Many find this parable difficult to deal with. With his opening words, however, Jesus clearly indicates his intention: the parable is entirely and solely concerned with the Kingdom of God. Reading anything out of it with reference, for example, to human employers and employees, misses Jesus' message. During His ministry, Jesus faced the difficult task of getting people, including His disciples, to understand the nature of the Kingdom He had come to establish.

Jesus was not a political Messiah or a social reformer in any human sense. In a divine sense, He was indeed a social reformer: He would replace human society and its earthly values and perspectives with a new society based entirely on the gratuitous and unconditional love of God for humanity. Participation in this new society, this community of love and truth, requires a new vision which can only come through the grace of God. "The last shall be first and the first shall be last" is not a doctrine that can be explained and assimilated by human understanding. We have here a new wisdom, a wisdom which overthrows our mere human wisdom.