We’ve heard over these summer Sundays that the parables are meant to challenge us, to surprise us, to make us uncomfortable, and I’m going to add that I think the parables are meant to change us. That’s my hope, at least. They are meant to cause us to think differently about what it means to love God and others, to be a disciple of Christ, to live out our faith at this time and in this place. What do these stories have to say to us in this moment, here and now? Jesus taught with parables. A parable was a teaching tool. He didn’t teach with power point slides or video presentations. He didn’t use charts or flannel graphs or books or props. He didn’t tweet or Facebook or Instagram. Jesus told stories. It’s the way he tried to get his point across and he told stories over and over again. He told stories to illustrate what the kingdom of God is like.
Jesus taught with stories to people who were accustomed to learning from stories. We are not those people. We would prefer a nice power point presentation and some props, I think. We might even prefer a tweet or a Facebook post or a well written blog. And we’ve tried to domesticate these stories of Jesus’. We’ve tried to make them simple and easy to understand. We’ve tried to make them safe. But they’re not safe. They’re not easy. They’re wild and upsetting. And they should make us shift around in our seats. They should make us question what think we know about God and God’s kingdom. They should shake us right out of our certainties. Our certainties help us to make sense of the world around us but then Jesus says something that makes no sense at all like “So the last will be first and the first will be last.” He says it matter of factly as though the preceding story has clearly taught us what God’s kingdom is like.
Jesus has been asked again and again what it takes to be a part of the kingdom. The disciples wanted to know. A rich young man wanted to know. I think the religious leaders wanted to know though perhaps they thought they already had the answer. We want to know. What does it take to be a part of the kingdom? What must I do to have eternal life? And will the hardest workers get the greatest reward? Will the most faithful sit at the right hand of God? Where will we all rank? There has to be a hierarchy. There has to be. Those who work the hardest will receive a greater reward, right? Those who are the most faithful will be at the front of the line, right? Those who followed the commandments to the T, those who attend church every Sunday, those who listen to Christian music and memorize Bible verses, those who have been lifelong Christians and didn’t even wander away for a time in college, those who never ever swear, they’ve got the golden ticket, right? Those who have worked hard and done what is right. Because anything else would be unfair.
Those who work the hardest get ahead, don’t they? Sometimes. I’m sure we can all think of people who work harder than we do and have less. I’m sure we can all think of a time when we’ve been rewarded for something and didn’t really do anything to earn the reward. I’m sure we can all think of someone for whom things do not come easily and yet they toil away day after day. I’m sure we can all think of someone for whom things come very easily and it doesn’t appear they work at all. Did you ever study really hard for a test and not get a good grade while a friend didn’t study at all and somehow managed to get an A? Have you ever been passed over for a promotion by someone less qualified than you? Did you ever put your all into a project, sacrifice time away from those you love, and not get any credit for it, in the end? Have you ever stood in line, filled out all the paperwork correctly, followed all the rules and were still denied? It’s not fair, is it? Well, life’s not fair. How many have heard that a time or two? We don’t like it when things aren’t fair. It should be that the hard workers get ahead. It should be that hard work and dedication pay off. That’s how things should be, we think. The good prevail and the bad fail. The lazy are punished. The hard-working are honored. Good pay for an honest day’s work. This is the way things are supposed to go. When things don’t follow these rules, it’s not fair. It’s not right. Our sense of justice is upset.
And on the subject of hard work. How else will we know we are worthy? If we don’t work hard and follow the rules and do as we know we ought, how will we know we are worthy? Someone asked me this week how will I know I’ve done a good job and my answer was, well, when I get as much done in a day as I can. (That was the wrong answer, by the way.) But it’s how we are programmed to think. Hard work pays off. So, we do as much as we possibly can in any given day to prove our worth. We try so hard to be the best…the best spouse, the best friend, the best son or daughter, the best accountant, the best lawyer, the best mom or dad, the best pastor because then we’ll know that we are worthy…worthy of another’s time, of our position in life, of our families, worthy of God’s love. We want to be worthy therefore we want to be successful and hard working perhaps wealthy and attractive to boot. Then we’ll know that we are lovable and deserving. We’ll just work really hard in order to deserve love and grace and God’s generosity. It’s all very measurable and black and white. It all makes sense to us in our world full of comparisons and expectations and arbitrary value systems.
So, this parable of Jesus about the workers in the vineyard should really upset us. What exactly does Jesus mean when he says the last will be first (the LAST will be FIRST) and the first will be last? That’s not how things are supposed to work. That’s not fair. The all day laborers didn’t think that’s how things should work either.
Let’s think about what this story says…there was a landowner in need of workers so early in the morning he goes to the marketplace and hires some. Day laborers would have been gathered there hoping to be chosen. They would have needed their daily wage in order to live. Pick me, pick me, they’re probably all thinking. Well, the chosen ones go off to begin their full day’s work, the weight of their worries has been lifted. The landowner goes back to the marketplace a little bit later and notices some other workers standing around and he hires them, too, promises to pay them what is right. He does the same thing again around noon and then around 3. He tells them to go to work in the field and he’ll pay them what is right. At 5 o’clock, one hour before quitting time, he’s back in the marketplace noticing some workers. He asks them why they’ve stood around all day doing nothing and they tell him that they haven’t been hired. I imagine they’re distressed. They need their daily wage in order to live. So, the landowner hires them, too.
And at the end of the day, he tells his manager to pay all of the workers starting with the ones who came last. They are paid the usual daily wage. Well, the first hired see this and think they’ve hit the jackpot. If those guys who only worked an hour get the usual daily wage, what will they who worked the full day receive? After all, they worked longer and harder than the rest. They toiled in the sun from the early morning until the evening. Those other guys only worked an hour. Well, imagine the first workers’ surprise when they, too, receive the usual daily wage. The same as all the others even though they worked longer and harder. It’s not fair, they say. But the landowner holds firm. He gave to each what was promised whether they worked a full day or not. “I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you,” he says. Well, that doesn’t make sense. Those last guys didn’t deserve the same wage as the first. And those first guys deserved way more. They worked harder and longer. It’s not fair. This upsets our sense of justice. To our way of thinking, this isn’t right. And yet Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven is like this….life isn’t fair and it turns out God isn’t fair either. It turns out God is generous instead. The kingdom of heaven isn’t the place where everyone gets what they deserve. The kingdom of heaven isn’t the place where we get to decide what is fair and right. It turns out that our rules don’t matter much in the kingdom. Things are not measurable or quantifiable or black and white much as we might like them to be.
It seems the kingdom isn’t about fairness or what we think is right. It seems the kingdom is about love and generosity. It seems the kingdom isn’t about what we deserve. You see, the kingdom is about getting what we don’t deserve. And that, beloved of God, is grace. I, for one, thank God that I’m not given what I deserve. Because I’ll never measure up. I’ll never be able to earn God’s love and grace. I’ll never earn my place in God’s kingdom. And neither will you. As it turns out we can’t govern God’s generosity. We can’t dictate who will receive God’s grace. “I choose to give to the last the same as I give to you.” Wages or grace or love or worth. We do not deserve God’s grace and yet we receive it as a gift. We do not deserve God’s love and yet God loves us still. We do not deserve God’s kingdom and yet it is our great delight to be called citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is like this, Jesus says. Our generous God gives us love and grace whether we’ve worked for it or not, whether we deserve it or not, whether we know it or not. And the thing is we don’t deserve it and we’ll never work hard enough to earn it. That’s why it’s grace.
A few weeks ago, Keenan and I went to see Wonder Woman. It’s chock full of reformed theology and if you haven’t seen it yet you should. In the movie, Diana Prince and her companions are out to save the world and along the way they share an interesting toast. Glasses raised they say “May we get what we want…and may we get what we need…but may we never get what we deserve.” The kingdom of heaven is like this…
Amen.
Rev. Alex Rodgers
Decatur Presbyterian Church
Decatur, GA
July 16, 2017
