The Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew the 20th Chapter
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
The parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard is one of Jesus’s “Parables of Judgement.” These parables use a story, set in a familiar, comfortable setting to draw people in deeply. Then, just when the listeners get settled in and began to feel that Jesus thought and believed just like they did, he’d throw in the giant plot twist! Jesus did that to SHOCK the people out of the place where their faith had become twisted and entrenched. A place where they were certain they knew exactly how God worked and what God wanted... which just happened to be exactly the same as what they wanted.
The truth was that many of them had some very twisted ideas about God. Some had twisted God into a shape that would support their unbridled pursuit of wealth and power. Some would twist God into a shape where they believed that they and God hated all the same people… agreed completely on who was “in” and who was “out”. Others twisted God so they were sure that God supported their particular political platform… justifying either the violent support of a rebellious Jewish Nationalism or an unquestioning collusion with the Romans. For folks like that, faithfulness to God was the same as faithfulness to country or party.
Now, the players and parties may have changed over the last 2000 years but the twisting of God to meet a particular prejudice, bias, or party agenda is pretty much the same. Because I’m a clergy nerd, it is very interesting to watch posts and comments online that demonstrate that trend these days in both Lutheran and Episcopal circles. But we’re not the only culprits. The Evangelicals and Roman Catholics and every other flavor play this game too: “You can’t be a faithful (fill in denomination here) and vote for a (fill in political party here)!” “Person X is not a good/faithful member of (denomination X) because she supports (Position Y)!”
When we do that, we become exactly like the people Jesus was trying to SHOCK back then with this and other Parables of Judgement. He is challenging us, as he challenged the people back then, to stop trying to make God in OUR image… a God who loves who we love, thinks what we think, acts like we act, hates who we hate. Instead Jesus is challenging us with this story to let the authentic and admittedly radical nature of God shape and transform US!
There once was a vineyard owner who needed his grapes brought to the crusher NOW. They are prefect...NOW and would NOT be perfect tomorrow. He hires all the workers he can at the beginning of the perfect day and offers them a living wage but it’s just not enough hands! The second bunch is hired later for “whatever’s right” and the others he just sends out into the field in a mad rush to get the grapes to the crusher before sunset without any talk of pay. At the end of the day, with the grapes safely in the winery, he pays everyone a full day’s wage regardless of how much time they worked. This was the plot twist of the story and the people hearing it would be outraged! “People who don’t deserve it are getting it?!”
Jesus told this story 2000 years ago but I’ve heard that exact reaction from folks in our country AND right here in River City, just in the last six months! “If you pay people $600 a week unemployment (a living wage) they won’t want to go back to work!” “How will we know if each of those school families really needs a Marketplace meal or if they’re just trying to get something for free?” “So and so shouldn’t get a meal from John Andrews! They have tons of money!” Both then and now we try to force God to think like we think and act the way we act and when God just goes off and does God’s own thing we yell out, just like Jesus’ original audience did, “People who don’t deserve it are getting it!” “It just isn’t fair!”
The people who yelled then and the people that yell now are exactly right! Not everyone does deserve it. It isn’t fair... and that is EXACTLY the point Jesus makes with story of vineyard owner… God doesn’t care who you think deserves it and God doesn’t care what you think is “fair!” God is... GOD!... and so God does what God wants with what belongs to God... which is everything.
For the vineyard owner it was his money. He could do what he wanted with it regardless of what anybody else thought. Turns out he thought differently than the others and only cared that everyone got what they needed. In the story that was one denarius… the means to have food and shelter for one more day. I’m sure the people listening to Jesus thought, “They got something they didn’t need!” “Someone else needs that more!” “They got something they didn’t deserve!” But the hook in this parable is that neither the vineyard owner NOR GOD care what national, cultural, family, traditional or civic values people want them to follow! Neither the vineyard owner NOR God will conform to what WE want them to be or act how WE want them to act.
The idea that God isn’t “fair” is hard. The idea that “those people” didn’t get what we think they deserved at the “end of the day” is harder. But wait, it gets harder still! Because you and I are called to work with that “unfair” God to make “Thy Kingdom come and Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven!” That means that you and I are called to set aside what WE think our neighbors deserve… set aside what WE’VE been taught by the world is right or fair, and instead work to make sure that our neighbors get from us, exactly what God has first given us… exactly what they need without any of our personal, party, or patriotic conditions that we are perpetually tempted to impose.
Now, I can see you there through the camera shaking your head. Telling God, “yeah but”. You’re thinking this is crazy! It just can’t work! But God was so sure this is the Way that DOES work that he sent his Son to bring each of us and the entire world, not what we “deserve” or what is “fair” but just what we need, so that having what we need, we can then pass it on to others. Untangling what we have learned from the things like our Puritan Founding and our American Civil Religion... things like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, teaching someone to fish instead of giving them a fish and that God and country have the same agenda, is VERY hard. But untangling those notions from the genuine teachings of Christ’s radical, unconditional, all inclusive love and grace is exactly the challenge Jesus has given us today. Amen.
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