Matthew 20:1-16
“Unfair
Grace”
As a mom, one of the many lessons I am trying to help my
girls understand is: Life is not
fair. Now, for their young minds, we are
talking about simple things such as picking TV shows, movies, or which toys we
are going to play with. Fairness is very
important to them. When one gets to pick
a show to watch the other expects a turn to pick a show to watch. It all has to play out even. And when it doesn’t, tantrums can get thrown
with the words screaming out – That’s not fair!
In my own life, the first time I really realized how
unfair life is, was my senior year of college when I was driving back to
college with my car packed with what I needed for the year, including all of my
things from my semester in Costa Rica.
In order to break the drive from CT to NC up, I stopped over night at a
friend’s place and during the night, someone broke into my car and stole
everything. Now, the thing is, some
really sad and tragic things had happened in my community while growing up, but
none of them had happened directly to me.
Yes, there were sad things to work through but until the drama was
spotlighted directly on me, I really had no idea how unfair things really can
be.
So, as we read this parable today, it is easy for us to
keep it at arm’s distance. It is easy
for us to read it and say, why are they complaining? Why are they whining? Why are they upset? A landlord hirers workers and they work for a
day’s wage. Sounds fair to me. But there was still more work to do, so he goes
out and hires more workers and this is where it gets unfair, this landlord
becomes generous and pays these workers a day’s wage. Wow, bonus for them. But then he hires more workers and then pays
them a day’s wage as well. Is he being
too generous? Why would he do that? Doesn’t the landlord know that he is going to
make some of his workers angry? Is he
trying to create conflict?
As we examine this parable, it is easy to pick
sides. It is easy to say, I can
understand why those early workers are upset, they worked hard all day long
while the others only did a partial days work.
It is only fair if you pro-rate the other workers pay. But then, it is also easy to side with the
landlord – he is being just and fair in that he is paying what he offered. He’s not cheating anyone out of
anything.
Now, Jesus picked money as a focus in his parable as he
is teaching his followers about the Kingdom of Heaven. Money is just a metaphor, but it gets our
attention and makes the complaining that ensues understandable. I’ve been there, I’ve been in a situation
where I felt others were rewarded financially and it made me feel
underappreciated. Didn’t I work just as
hard? I was not cheated out of anything,
I got what my contract stated, but there was another message being sent outside
of the contract and that was about appreciation. Yes, the landlord paid what he said he was
going to pay, but by paying the others the same rate, he underappreciates those
first workers.
What is fair and what is unfair? The audience Jesus spoke to would understand
the language he is using here. Most of
them were day laborers. They knew what
it meant to go to work at these various times and what kind of pay they would
receive. They would easily be swayed to
the complaining of those early workers because it was something they could
identify with on an almost daily basis.
Perhaps in today’s day and age Jesus would teach
this: The Kingdom of Heaven is
like: People lined up outside the Apple
Store for a week prior to the release of the new iphone 6. On the day of the release, the sales
associates started at the back of the line to hand out the phones and those
that waited longest received their phone last.
Everyone in line gets a phone, but the order of expectation changes. Those that waited a week complain that it is
unfair that those that only waited one hour received their phone first. But the message is: everyone received a phone. It might not be fair, but it is just.
A parable
is a tool to help teach and the Kingdom of Heaven has absolutely nothing to do
with money or iphones. It has everything
to do with God’s grace. So how does this
translate? Do we really get upset that
everyone that labors in God’s vineyard receives the same amount of grace? To me, it does not seem to be something to
squabble about, and yet, part of the parable illustrates our human nature that
God’s abundant grace is going to cause conflict.
So, I
started to think about a movie called:
Dead Man Walking. In this movie, a man is on death row for a horrific
crime. He is perceived to me a monster
and deserves to die. Except, there is a
nun that becomes his spiritual guide and visits him over and over again talking
to him about God’s love and forgiveness.
The family of the victims is irate.
How dare this nun spend time with this awful man. How dare she try to bring God’s love to him
while he is on death row. This is a
really tough movie, but it shows those human feelings of how unfair God’s grace
is. Does a criminal, a murderer, even a
terrorist deserve God’s grace?
Starts
to put this parable a little closer to our hearts as we thing about who should
be in God’s kingdom and who should stay out.
Prison ministry is a real challenge but Jesus calls us there and there
are churches that see this as their harvest, the place in which God sends
them. Even on the cross, Jesus offers
grace to the criminal next to him. Ours
is a story of unfair grace the question is, where in the parable do we find
ourselves?
Do we
see ourselves as those who have labored since the crack of dawn, or do we see
ourselves as the one that comes in at noon?
Or do we see ourselves in this parable at all? The Kingdom of Heaven is like: it is like a vineyard with laborers. But this is not a stagnant story, it is not
about a specific set of laborers but an on-going recruitment with more and more
workers coming in through the day. The
landlord does not sit around but goes out and finds more workers. There is movement out of the vineyard and
then back into the vineyard, an ebb and flow.
Now, we
can simplify this a little bit and say:
let’s name the church as the vineyard.
If this particular body is the vineyard, how do we interact with each
other, how do we perceive the various workers God has brought together into
this place? Do we share ownership with
the whole? And then we need to ask; what
business are we about? Are we about
being a part of the Kingdom of Heaven?
The Kingdom of Heaven is embracing God’s grace, right here, right now,
in our daily lives. It is not about
eternal life, it is not about being saved through Jesus Christ. It is about being called into God’s work in
this world in which we live. It is about
receiving God’s grace and the desire to serve God out of no other reason than
love.
Next
Sunday, we are going to have the community breakfast. The greater community enjoys this breakfast,
God has brought them to us, how are we called to respond? There are lots of options. We can choose not to attend; we can come and
sit with our friends; or we can partner up and intentionally sit with people we
do not know. As laborers in God’s
vineyard, we are called to work and God desires us to build relationships with
others, we are called into work right here in the world in which we live. Deck Hall is our safe place. We are comfortable there and through the
breakfast, God brings us the greater community.
Be present, ask people how they are doing, learn about who they are,
everyone has a story to tell. Or take
the opportunity to use the breakfast to invite one of your neighbors, friends,
or relatives. The kingdom of Heaven is
about growth, it is about life, it is about moving past what we think is fair
and living into God’s presence right here in our midst. Don’t keep this parable at arms length, let
is sit with you, put yourself into it, and let it speak to you in your own
story of faith. Amen.
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