Sermon on Matt 20:1-16

     I’ve been keeping a log of the things that happen in my house that aren’t fair. With a 6-year old daughter, I am kept constantly updated on them. “It’s not fair,” she says, at least four times a day. Here is a sampling of this week’s unfair things: You can't have dessert yet, you haven't finished your dinner. "But Holden is eating his dessert - it's not fair!" Time to come in and get ready for bed. "But we're not done playing - it's not fair!" Time for bed. "But I didn't get to watch a movie today. It's not fair." Holden is watching a movie. “I don’t want to watch this movie! It’s not fair!” A woman I met at Holden Village this summer gave me a great solution to this last one. When her daughter complained that her younger brother got to pick the movie, and they should take turns, this mother said, “Well, you got to pick for 4 years before he was born, so let’s have him pick for the next 4 years, and then you can start taking turns.” How’s that for fair?
     Of course, what Grace means by fair does not match the dictionary definition. That’s always the problem with “fair.” Each of us has an idea of what fair is and they rarely match. In the Gospel reading today, we hear another “No fair!” story. Jesus tells a parable about the landowner who goes again and again to the marketplace looking for workers. Some come and work a full day, from sun-up to sundown. The man agrees to pay them the usual daily wage. Some only work a couple hours. When he hires these, he just says, “I will pay you whatever is right.” At the end of the day, when it comes time to pay them, he pays all of them the same amount, no matter how long they worked. Those who worked all day grumble about it, and cry “no fair!” And I have to agree with them. What would the world come to if everyone behaved like that landowner? How many people lined up to work for him the next day at dawn? How many at 5pm? This is no way to run a business! Is that what we are supposed to do with this parable? Figure out what is right in our economic dealings? It can certainly be applied that way.
     Maria worked for a church, 6 hours a week, at $12 an hour, cleaning the building. She cobbled together her living through several similar arrangements. Her English wasn’t good, and she often communicated through notes written by her son. Once, when she was in a car accident, she spent 24 hours in the hospital, and then came straight to work, since it was her regular day. She brought her son with to help. She didn’t want to go over the agreed-upon 6 hours, but she was moving a bit slow from her injuries. She had an aging father who lived abroad, and when he got sick, she wanted to go be with him. She asked the pastor, through her son’s translation, whether she could have two weeks of paid time off. The pastor, not knowing quite how to answer, turned to the stewardship team. “What should we do? Do we have a policy on this?” At first, they came back with the expected answers. They seemed to be in agreement: “We would love to give her the paid time off, but that’s just not done! People who work 6 hours a week don’t get that. If that was the norm, of course we would do it, but we just don’t do that here in America.” Then one of them, the treasurer, took the question to prayer. And he remembered this parable. What was it that the grumblers said, the ones who started first and were paid last? What was their complaint? Not that those who came late got paid the same. It was “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us…” In his prayers, he asked, what is God calling us to do as a Church? How can we allow the kingdom to break in here? How can this parable give us some sense of that kingdom; how can we make Maria, who works only 6 hours, equal to those who work full time? It seemed like offering her paid time off would be one simple way to “make her equal.” So he sent an email. The response was overwhelmingly different this time. Of course! We are in charge here. We can decide to do things differently. They gave Maria her time off, paid in full.
     Well, that is certainly a practical application of this parable. And a good one. But is this a parable about economics? Are we to apply it to the stock market? Are we to reduce Jesus to a professor at a business school? No. There is a lot more going on in this story. What we learn from this story is that God is not interested in economics. At least not in the way we are. God is interested in people. God is interested in economics only insomuch as economics affect people. When Maria received her paid time off, it was not about the money – it was what, $150? It was about seeing Maria as equal in dignity and deservedness to someone who works 40 hours a week. In fact, Maria probably works far more than 40 hours a week, just not all for one employer. Regardless, by setting aside the conventions, the relationship between Maria and the church changed. The stewardship team’s focus shifted, from seeing Maria as an employee, a means of getting the building cleaned, to seeing her as an individual, someone living her own story, a valued child of God. God calls us to relationship, both with God and with one another. And relationship, true relationship, is not an economic arrangement. True relationship is not about what is fair.
     This is the point that Jonah missed. After all of his running away from God’s call to go to Nineveh, being thrown overboard, swallowed by a “great fish,” and spit up on the shore, Jonah finally gets to Nineveh and tells them God’s message, in the most cursory fashion possible. “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” he told them. Unlike most of the prophetic speeches in the Old Testament, there is no call to repentance, no listing of crimes. Jonah doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want Nineveh to be spared, and so does not give them anything more than the bare minimum. “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” But God works through this unwilling prophet anyway! God moves the people of Nineveh to repent – and not just the people, but the animals too. All of Nineveh repents, and “God renounced the punishment He had planned to bring upon them, and did not carry it out.” And how does Jonah’s react? “No fair! See God, this is what I said in the first place! I just knew you were going to be merciful, once you and Nineveh got to know each other! And I didn’t want mercy for Nineveh! That’s why I didn’t want to come here! That’s why I didn’t want to introduce you!” Jonah is so indignant; he would rather die than see God’s mercy for a place like Nineveh. But God is not interested in what’s fair. God is interested in relationship. The people, and even the animals, of Nineveh have turned “back from evil ways and injustice,” and they are “crying mightily to God,” (as chapter 3 says). These are people who want a relationship with God. Should God strike them down just at the hour of their desire to know God? If Jonah has his way, yes. If fairness has its way, yes. But God is not interested in fairness. God is interested in relationship.
     Jonah and the workers in the vineyard see the world in terms of reward and punishment, in terms of equal exchange in economic arrangements. And so do we, most of the time. But of course, at the beginning of the day, all of the workers were unemployed, standing idle in the marketplace. It is not until the landowner comes to them that they have any hope of receiving anything at all that day. And that is the real moment of grace. It is not at the end of the day, when all are made equal by being given equal pay. The real reward is in the landowner who repeatedly comes to the marketplace and invites the workers into the vineyard. Isn’t it funny how our first instinct is to identify with those workers who were there the longest, and “deserved” more than the ones who started late? But really, if I’m honest with myself, I know that I’m more like the one who started at the end of the day. I’m desperate, and I’m willing to take whatever I get. And when I get it, and it’s better than I deserve, I rejoice. I keep my mouth shut and hope that no one notices the mistake! I forget that I’ve already received the real moment of God’s grace. In my baptism, and even before my baptism, God came to me and invited me into relationship. 2000 years ago, Christ came and invited the world into relationship. 21 years ago, at my baptism, Christ came and invited me into relationship. Today, in their baptism, Christ invites Cordell Richard and Elizabeth into relationship. The work that we do in the vineyard is in response to that generous gift. The work that we do in our lives is in response to that invitation. The work that we offer to God is our response to our relationship with God. At the end of the day, the true reward is not in some equal exchange to preserve the rules of fairness, “I give you this, you give me that.” The true reward is in the gift of God’s love, that moved God to come to us, to die for us, and to give us everlasting life. Christ comes to again and again, offering us relationship again and again. We see that in the meal that we share together today, Christ coming to us in the bread and the wine, renewing and strengthening that relationship. And we respond, and are gladly sent forth into service, not for the reward we will receive, but because of the reward we have already received. Amen.