September 24, 2017

Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16      

1^st Reading: Jonah 3:10-4:11

2^nd Reading: Philippians 1:21-30

            “Amazing grace how sweet the sound.”  It is a pretty sweet sound when it rewards me, when it confirms that I am a good person deserving of God’s grace, when it rewards people like me who work hard, when it keeps track of every Sunday I’ve been in church and every door I’ve held open, every smile I’ve shared with someone at the checkout stand, every dollar I’ve given to charity, every coat I’ve donated to the poor, every prayer I’ve said at dinner. 

            “That saved a wretch like me.”  That part’s not so sweet.  I don’t want to sing that in church.  There’s already so many with poor self-esteem.  What good will it do to call ourselves wretches.  Doesn’t that just heap on the guilt and shame?  But when I lay awake at night, and there is no one to impress, I know it’s true.  My shortcomings flash in front of my eyes, what I said that I shouldn’t have said, what I didn’t say that I should have, my own helplessness watching the news while they pull children from a collapsed school in Mexico City, my own contribution to the world’s misery from what I buy and how I live and where I drive and what I wear, and what I should have done but didn’t get to, who I alienated, who I favored and why, and on and on.  But at least Jesus forgives and loves me.  Maybe there’s a chance I can forgive and love myself.  Maybe there’s a chance I can change and do better next week, and then I never do, even though I know exactly what I should do.

            Amazing Grace.  This is the song that Jonah sang when he went running away from God’s call.  He was happy with what God had done for him and the Israelites.  He liked being in the special group of graced people.  He was glad God was generous to him, but that was where it was going to stop.

            The Disciples were enjoying their place of privilege next to Jesus.  They were also reveling in God’s amazing grace.  They accepted the call.  They walked by his side.  The learned from him.  The shared the good news.  The touched his hand and side.  They heard his words.  They gave up everything to be with him.  And their lives were threatened because of their proximity to him.  What grace to stand in God’s presence.  What grace for a wretch like me, they all thought, knowing their shortcomings, their lack of education, their propensity for sticking their foot in their mouths, their inability to get it, the way they kept shooing off people Jesus valued.  They knew they were struggling numbskulls, but they were doing the work and they were earlier to the harvest, so they wanted to make sure Jesus was keeping track, that their ledger was full of all the reasons why they deserved God’s grace.

            Except that’s not grace at all.  Grace is God’s mercy to undeserving people.  We’re all undeserving.  So now we’ve got people vying for the spot of least undeserving. 

We could say that the Old Testament was a time when God was keeping tabs and trying to help people obey the law and find their salvation that way.  I tend to think that may have been the human understanding of what was happening.  But you can’t record everything on a ledger sheet.  You can keep track of numbers and values, but you can’t record the quality of interactions and relationships.  You can’t keep track of history and conversations.  Even if humans thought that was the point from the beginning, two things.  One is that there never was a righteous person, not a single one could keep the whole law.  Secondly, if accounting could save the world we wouldn’t need Jesus, because Moses would have been the savior, or we would all have been our own saviors and done it all ourselves! 

            Throughout the Old Testament, God uses the refrain we get this morning from grumpy old Jonah, God is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.”  God has always been this way, even under the law.  But some people only thought it applied to them, namely the Israelites, even though we have a ton of examples where foreigners are included in this.

            Now Jonah is singing another song, “Offensive grace, how awful the sound the saved a wretch like them!”  He cannot stand that God shows grace to the people of Ninevah!  These people are not deserving!  How long will it be until they screw up again!  They’ve only been faithful one minute and that’s good enough for God?!  Ridiculous!

            Paul is concerned that the Philippians will fear that he is getting what he deserved because he is in prison and he doesn’t know whether he will eventually be executed or go free.  He’s showing them that God’s grace doesn’t always look like a usual reward in this life looks.  Paul is afraid they will be ashamed of him, that they will assume God has abandoned him.  But he points out that his imprisonment may actually be helping spread the Gospel because people see what he is willing to give up because of his faith.  They can see he truly believes what he is saying, or he’d have recanted it all by now.  This grace is offensive, because the one who should be most rewarded doesn’t appear to be, at least not in the ways we expect in this world.  Paul’s a laborer who has been in the field all day, yet his wages, his pay is a prison sentence.  It just isn’t right.  But he doesn’t mind, because he is experiencing another kind of reward.

            The Vineyard workers who worked all day are also singing about offensive grace, or maybe they are too mad to sing.  They were glad to get hired, glad to participate in the harvest—they who were out there early, who had transportation to the market, who had child care so they could get away, who had able bodies, who weren’t lazy, who weren’t hungover.  They were getting what they deserved.  What they were paid, showed what they were worth.

            So along come these lazy drunks, these late-comers, undocumented, pierced, lazy losers, and they all get paid the same.  “You have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” 

            That’s the problem.  Paying them more than they are worth.  Making everyone equal.  I had a barbecue I needed to get rid of.  I put a free sign on it and it sat there for two days.  Then I put a sign on it $10 and it was gone the next day.  Until I put a dollar figure on it, people thought my barbecue was worthless.  Too bad we value ourselves and one another by dollar figures, too—how much money we make and what job we have.  We even say refer to people by how much they’re worth, that is how much money they have.

            The problem is, when we keep ledgers, we assume everyone starts at zero.  That’s not so when the vineyard owner is God.  In this case, we start out owing him everything.  What do we owe that God gave us life, this earth, food, shelter, family, opportunities to learn, everything we have.  If we want to keep tabs we’re so far in debt, we can never repay God’s generosity. 

            For us and for the undeserving lazy slob, occasionally the same person, God wipes it all away.  Because God knows you can’t earn enough to pay God back.  You can’t follow the rules enough to pass the test of godliness.  You can’t earn your way into a family.  You can’t earn eternal, abundant life.  Only God can give us that, the true generous gift of grace, for all of us undeserving jerks.

            So why would anyone ever go to work a whole day in the vineyard, if they know they can get paid the same for a single hour of work?  I’ll tell you why.  Think of the volunteering you do here.  You don’t make a dime.  So why do you do it?  It’s the community you’re building.  It is because of the friends you are making and the friendships you maintain.  It is the satisfaction of doing something worthwhile.  It is the chance to learn and grow your gifts.  It is the chance to spend time in God’s presence and to learn from the vineyard owner.  It is the chance to be equal to each other—no one is better than anyone else, we can all move chairs around, we can all hold someone who is in tears, we can all plunge a toilet.

            If we feel offended when those we see God’s generosity to the undeserving or startled about others being equal to us, let’s remember that Jesus invites us to be adopted into God’s family.  We are made equal with him.  We don’t deserve it, but that’s not the point.  God wants the family to be together, so God is drawing us together.  Now is our chance to appreciate that our flawed system of ledgers is thrown out the window, cancelled by God, and that instead of keeping tabs, we are part of the Kingdom where we leave our resentments and jealousy behind, where we realize that what is good for our neighbor means good things for us all, and where we realize there isn’t a limited amount of God’s grace, so someone else getting some doesn’t need to be a threat to us. 

            God is throwing a party.  We’re all invited.  The guest list is all losers and wretches like us.  But God is elevating us to sons and daughters, every last one of us.  Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved brothers and sisters period.  I hope we’ll accept the invitation and not be too concerned about the rif raff on the guest list, and just be glad that even rif raff like us have a place in God’s Kingdom.