Sermon for Sunday, June 17, 2007

DO YOU BEGRUDGE MY GENEROSITY?

2^nd in a series on The Subversive  Parables of Jesus

by

Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

Father's Day

Scripture: Matthew 20:1-15 from the Good News Bible Translation

¹ "The Kingdom of heaven is like this. Once there was a man who went out early in the morning to hire some men to work in his vineyard. ² He agreed to pay them the regular wage, a silver coin a day, and sent them to work in his vineyard. ³ He went out again to the marketplace at nine o'clock and saw some men standing there doing nothing, ⁴ so he told them, "You also go and work in the vineyard, and I will pay you a fair wage.' ⁵ So they went. Then at twelve o'clock and again at three o'clock he did the same thing. ⁶ It was nearly five o'clock when he went to the marketplace and saw some other men still standing there. "Why are you wasting the whole day here doing nothing?' he asked them. ⁷ "No one hired us,' they answered. "Well, then, you go and work in the vineyard,' he told them. ⁸ "When evening came, the owner told his foreman, "Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with those who were hired last and ending with those who were hired first.' ⁹ The men who had begun to work at five o'clock were paid a silver coin each. ¹⁰ So when the men who were the first to be hired came to be paid, they thought they would get more; but they too were given a silver coin each. ¹¹ They took their money and started grumbling against the employer. ¹² "These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, "while we put up with a whole day's work in the hot sun-yet you paid them the same as you paid us!' ¹³ "Listen, friend,' the owner answered one of them, "I have not cheated you. After all, you agreed to do a day's work for one silver coin. ¹⁴ Now take your pay and go home. I want to give this man who was hired last as much as I gave you. ¹⁵ Don't I have the right to do as I wish with my own money? Or are you jealous because I am generous?' "

This parable is one of the most troubling and jarring stories that Jesus tells. It is obviously unfair. People who work a longer time should be paid more than people who work a shorter time. Everyone can see that Right?

And this vineyard owner is obviously not a good businessman. What is going to happen the next day when he goes back to the market place to hire another group of workers? What do you think they will say? They will probably say, when he comes early in the morning: We saw what you did yesterday; you paid the people who came to work at 5 P.M. the same wage as the people who came to work early in the morning, so we think we’ll just stand here and visit together till you come back later this afternoon and THEN we will work a couple of hours for you and make the same amount of money.

But this is not a parable about how to run a vineyard. It is a story about God and what God is like and how God treats people who come to God at whatever stage of life.

It is still a jarring and unsettling and subversive story. A landowner goes to hire workers to harvest. It is an urgent matter. When the time came, the harvest needed to be done quickly. Perhaps that is why he goes back every three hours or so. It also raises even more unsettling questions for us western capitalist, Protestant work ethic sort people. Where were all those potential workers at 6 A.M.? If people really want to work, why would they get there at 9 A.M. or noon or even 3 P.M.? Are they lazy? Were they in bed with a hangover and just couldn’t get to the labor market before noon?

The landowner agrees to pay the early workers a denarius for the day. It is the going rate for a day’s work in Jesus’ time. It is a subsistence wage. It will buy food for a family but not much more. And wages were paid daily so people could buy food at the end of each day. This was a peasant culture and most people were just barely getting by. 

When the man hires the later workers, what does he promise them? Is it a specific amount like the early workers? No, he says simply he will pay them what is right and fair.

When the workers are paid at day’s end, he pays the later workers first and pays them the usual daily wage—a denarius. They were probably happy because it meant they could feed their families. The earlier workers, those who started at 6 A.M. or 9 A.M. thought they would probably get more then what they had been told, but they grumbled and complained when they got exactly what they had agreed to—the same wage of a denarius.

Look at what they say: YOU HAVE MADE THESE LATE COMERS EQUAL TO US!!

It is a statement that has troubling overtones over many years. When the Pharisees in Jesus’ audience heard this, they identified with it because it seemed to them that Jesus was doing the same thing in welcoming and accepting people who were unacceptable—lepers, Samaritans, prostitutes, tax collectors—unworthy people, despicable people according to their strict purity laws and they found that attitude of grace from Jesus deeply troubling and offensive. The Pharisees were decent and upright and righteous and they knew those other folks were outcasts; and they knew that they, the righteous people were MORE equal. They were MORE worthy than these sinful latecomers. 

YOU HAVE MADE THEM EQUAL TO US—AND WE DON’T LIKE IT ONE BIT!! We can look at other places we hear that phrase from the more respectable folk, the status conscious, the leaders. It was a theme in the American Civil War when the issue of slavery was so divisive and the laws stated that people with dark skin were only two thirds as worthy as people with light skin. YOU HAVE MADE THEM EQUAL TO US???

We heard that statement in the movement 100 years ago for women’s right to vote in our country when righteous male leaders were outraged that women might be seen as “equal to us”. We heard statements like that in the civil rights movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s when white racists were deeply offended that others might be seen as “equal to us”. We hear it amidst our current controversies of how to treat 12 million immigrants who did not come to the country legally or in the emotional debate about same sex marriage when many spokespersons just know that people with same sex orientation are just not equal to people with heterosexual orientation.

It is a troubling statement from the story from 2000 years ago because we still hear it from the people on top of the status ladder.

The disturbing aspects of the vineyard worker story remind me of the famous story that Jesus told about the father with two sons and the youngest who took his share early and wasted it and came back to a royal welcome while the faithful older brother had stayed home and kept everything afloat and seemed to be taken for granted.

The story is sometimes called the parable of the Prodigal Father, the generous father, an appropriate parallel story for Father’s Day because the issue in it is the same as the vineyard worker story: when is it appropriate as fathers and mothers to do what the key character each time does: when is it appropriate to be just and consistent or even legalistic and follow the rules to the letter, and when is it appropriate to be compassionate and flexible and gracious? Most of us parents have done both, depending on the circumstances and perhaps depending on which child we are parenting.

Let me come at the story from a different tack: the choices for the workers in the story were to stand around doing nothing in the labor market place or to work. Is there any additional benefit or reward from working/being active other than the money itself? How do you feel about the work you do either as an employee or as a volunteer? Is it just for the money (if employed) or is there some other satisfaction and benefit from knowing that you are making a difference? Certainly that must be true for volunteers.

So by allowing the idle men in the market to go to work, the land owner was doing two things: he was allowing them to earn just enough money to feed their families (the reason that a prayer for “our daily bread” is in the Lord’s Prayer is that daily bread was not a given as it is for almost all of us)—he let them minimally feed their families and he also gave them a chance to be productive, to make a difference. I have a friend who tried to retire in his forties and he did retire for about a year and skied and played golf and then decided he did not enjoy doing “nothing”—that he wanted to be productive, and he went back to work.

Most of us need to know that we are making a difference in work or in our volunteer roles and that explains why there is such an abnormally high involvement of volunteers/servant leaders in this church; the 500 people who signed up to help with Habitat For Humanity is another example. There is a reward in making a difference.

By the way, some people look at Jesus’ parable and say that this is a rationale for not becoming a Christian until the end of your life (if you can plan it!) because you can live a life of decadence and greed and selfishness and then convert at the end and the “pay is the same” at the end. Well, is the reward the same? Or isn’t there a reward in just living each day unselfishly and generously and making a difference for others? I think the longer people wait to live the life of service and kindness that is the Jesus style of life, the more they miss. What do you think?

One more line from the story: the landowner says to the early workers who are complaining to him, “Are you jealous because I am generous?” one translator says, “Do you begrudge my generosity?” Interesting question!! Sometimes I do begrudge God’s generosity! I can be a very good Pharisee and legalist and rule follower, and I resent it sometimes when people don’t follow the rules like I think they should. And I am not proud of that.

And the story says that God is more flexible than I am. And that God is more compassionate and more gracious than I am. And after all, Jesus is telling this story about what God is like and what it would be like if God were king or president or emperor (the “kingdom of God” means that). God is gracious and welcoming and God is especially welcoming to latecomers.

Dan Wakefield is a TV script writer. I have talked about him before. He is a recovering alcoholic who at one time was drinking a liter of white wine a day. He suffered several losses in his life in a period of a year. He moved from LA to Boston and finally got into a treatment program and one December he was with some friends and they talked about gong to church on Christmas Eve and invited him. It was a pivotal worship service because 48 year old Wakefield, spiritually empty, felt the minister in his sermon was speaking right to him when the minister talked about the Wise Men who came to the manger quite a few days later than every one else—they were late comers to faith, the preacher said, and God always welcomes the late comers just as warmly as God welcomes people who came there first.

Have you ever felt like a late comer? Today’s story says, God is welcoming and compassionate and goes out looking for you to be part of the team. All latecomers are welcome!!

And the story says, God is compassionate. God is like the landowner. God keeps inviting people several times a day to labor in the vineyard. And God is compassionate. Jesus tells us that in Luke’s gospel when he gives us a command that we have overlooked. Jesus tells us as his followers, “Be compassionate just as God is compassionate.” And today’s story is about the compassion of God to make sure that each person is cared for no matter when we come to the vineyard.

Be compassionate—even when it may seem on one level to be unfair?? Isn’t that the difficulty of this story? How do we in our own country in a highly emotional debate about immigration, a debate in which one presidential candidate has just said that he wants to stop all immigration for a few years—legal and illegal—and just take time out on anyone new coming to our country—how do we balance the two values that are important to us—both a respect for law, and the practice of compassion. Both those are important for us as people of faith and as Americans, are they not? How do we balance justice and compassion as we look at a story from Jesus about how to treat late comers and what do people deserve and not deserve?

What do we do with this story if we are, like the man in the story, business people? How do we practice both fairness and compassion? What is the right thing to do for all employees? What do people deserve? Did the late workers deserve to be paid the same as the early workers? What if the criterion was not about what they deserve but what kind of treatment would allow them to feed their families for a day? 

What should a business’s policy be about that controversial and costly matter of health insurance for its workers? Do you know what Starbucks does about health insurance for all its people? It does something almost unheard of. It provides health insurance coverage for its 20 hour a week team members as well as its 40 hour a week team members. It does that because when Starbuck’s founder Howard Schultz was a boy, his truck driver dad had an accident and was off work for many weeks and had no insurance; Schultz saw the terrible damage to his family and to his father and vowed to himself that if he ever had a business, he would never let that devastation occur for his employees.

Does everyone deserve that? Does every child in America DESERVE to have health insurance, even the ten million children who have no health coverage right now? Is that realistic? Is it a moral issue? I think it is a moral issue.

Finally, where are you in today’s story? Whom do you identify with today—the employer, the all day workers, the late comers? Will you talk about that with someone today? And will you talk with someone about this question: if you were going to rewrite this troubling parable from Jesus, how would you rewrite it so it is not so subversive?

Judy and I have been long time fans of the HBO series the Sopranos and we have enjoyed the national debate on how the last episode ended. I thought it was just brilliant and I like the fact that it has people talking about it all this last week. I think that is good drama and good literature when something makes us think and unsettles us and causes us to examine it more closely.

I think Jesus’ parables, this one in particular, are like that, and if it has caused us to reflect and think again and talk about God and about fairness and about generosity and compassion and to talk energetically about all those things with other people this week, Jesus will be pleased.

 Amen.

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