September 24, 2023

 We all know little kids who are obsessed with what is fair.  To me, it is understandable that they are concerned.  They are small.  They are not sure who is going to look after their interests and needs.  When you have siblings all around, competing for scarce resources, it makes sense to be concerned with what is fair.  And when we grow up, we are still concerned with what is fair, comparing ourselves and our situation with other people’s, evaluating who is worthy and unworthy, looking out for our own needs, and resenting other people.  The only difference is that attitude is not expressed like a loud kid, but can become an inner dialogue that influences how we behave toward other people.

We are resentful because we do not trust.  It makes sense not to trust the landowner boss in this story.  Bosses like him are looking out for the company’s bottom line and profit margins, bumping up their CEO pay and taking advantage of little people who are living paycheck to paycheck.  It makes sense that ordinary workers will want to look out for their interests, since they’ve had to fight tooth and nail to survive. 

God is not a CEO or boss, though.  We have a different relationship with God.  God is our parent, has adopted us into God’s family.  God made us and everything we have.  God cares that we do more than survive, but that we thrive, and not just we, but that all creation thrives.  Still it can be hard to trust, because God has a lot to keep track of and we want to make sure we don’t get passed over.

In this parable, as in many this season, the last shall be first and the first shall be last.  The landowner seems to be provoking his workers by paying them all the same and paying them in front of each other.  Each one believes they should be paid according to their work, compared with the other people.  God has different interests and calculations than we do.  God ensures meaningful work for each person, no matter when they arrive and God ensures a wage sufficient for life.  There is not deserving or not deserving, but only what is necessary for living.  What is right cannot be determined with math, but by the need of each person and creature.

What I love to think about is what happens the next day.  Each person is still desperate for work.  They are going to come out to find work.  Are the resentful ones going to stay home until late in the day, hoping the landowner does the same thing and pays them the usual daily wage for only an hour or two of work?  How about the ones that came later?  I like to imagine that they showed up as early as they could, responding to the generosity of this landowner by willingly putting in a full day’s work.

How about us?  Do we make ourselves sick comparing ourselves to people who have more than we do?  That is a common temptation.  It is a choice we make to continue to obsess over the fairness of this.  We can train our brains instead to be grateful.

If we have less than what we need to survive, then it is important to advocate for the right to be paid a living wage.  It is important to speak up so that we and others like us can be heard, so that abundant life is shared.  But when we have enough to live on, it is time to switch modes, to focus on our gratefulness for what we have and to be generous to others.

We can focus on generosity.  We can keep a journal of all that we are grateful for.  We can pray in thankfulness, counting our blessings. 

We can practice generosity. When we give our time at Cultivate Initiatives or Zarephath pantry or volunteer at the school or go to Cuba we are suddenly surrounded by people who live with much less than we do.  I remember going to Nicaragua to visit a Young Adult in Global Missions student from our congregation.  We stayed in people’s homes and slept on plywood beds which they gave up for us to sleep on.  It was truly an inspiration to see people who have so little sharing with each other, thanking God, working hard, and finding hope.  Every time I find myself envious that God is apparently more generous with someone else, I remember the people of Nicaragua and find satisfaction with having enough.

Jesus came and showed us truly, God’s values.  The things we own and comforts we have are not what life is about.  Jesus had next to nothing but his life meant everything.  What little Jesus did have, he gave up on the cross to give us life. 

So what do we do if we have a lot?  We remember all that we have belongs to God and then we use to be a blessing to others. We repent of greed and envy.  We pursue more than the acquisition of things and money.  We put God at the center, in prayer, in service, in love toward others.  We share the wealth so that others have what they need.

I love the story of Jonah because he is so relatable.  The story is a mirror held up to us so that we can see more clearly what we’re doing.  Here’s a guy who knows better than God.  Oh I can relate.  Wouldn’t we all love to tell God who to love and who to hate.  Jonah knows who is deserving and who isn’t and furthermore, Jonah knows God isn’t going to give those Ninevites what they deserve, so Jonah isn’t going to participate. 

Jonah is more than happy to receive more than he deserves, but if God’s going to keep being so forgiving, those Ninevites will never learn.  Jonah thinks they should be taught a lesson.  Instead, they do the faithful thing and repent, even though they don’t even know their left hand from their right.  Their animals, too, put on sackcloth and ashes, whereas Jonah can’t repent one bit from his anger and bitterness and has to be forced by storm and whale to comply.  So he’s just walked through the city with surely a less than enthusiastic cry to repent, hoping they wouldn’t, hoping that God would punish them like they deserve and what did they do but repent!

The good guy is the bad guy who is less than faithful and the bad guys, the Ninevites who don’t know anything and their animals, become the good guys and are spared.  The first are last and the last are truly first.  But really all are under the same care and concern of God as they always have been.  In this way God did not change God’s mind, instead God is who God always is, gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love and ready to relent from punishing. 

And this doesn’t make us come late to work or go pout under the fig tree.  No!  This makes us want to serve all the more!  We can put ourselves in any of the roles in these stories.  I am the Ninevites, a lost cause that God came to save and sent the worst messengers to help me see the light.  I am Jonah, running the other way, resentful of what isn’t fair in my own mind, since I believe I know more than God.  I am Jonah, happy when the tree gives me shade and pouting when the tree dies, feeling sorry for myself and not paying attention to the big picture.  I am the worker early to the field, hoping I get more.  I am the worker, late to work, having to drive my kid to school or sit by the bedside of someone who is dying, and oh so grateful to have enough to live one. 

Let us be ready for when the Kingdom of God breaks into this world, like it does for all the people associated with this vineyard.  We are invited to prepare ourselves for things to be different than we expected.  We all have a vision of the Kingdom of God and how everyone will be fed and every tear will be dried, so let’s not be surprised when it happens.  This world is full of pain and hunger and grief and it won’t always be this way.  God’s Kingdom is breaking in all the time.  When it does we can be ready.  We may catch ourselves alarmed that the Kingdom is coming for those who are undeserving or appear to us to be undeserving or unworthy.  But that’s part of what makes God’s reign different.  We have a choice to pout in our dismay and be alarmed, or we can be looking for that new thing happening, where everyone is fed regardless of worthiness, and find ourselves swept up in that wave of generosity and new life, since we too fall short and can never repay the debt we owe to God our Creator or Our Savior Jesus Christ.

So let us go to work for this God who is generous to everyone and get used to it.  Let us raise our voices so that everyone has meaningful work and enough wages to eat something life-giving and pay the bills and deal with an emergency.  Let us shape our world into one of more equality and equity.  Let God’s Kingdom Come and let justice reign and let peace come to earth and let it begin with me.