Setting: This kingdom parable is bracketed by the saying "many who are first will be last, and the last first" (Matthew 19:30; 20.16). It directly answers Peter's "Behold, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" (Matthew 19:27), reframing the disciples' reward-question away from merit-accounting and toward the Master's generosity. Citation: Matthew 20:1-16
The parable
A landowner goes out at daybreak to hire laborers for his vineyard, agreeing with them on a denarius (a day's wage) for the day. He hires more at the third hour (≈9 a.m.), the sixth and ninth hours (noon, 3 p.m.), and even the eleventh hour (≈5 p.m.), telling the last group, "Whatever is right I will give you" (vv.1-7).
At day's end he tells his manager to pay everyone, "beginning from the last to the first." Those hired at the eleventh hour each receive a denarius. So the dawn workers expect more, but they too receive a denarius, and grumble: "These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!" (vv.8-12).
The owner answers one of them: "Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn't you agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you. Isn't it lawful for me to do what I want with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?" (vv.13-15). "So the last will be first, and the first last" (v.16).
The point: the owner's freedom to be generous
The dawn workers are paid exactly what they agreed, they suffer no injustice. Their complaint is not that they were underpaid but that others were over-blessed. The parable exposes the "evil eye" of grace-envy: resentment that God is generous to latecomers.
The kingdom does not run on a wage-ledger where longer service buys a larger share of God. It runs on the householder's goodness. Everyone in the vineyard receives the same gift, full belonging, not because the accounts balance but because the owner is generous. This is the answer to Peter: yes, there is reward (Matthew 19:28-29), but it is grace, not a calculated payout, and the first must not begrudge the last.
The "denarius" is also a living wage, a day's bread for a family. Read that way, the parable also pictures a master who ensures even the one-hour worker can feed his household: generosity and provision for need.
Theological framing (multiple views)
Grace-versus-merit reading (mainstream), the headline meaning: salvation and standing in the Kingdom are gifts of God's free generosity, not earned by length or quantity of service. Warns disciples against a hireling spirit.
Salvation-history reading, the early-hired = Israel / the first disciples; the late-hired = Gentiles or latecomers brought in equally; "first/last" reversal as the inclusion of the outsider.
Provision / justice reading, stresses the denarius as daily bread: the owner secures each worker's need rather than paying strict piece-rate. Not a manual for labor economics, but a window onto a God who meets need.
Caution noted, the parable is not a wage-policy endorsement (the dawn workers' grievance is treated as legitimate at the level of fairness-as-merit and then transcended); its target is the heart that resents grace shown to others.