World Communion Sunday
October 1, 2017
Matthew 20:1-16
One of the ongoing arguments I remember having with my
parents as a kid was whether or not life was fair. Something would happen and
my mom would say, “Life’s not fair.” I’d retort, “Life is too fair!” And to my mind, fair didn’t just mean equal, it meant the same. My younger sisters had to be
the same age I was when they got their ears pierced. On car rides, we
alternated sitting in the front passenger seat so that we’d all have the same
number of turns. Everything had to be fair. When I was a kid, I tried really
hard to make life fair. But life’s not fair, is it? Sometimes bad things happen
to good people. Sometimes the bad guys get away. Life’s not fair.
That
lack of fairness is what I’m struck by in this parable that Jesus tells his
disciples about the workers in the vineyard. It’s time to harvest the fruit in
the vineyard, and early in the morning the owner goes out to hire day laborers
who agree up front on their on their pay. Yet more workers are needed and so
mid-morning the owner goes out again to hire more people, who also agree up
front on their pay. The same thing happens at lunchtime and mid-afternoon and
even late afternoon: more workers are needed to finish the day’s harvest and
each time the owner finds more people and agrees on their pay before they start
working. At the end of the day, all the workers gather round, those who have
been there from sunup to those who didn’t come until late in the day. Everyone
who worked received the pay they had agreed to. That’s fair, right? Everyone
who worked received the same pay, no
matter how long they had worked. That doesn’t
sound fair, does it? The owner tells the workers who were there all day, “I am
not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take
your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave
you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you
envious because I am generous?”[1]
It doesn’t seem fair that those who worked from sunup got the same pay as those
who only worked a couple hours. Yet each one received the pay they agreed to
when they were hired.
It’s
important to remember when we hear this story that we are not the owner of the
vineyard. We are the workers. We are those who labor in God’s vineyard; God is the owner. And we should already
know that God isn’t fair. Fifteen
chapters before this in Matthew’s Gospel, during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus
has already pointed out that God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the
good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”[2]
We should already know that God isn’t fair. Yet we tend to identify with those
earlier workers, don’t we? Those who have toiled all day, those who have been
there from the beginning, those of us who have gone to church all our lives,
those of us who have stuck it through, no matter what. It’s not fair. And it’s
not. Someone who comes to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior while on their
deathbed still goes to heaven. It still counts. That’s what’s so amazing about
grace. It’s unconditional love. It’s not fair. It’s not based on what we do. We
don’t deserve it. We can’t deserve
it. That’s why it’s grace. All we can do is accept it, at whatever point along
our journey that we recognize it. For some of us who were baptized as infants,
it was recognized and accepted for us. Others of us were older when we came to
know that God loves us unconditionally. Abundant and unconditional love is not
fair.
So,
here’s the thing. God’s goal isn’t fairness. God’s goal is to give us what we need. In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask
God to “give us this day our daily bread.”[3]
We don’t pray for tomorrow’s bread;
we don’t need it today! If it’s
anything like the manna God gave the Israelites in the wilderness, it’s not
going to be any good tomorrow, anyway! God gives us enough for today. There’s this verse in 2 Peter
that I tend to think should be less obscure than it is. 2 Peter 1:3 says, “By
his divine power the Lord has given us everything we need for life and godliness
through the knowledge of the one who called us by his own honor and glory.” Did
you catch that? “The Lord has given us everything we need for life and
godliness.” Everything we need. Not everything we want. Not every creature
comfort. But everything we need for life and godliness. How? Through knowing
Jesus.
It
does raise the question, though, what about those who don’t have everything
they need for life? What about those who don’t have access to clean water and
adequate food and housing? What about those who are sick and those who live in paralyzing
fear? Well, there’s another “not fair” verse. Over in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus
says, “to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to
whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.”[4]
On the one hand, that’s reasonable. If you’ve been given more, then more is
expected of you. However, it’s not like you asked to receive more. And it’s not
fair that expectations differ depending on how much you were given. To whom much is given, much will be
demanded. We feel the weight of that because we are those to whom much has
been given. It’s not fair that more is asked of us because we have been given
more. And yet we can’t deny that we have been given more. We have been given so
many, many blessings: living in this great nation, living here, in northern Howard County, being able to enjoy the beauty of God’s
creation, being able to send our children to one of the best school systems in
the country. One of the verses that I often think about with my appointment
here is Psalm 16:6, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.” We have been given a lot, plus the
responsibility to use it wisely, to use it to help those who have not been given
a lot. It’s not fair that not everyone is given the same, and yet look at what
we’ve done just in the past three months I’ve been here: with your help, the
youth have put together cleaning buckets and hygiene kits to send those
affected by the hurricanes and we’ve collected three boxes of children’s books
to give to the Judy Center, which works for school readiness for young children
from low income families. It’s not fair, no. Not for us, and not for those
families. Yet, like Abraham, we have been blessed to be a blessing to others.[5]
We use the blessings we’ve received to bless others.
Today,
the first Sunday in October, is World Communion Sunday. It’s a time when we
remember that the church is not just us, but the church is all around the
world. We are part of a whole body of believers, with Jesus as the head of us.
When we break the bread and share the cup today, we remember that Christians
all around the world are doing this, too, with their own kind of bread and cup,
in cathedrals and open air tents, the same liturgy in all different languages,
because Jesus came for the whole world.
It’s not fair. Yet the Bible never says
God is fair. God sends rain on the just and the unjust. The Bible says God is
love and God loves us more than we can imagine. God invites us to join him in
sharing his love with the whole world, using the gifts he’s given us, whether
they’re a little or a lot. There’s another verse, over in Luke’s Sermon on the
Mount, where Jesus says, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure,
pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.
For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”[6]
How’s that for fairness? Do not be upset that God, like the owner of the
vineyard, is generous. I know many of us, myself included, identify with those
workers who came at sunup and worked all day. And when we dare to take a break,
it never lasts long. After my husband and I got married, when I was in
seminary, we picked a church to go to together, while we had the opportunity to
do so before I was appointed somewhere. We went to worship, and we didn’t get
involved. I had been on Ad Board, taught Sunday school, taught bible study, and
been on the education committee at my home church. It felt nice to not be overly involved. The
District Committee on Ordained Ministry found out and told me I had to get
involved with the local church again. It was nice while it lasted. Some of us
are those who have been working all day. We will receive our reward. And so
will all of our co-laborers who make it to the end of the day, no matter what
time they started. Because God is generous, we can be generous, too. It’s not
fair. It’s abundant and amazing love. Thanks be to God.
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