<p>20:4&nbsp;<em>And to them he said: You go-&nbsp;</em>This again paves the way for the &ldquo;Go&hellip;&rdquo; of the great preaching commission which Matthews&rsquo;s Gospel concludes with.</p><p><em>Also into the vineyard and</em>- The hint may be that the later workers are working for their Lord on the same basis as the harder and longer workers, even if their achievements and levels of service vastly differ.</p><p><em>Whatever is right I will give you</em>- &ldquo;Right&rdquo; translates&nbsp;<em>dikaios</em>, a word carrying a distinct moral sense and elsewhere translated &lsquo;righteousness&rsquo;. The idea of the gift of righteousness, that which is right, is at the heart of much of Romans (Rom. 5:17 specifically speaks of &ldquo;the gift of righteousness&rdquo;). The penny paid for a few hours work speaks of salvation, granted as an undeserved gift, and yet also somehow &lsquo;that which is just / right&rsquo; because of the way we are counted just because we are in Christ. There was no specific promise of a penny, and yet this was judged by the Lord as &lsquo;what was right&rsquo;. Intentionally, the storyline of the parable leads us to cry out that it is&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;just to give labourers the same pay, when some work far longer and harder than others- at least 12 times longer, in some cases. But it&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;just in the new justice taught by the Lord. The point of the paradox is that human works and achievements are so irrelevant in terms of obtaining salvation, the penny. Rather like the 100 pennies owed to the man who had been forgiven a 10,000 talent debt (18:28).</p><p>Preaching is a spiritual exercise for the benefit of the preacher. We could get the impression that the labourers were called to go out into the vineyard because the Lord felt sorry for them, standing idle with no work or livelihood- rather than because He needed them. If this was His motivation, He wouldn't have called anyone at the 11th hour, neither would he have paid them all the same wages if he was only using them for his benefit. God will call His people unto Himself without us doing a thing; and yet we have a responsibility and even a commission to take Christ to the world. The fact God will call His people to Himself anyway does not exempt us from the duty of witnessing; and the process of this witnessing is so often for&nbsp;<em>our</em>&nbsp;benefit.</p><p><em>And they went their way</em>- We explained on 19:1 how there is a whole block of material presented in a long chiasmus, and this parable is the closing part of the section which began at the start of chapter 18. It&rsquo;s significant therefore that&nbsp;<em>aperchomai</em>, translated here to &lsquo;go a way&rsquo;, recurs twice in the section. The man with the colossal debt &lsquo;went his way&rsquo; and imprisoned his slightly indebted brother (18:30), and the rich young man &lsquo;went away&rsquo; sorrowful (19:22). In each case, men &lsquo;went their way&rsquo; after having been confronted by extreme grace. The rich man in that despite not wanting to part with his wealth as requested, he could still be saved by grace; the man with the colossal debt who had it frankly forgiven. They &lsquo;went their way&rsquo; into obscurity, unable to accept the grace offered. These weak, lazy labourers went&nbsp;<em>their</em>&nbsp;way to harvest at least a few for Christ, believing and clinging on to the Lord&rsquo;s desire to use even them despite their inadequacy.</p>