THE FOURTEENTH SUNDAY after PENTECOST

September 18, 2011

Text: Matthew 20:1-16

Pastor Dale G. Bauer

Like lots of stories in Gospels, I am troubled by this one. My immediate reaction to it, as it is so often: “Holy Smokes! What is going on here? This just isn’t fair.”

It’s known as the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. It is a simple story. It’s about the owner of vineyard who hires laborers in the morning. About noon, this owner goes out and hires more workers. Then in the afternoon he hires more. Then late in the day, he hires more. And almost at quitting time he hires more. Owners can do that, for whatever reason. But the rub is that he pays them all the same, whether they worked all day in the hot sun or worked just a few hours. They all get the same pay. That’s not fair.

My first real job was as a grocery clerk and bag boy at A&P food stores, at that time the largest grocery chain in the world. One of the first things I learned was how to punch a time card. Time in, time out, every day I came to work. I got paid only for the hours I worked. Seemed fair to me. And I rejected pleas by friends who were running late to clock them in. I
have never begrudged workers who work long hours and get paid well for it. It’s the way the system works. In my lifetime, the Soviet Union tried a crude form of Marxism to equalize wages for all of its workers. It didn’t work.

We get our just deserts. By the way, “Just Deserts” is the correct use of the phrase. Not the more popular, “Just Desserts.” Just Deserts is a shorten form of getting what you deserve, a phrase in English from the 17^th century. We often use the phrase in a negative way, as in our enemies just got what they deserved. But I checked the spelling and meaning on PhraseFinder.com.

The point of the story is not free-market economics. We can expect to get our just deserts in this kind of economy. We work hard and get aid for it. Much of the anxiety I hear voiced about tinkering with Social Security is simply the logic that I contributed into Social Security and I should get it back. Just deserts.

But Jesus is pointing to a different kind of economy. It’s God’s economy. Sometimes called the kingdom of God. It is a place where God’s love for everyone is equal, no matter their wealth, or lack of it. No matter their color. No matter their failures. Not just deserts.

Imagine for a moment if God gave us what we deserved, our just deserts. What if God shared his love in measure to our relationship to him? What if his measuring stick was the Law, the Ten Commandments? (And, of course, that is what it is.) And he gave us what we deserved for failing to keep them over and over again, especially the first commandment that are to love and trust him above anything else? We would all surely burn in hell. What if God gave us the kingdom on the basis of our power, genealogy, or wealth? Warren Buffet and Bill Gates would be in. You and I probably out. Next calendar year we will observe the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. We are going to hear a lot about it and there is even going to be a T.V. drama series about that famous voyage. One of the things you will hear about is that of the 2,200 passengers and crew on board 1,500 died. Of those saved, the overwhelming majority were first- class, followed by second-class passengers. Very few third-class passengers, called steerage, survived.

God sees us differently. And that has implications for us. We are all children of God. That’s because God chooses to love us, not for what we do but for who we are. That establishes a relationship described this way: In essence, there is only one thing God asks of us—that we be men and women of prayer, people who live close to God, people for whom God is everything and for whom God is enough. (Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 46)

What a good place to live. We’re all the same in God’s love for us. There are no second-class citizens in God’s economy. In God’s economy there is no first class, business class, or coach class. If I got my just deserts, I’d be lucky to get on the aircraft. Lots of Christians spend lots of time getting things right with God. Certainly the Pharisees did in Jesus’ time. Lots of Christians spend lots of time keeping other children of God on the other side of the fence. If you’re not baptized at the right time, you don’t get in. If you don’t believe in the one, true church, you don’t get in. If you don’t work hard at believing, you don’t get in. You and I don’t have the power to limit God’s love as much as we would like. It’s something to share. The temptation we all face when we have something precious to us is to keep it to ourselves. Or we keep the best part of what we justly deserve and share the leftovers with others. But if we recognize that God’s love for us is freely given, we share it, freely. Unfortunately, we don’t live in the kingdom of God’s fully and practice the logic of just desserts. We share God’s love based on what we believe people deserve. One day one of God’s children wandered on to our property. She is bipolar and experiencing a psychotic episode. Totally confused and
disoriented. What she found here is compassion and a listening ear. Love shared in God’s economy.

I’m sure glad God hasn’t given me my just desserts. And instead invites you, and me, into the economy of the kingdom.

Amen.