Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
September 22, 2002
Matthew 20: 1-16
It would seem that there is a deep conviction in this country that we should read the Bible more. And it’s not just politicians running for office who say that. I often have people come up and tell me they wished they knew more about the Bible. I wish we all knew more about the Bible! A lot of us, I think, believe that there is wisdom, values and important guidelines in the Bible which just might help us feel a whole lot better about life and faith and our daily struggles. And there is a lot of truth in that.
Except, and there is always an “except”, there are also those times when reading the Bible makes you feel worse, not better; when the wisdom taught or the values expressed leave you confused, even angry. There are those times when you come across a biblical story so strange, so against the grain of your cherished suppositions, that it just doesn’t seem to make any sense at all. Rather than being part of the solution, it seems more a part of the problem.
For example, Jesus tells a story about people going to work in a vineyard. Some for eight hours, some for five, some for three and some for only one hour. At the end of the day, the master of the vineyard calls all of the workers together and pays everyone exactly the same amount. The workers who were lounging under the shade of a tree until four o’clock in the afternoon are paid the same wage – the exact same amount – as those who labored all day in the hot sun. Is that fair? The workers who had been up since dawn, sweating all day in the vineyard, grumble and who can blame them? Is this any way to run a business? Is this anyway to treat workers who have done all that was asked of them? Again, where is the fairness here?
Last spring I went to visit our older daughter, Bethany, in Louisiana. I was going to be there for a few days, so I had a large suitcase that I had to check. I was flying on Southwest Airlines out of the Oakland Airport and was told I had better get there at least 90 minutes, maybe two hours early to get my baggage checked in. So I did – I got there early like I was supposed to do. And I was glad I did because the line waiting to check luggage was humongous! I waited and waited, 30 minutes passed, then 60 minutes passed. An hour and 15 minutes passed. Gradually my flight time was getting closer and I was gradually getting closer to the front of the line. And then they called my flight number! “Anyone here going on Flight 125?” A number of people in back of me said, “Yes! We’re going!” A woman took the people behind me to the front of the line, checked their bags and sent them on their way. I said, “Well, wait a minute, what about me, I’m on Flight 125 and I’ve been standing in line for 90 minutes.” She said, “Oh, you’re close enough to the front, you just wait, it won’t be much longer.” I had come early like I was supposed to do! The people who had been in line 5 minutes, who had arrived late, who obviously were not nearly as responsible as I, were moved ahead of me. I felt like I was being punished for having arrived on time. I said as much to the agent who finally checked my bag, but she did not seem to share my concern in the least little bit. This was unfair! This was unjust! These late arrivers, these irresponsible slackers… they went ahead of me! As you can perhaps tell, I can still get a bit worked about this, all these many months later. So when the workers who toiled all day in the sun complain, I feel a measure of sympathy them. They were right to complain. Who wouldn’t?
Trouble is, this parable really isn’t about me, or you, and our sense of entitlement – what we deserve, what is rightfully ours. In fact, it really turns the concept of entitlement upside down. Nor is this parable a commentary on corporate economics or an example of how employers, even Christian employers, are to treat their employees.
Let’s get real. This parable has nothing to do with business advice. Any company that paid employees hired in December the same yearly wage as those who worked a full twelve months would soon have trouble finding anyone in the office or at the loading dock from January to November. Says Tom Long, a preaching professor, “The purpose of this parable is not to provide a practical guide for the management of a vineyard, a factory, or a classroom. Indeed, the aim of this parable is to be monumentally impractical, to fracture so thoroughly our expectations, our customary patterns of practicality, that we are forced to think new thoughts – new thoughts about ourselves, about other people, about God.”
First, let’s start with God. What might this day about God? One of my favorite preachers, Fred Craddock, tells about a time he was preaching a series of sermons in a large church in South Carolina. During a break he decided to take a stroll through the church cemetery. He writes, “All the graves were lined up in a perfect row, except for this one grave which was crosswise, or as we used to say, ‘catawampus.’ At that angle, it actually took up three burial plots. I pondered that. What a careless thing to do. Why would they do that? Suddenly I became aware of another man walking around in the cemetery. I said to him, ‘Are you from around here?’
“’Yeah,’ he said, ‘You’re looking at that grave, aren’t you?’
“’Yes.’
“’I knew that fellow. We were in the same church. I knew him well, knew him all my life.’
“I asked, ‘Why this burial at an angle?’
“’Well the family wanted that, and the church agreed.’
“’But why?’ I asked.
“’Because that’s the kind of guy he was.’
“I asked, ‘What do you mean, the kind of guy he was?’
“’He was crossways with everybody and everything. We never knew him to be pleased about anything at home or at church. ‘Well, why is she doing that?’ he’d say, or ‘Why’d they ask him to do that? He’s the wrong one to be doing this.’ He said that kind of stuff all the time, all the time, and the family decided they wouldn’t try to change him just because he was dead. So they buried him crosswise.’
“’That was an awful thing to do,’ I said.
“’They wanted it to be a witness. The family said if God wants to straighten him out then God can straighten him out. But he left here crosswise, just like he lived.’”
“You get what you deserve,” we say, ‘What goes around comes around.” “He lived crosswise, let’s bury him crosswise.” But then we run headlong into this parable and we find that our self-satisfied, smug assumptions about the ways things are, suddenly are in great peril.
The workers who worked one hour are paid the same as those who worked an entire day! The landowner doesn’t seem particularly interested in what the workers think they deserve, what they think they are entitled to. No, he is motivated by what they need. Everybody gets a full day’s wage, everybody gets enough to provide for life. In the words of Thomas Long, “Everybody in the parable is tendered with the wealth of the kingdom; the deep river of providence flows through everybody’s life…a deluge of grace descends on all; torrents of joy and blessing fall everywhere.” No one gets buried crosswise in this kingdom. This is a God of scandalous graciousness who does not play by our rules, who is not bound by our assumptions of merit and who deserves what.
But then the question becomes, what do we think of this? What do we think of such an amazing, surprising, scandalous grace, especially when it is conferred upon those whom we believe don’t deserve it? The response in our parable is pretty clear. Such grace leads to grumbling. It becomes a story of entitlement versus grace. “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us” “I came early like I was supposed to, I have stood in line for over an hour, and now you are letting these latecomers go ahead of me? It’s not fair. They don’t deserve it!” Says one pastor, “Here is a story of how God’s grace is so surprising, so beyond our comprehension or appropriation, as to be downright exasperating. It’s either a story about a generous God or a grumbling humanity; either way it isn’t easy to take…A lesson from the story, if you are looking for a lesson, is that God’s ways often make the world a surprising, sometimes confusing place to live. I like my world more predictable than that.”
And so do I. As I already said, I immediately identify with the all day workers who get paid the same as the one-hour workers; with the older brother who labors on the farm while his younger brother wastes his inheritance on wine, women and song, only to be thrown a homecoming party when he gets back.
Reflecting on this text and our response to seemingly undeserved grace, a UCC colleague, Anthony Robinson, says, “What is so powerful about this text is its challenge to the incredibly thick soup of meritocratic assumptions we all live in…When our only measure is fairness, when our preoccupation is our just desserts, we lose touch with a sense of grace and graciousness. We forget about the people who love us more than we deserve, and the God who has extended generosity and forgiveness to us. Many have commented in recent years about the hard edge of anger building up in our society. Could it be that when life is reduced to ‘you-get-what-you-deserve’, hearts contract and compassion and kindness dry up? Perhaps knowing ourselves as receivers of astonishing mercy is what opens our hearts and hands to others.”
Again, in the parable, this whole idea of who deserves what gets turned topsy-turvy. “Are you envious because I am generous?” asks the vineyard owner. What do we do with a God who won’t abide by our standards of who gets mercy and who doesn’t? What do we do with a God who just might see each of us as needing grace, forgiveness, and mercy as much as anyone else? Could it be that God’s great generosity and my grumbling in response exposes the poverty of my spirit? Says Jesus, “The bottom line here is that God chooses to be generous. To the leper, to the poor, to the least and the last, to those of whom we may not approve, to the late comers, and yes folks, even to you, God chooses to be generous.” Deal with it.
The story is told and Jesus walks away, leaving us to decide how we will respond to this scandalous display of divine good will. May God grant us the grace to be gracious with the world and with ourselves, as gracious as an exasperating God continues to be with us.
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