The Rev. Kathi Johnson
Lectionary 25, Year A – 24 September 2017
Text: Matthew 20:1-16
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas
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If you are familiar with the old
classic, “Charlie Brown Christmas Special” – which was a staple of my childhood
– you might remember a scene with Charlie Brown’s little sister, Sally. I had
forgotten all about this scene until a blog post I read this week reminded me.
Sally writes a huge list for Santa of all her requested gifts, and, then – just
to cover all the bases – at the end of her letter, she says, “But if that is
too much to carry, just send cash.”
Charlie Brown calls out his sister
for her greed, and she says, “All I want is my fair share. All I want is what I
have coming to me!”[1]
If you ever want a true sense of
what is fair and what is not, become a teacher, or do anything that involves
spending lots of time with children, and you will learn. You might even find
yourself surrounded with Sallys – surrounded by little people all saying what
is fair and what isn’t.
At first glance, the parable in
today’s gospel lesson seems to take what is fair and throw it out the window. A
vineyard owner hires different groups of workers throughout the course of the
day, starting at about 9am, going out to hire the last workers at 5pm, or about
an hour before quitting time. At the end of the day, he pays everyone what
they’re due – he pays everyone the daily wage that they’ve agreed to.
I have a feeling that those first
workers hired by the vineyard owner might commiserate with Sally. After all,
they worked the longest amount of time – presumably from about 9am till about
6pm. Of course they would expect to get paid more than the people who were
hired at 5pm. In their minds, that’s only what is fair.
Except the vineyard owner in Jesus’
parable isn’t interested in what they think is fair. He’s interested in getting
work done in his vineyard, and paying people what they agreed to, and that’s
exactly what he does. And Jesus, in using this parable, doesn’t seem to be interested
in the fairness aspect either.
So maybe the point of this parable
isn’t what’s fair and what’s not. It sure does get our hackles up a little, and
maybe that is the goal because at least that means we are paying attention.
We like to get all wrapped up in
the question of fairness in this story, but – quite frankly – that’s the
low-hanging fruit. That’s the easy reaction. The more difficult response is to
pay more attention to the generosity of the vineyard owner to those who don’t
necessarily deserve his generosity. The more difficult response to this story,
too, is to recognize that we are like those workers who are hired last, getting
what we don’t deserve, receiving an outpouring for which we haven’t worked.
This is, of course, the heart of
the gospel message: that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through
the Holy Spirit that has been given to us….” Given to us! the Apostle Paul says in Romans 5 – not earned, but
given. He goes on to say that “… while we were still weak, at the right time
Christ died for the ungodly.” The heart
of the good news is that even though humanity has been weakened by sin, God in
Jesus steps into our weakness and gives us new life.
In his explanation to the Second
Article of the Apostle’s Creed – that’s the part of the creed where we talk
about Jesus – Luther says this:
“I believe that Jesus
Christ, true God, begotten of the Father in eternity, and also a true human
being, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord. He has redeemed me, a lost and
condemned human being. He has purchased and freed me from all sins, from death,
and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy,
precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.”
This parable describes the
generosity of God to us – to all of us, equally. And when Luther was asked why
on earth God would be so generous, his answer was this: “God has done all this in order
that I may belong to him, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in
eternal righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he is risen from the
dead and lives and rules eternally. This is most certainly true.” This
difficult parable helps us see that God’s generosity may not make any sense to
us, but it doesn’t have to.
Generosity often doesn’t make sense
on the surface, whether it’s generosity of spirit, or generosity of forgiveness
(as we’ve talked about the last two weeks), or financial generosity. If we feel
called to be generous, and we answer that call, some of our actions won’t seem
right to others. Some of our generous actions will be called into question,
just like those workers hired early in the day, who questioned the vineyard
owner’s actions.
Often when I travel by plane, I make
sure that whatever I carry onto the plane fits under the seat in front of me. I
do this for several reasons, one of which is so I don’t have to worry about
finding space in an overhead bin for a larger bag. When we all line up to
board, I don’t have to worry about fighting my way to the front of the line.
After all, as long as I get on the plane, I will end up at the same destination
as everyone else on that plane. Why does it matter if I am first or last?
The point of generosity is to show
love and grace. And so God reaches to humanity in our weakness and says, “The
last will be first and the first will be last,” so – to God, anyway – all our
shuffling around for the best position makes no difference. God is generous to
the first and to the last, and to everyone in between. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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[1] Thanks to Scott Hoezee for reminding me of this story.
Found at
http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/proper-20a/?type=the_lectionary_gospel.
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