Friend

In the parable of the vineyard workers, the master calls an angry worker "friend." Matthew uses that word three times, and it's never warm. On the evil eye, what we look through, and a God more generous than we can stand to watch.

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Good evening. Every one of us learnt the words early. That's not fair. And every one of us heard the answer. Life ain't fair, get over it. But we never really outgrow it. We just get better at covering it. This week the gospel is Matthew 20, The Workers in the Vineyard. It's a story Jesus tells on purpose, and he means it to bother us. A man works one hour and gets paid for twelve. The men who worked all day are furious. If we're honest, so are we. So I wanted to sit with that anger instead of explaining it away. Listen for one word the master uses, friend, and listen where you land in the story. Because the most unfair thing in it turns out to be the best news you might hear all week. There's a word Jesus uses three times in Matthew's Gospel, and it sounds warm. Every time it's spoken to a man about to be exposed. Good morning, this is Northward, the word The North Your Week, a daily podcast from St. John's Fort Smith in collaboration with the Anglican family. I'm your host, Father Aaron. In Matthew chapter 20, Jesus tells a story about a landowner hiring workers for his vineyard. Some start at dawn, some start at five in the afternoon, with one hour of daylight left. And at the end of the day, every one of them gets the same pay. One denarius, a fool's day's wage. The men who came at dawn are furious. They come to the master angry. And he turns to the one speaking for them, and he calls him friend. Sounds kind, but it isn't. Matthew uses that word exactly three times in his whole gospel. Once to the guest with no wedding garment thrown out of the feast, once in the garden when Jesus says to Judas, Friend, do you do what you came to do? And once here, every single time is spoken to a man about to be exposed. It is not warm, it is not friendly. So what gets exposed? The master asks him one question. In the Greek, it's exactly that, an evil eye. Jesus used the same picture earlier in Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is evil, your whole body is full of darkness. What you look through decides what you see. So the master is saying, I'm not the problem. My generosity is not the problem. It's your eye. It's what you are looking through. This man got exactly what he agreed to. Every cent. Nothing was taken from him. What happened is that he watched someone else receive what he thought only he deserved, and his eye went dark. That is the challenging part of this story. The problem isn't out there in the Master. It's in here, in the way we see. But notice the Master still talks to him. He names what's wrong. God is not unfair to you. He is more generous than you can stand to watch. And he wants to heal the eye that can't stand to watch it. Grace isn't fair. The fix isn't to make it fair. The fix is a new eye. So here's a question to carry today. What good news can't you be glad about? Name them. Then ask God for an eye that sees what he sees. Where is this finding you? Tap the text us link and tell us where you are on your journey or what you would like to hear about on the Northward. Thanks for joining me, and thanks to our producer and co-host, the Reverend Eacon Luke Anderson. If this helped, share it. That's how the Word of God reaches further. This has been Northward the Word, the North Hill Week, a daily podcast from St. John's Fort Smith, in collaboration with the Anglican family. Until tomorrow, may God be with you.