, and maybe at some point we should go back and put them into one of these two categories, some of them aren't just talking about different things. Right?
But it's like there's Parable of the Talents ones where it's like, God has an expectation of you, and then there's Prodigal Son, Workers in the Vineyard, right, where it's like, grace and just goodness. And almost like this one bridges the gap a little bit.
Abigail Boone: I was thinking, like, the disciples could just fuse those, their brains would explode. Like, wait, he wants to spend time with us?
Charlie Loften: And this one kind of bridges both of those. Yeah. Hey, I'm inviting you into my generosity, but that generosity also has an expectation, has some expectation to it, which is different than, hey, just come on for the party. It's just whatever, bro. But it's also different than what you get with God is what you earn.
And and so, again, I don't I don't I don't know how many steps along the disciples could have gotten in their you know, at least here, maybe after twenty or thirty years' reflection and
Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
Charlie Loften: Them reading some of Paul's letters and being like, This
Abigail Boone: is crazy.
Charlie Loften: Hold up now. Hold up. Like, they're slowly getting there, but I think we have the ability to fully appreciate what Jesus is saying. And I think when we do fully appreciate it, we all place ourselves in the eleventh hour. Yeah.
We don't think of eleventh hour people as deathbed confessions. If anything, they are, you know, maybe eleven fifty eight. Right. But it's not, you know, we're not, none of us are people who were there first thing in the morning. Those people, we recognize now that those people never existed.
And to the degree that they think they existed, they were fooled by the fact that really it was about the generosity of If the anybody added too much into the parable today, it was me by saying, I don't think he'd you did it too, so it was together. I don't know that this guy needed the work I think he was being generous all day long.
Abigail Boone: The more we've done this series, I think always put it in context of who he's talking to has just reiterated how much of an oral tradition they were. So like, it really was legit that they could have been laying in bed at night and be like, that was a weird story. That was weird. Yeah, like some things for us just go in and out because we have so much documented, can look it up, But they really would have had those just, like, circling around in their mind, and they could have meditated on that for who knows how long.
Charlie Loften: Right. And they're they're laying there by the the the campfire going to sleep and be like, okay. Hold up now. Jesus, I just wanna make sure I understood that story you told. So he paid them Yeah.
All the
Abigail Boone: It really probably did unfold over time because they would just think about it, and they were able to retain stories and pictures like that.
Charlie Loften: And so God and God what? God's like, what? Yeah. I I would I would love those conversations to be recorded somewhere. Yeah.
But they're intentionally not, and I under I understand that.
Abigail Boone: Let's gather around the campfire and sing our campfire song.
Charlie Loften: I'm trying to remember why that was in my head the other day. Was saying that to I was singing that to Layla, like, day before yesterday. You don't think that we can sing it louder than you're wrong.
Abigail Boone: Say it again, please. Squidward.
Charlie Loften: Oh, wow. What an end to an incredible podcast. So we will continue our series. We got some other ones, good ones coming up over the next couple of weeks. And thank you so much, Abigail Bagel Boone, for joining us and being here with us.
Thank you also for joining us and encourage you to keep coming back and encourage you to be a part of our church. If you are not connected to our church but you would like to be, you can find us at thegrovechurch.org. You go to the connect page. You can find out about streaming our service, joining us in person if you live locally. There's also a little form you could fill out.
You can ask questions. Any ways that we can help you, we would love to know that. Again, thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to the Cultivate Podcast. Our hope is that you are taking steps to go deeper in your faith, that you are asking big questions, and you're looking for answers.
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