Matthew 20:11

And when they received it, they murmured against the householder, saying; These last have spent but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.

That the human race needed this parable is perfectly evident from the fact that most people can find a feeling of sympathy for the viewpoint of the "firsters"! There are many in all generations who would have been just as outraged as were they. And why were they angry? The householder had interfered with and upset their petty schedule of ranks and values. The inflated evaluation of themselves as compared with the latecomers had been unceremoniously kicked in the teeth. They had no case, but their spiteful anger flared just the same. Every minister of the gospel has heard this same murmuring in the church when someone says, "Why should he be a deacon; I've been in this congregation twenty years!" "Why should that man be an elder or on the building committee? My Uncle Charlie started this church in a schoolhouse; we've all been members here since it started? This is exactly what Christ was fighting in this parable.

"Thou hast made them equal to US!" There is the bull's eye of the trouble. WE are the people. WE have done the work, shouldered the load, borne the heat, and carried the mail. Those latecomers ought to be away down on the scale compared to US! Every church on earth has the US problem. It existed among the sacred numbers of the twelve apostles. But wherever the problem exists, nothing solves it like getting things in the proper perspective. That is what Jesus sought to do with this parable. The FIRST ones became last by their very bitterness and pettiness and their self-righteous preferment of themselves above others; and those LAST became first by their loving trust of the householder. That is the principal point Christ himself drew from the parable. See Matthew 19:29 and Matthew 20:16.