Philippians 1.21-30, Matthew 20.1-16
The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, 20 September 2020
Eldroth and online
You’ll have noticed that God tends not to play by our rules; God does not follow our moral logic; and Jesus tells his parables to open our minds to the nature of God - to set us thinking about how God’s morals might play out in our everyday world. [1]
Look at this parable, the one where the hired labourers who’d worked an hour were paid the same as those who’d worked all day. Lots of people would find this scandalous. Trades unionists, who’d righteously advocate for workers being paid a fair wage. And business-people who’d decry the vineyard owner wasting so much money on his extravagant gesture towards the latecomers. But all that would be to miss the point.
When the all-day workers complain that they’ve only been rewarded the same as those who worked just one hour, surely Jesus isn’t teaching us that it is acceptable to insist on the letter of the contract rather than acting in its spirit.
Rather, isn’t Jesus using this parable to describe the radical graciousness of God’s grace, the outrageousness of the divine love, a love that surpasses human understanding at every level.
So God moves our ethical expectations into totally new territory. It’s challenging to accept that God’s morality is not the same as ours, or more precisely, that we understand the divine morality only very imperfectly.
By this parable Jesus communicates the outrageousness of our Father’s love for us. He reveals the gracious nature of God rather than endorsing our limited human sense of justice. By this parable Jesus invites us to embrace God’s grace, and to find ways to share that grace in our lives and work. [2]
The parable of the labourers in the vineyard reminds us that our morality is based on a strict law of exchange, a system of quid pro quo, of equal actions and reactions, deeply attached to the idea of equality or fairness. Have you noticed how in our society we regard some people as deserving of reward, and others as undeserving? How we resent those who rise above or go ahead of the rest of the group, and may protest against them or plot their downfall? Jesus is showing how God is not driven by the law of exchange, but rather by the generosity of grace. With God it’s not about rewarding the deserving and sanctioning the undeserving. With God it’s about freely and justly giving to all.
‘Are you envious because I am generous?’ The vineyard owner’s question forces me to ask myself: does other people’s good fortune make me unhappy, do I resent it when those who I don’t think deserve it get rewarded, where those I think are unworthy are blessed and graced by God? Rather than only really wanting some people to relatively gain - that is, me and people like me - how powerful would it be if I chose to live by God’s economy where there is absolute gain for all? [3]
Jesus taught ‘the last will be first, and the first will be last’, and time and time again he showed it, by his acts of generosity towards the most despised, rejected people: lepers, beggars, tax cheats, prostitutes. Notice how his generosity came at the expense of the better-off people around him, those who he persuaded to open up their homes to provide meals for the all-and-sundry guests who he invited. But it wasn’t really at their expense - yes, it cost them money, but they didn’t lose by it. For these meals were astonishing occasions when the respectable and the frowned-upon broke bread together, when the beggars poured wine for the magistrates and the conversations between them flowed, and everyone was a winner. You can imagine how each of them found their views of the world expanding richly as they opened up to the stories they heard and shared together, as they embraced each other’s lives.
Now we live in a society which judges some people as being undeserving. These homeless ones, they must have brought it on themselves, why should we house them? These unemployed, how much tax have they paid, and do they deserve to benefit?
But we must reflect on these things in the knowledge of this week’s news reports that if coronavirus job and income support schemes are wound down this autumn then twice as many people will become destitute by Christmas, in other words, unable to meet their basic needs for food, shelter or clothing. [4]
What does this say to us, we who seek to walk with Jesus’ and follow his teaching? What might it provoke us to do in response?
Are you envious because he is generous? Or are you inspired by the thought that there is room at his table for us all?
Notes
See also my previous talk on this gospel passage, Don’t be a moaner - heed the Sign of Jonah, preached in Somerset, 2017.
[1] Acknowledging the influence of Robert Hamerton-Kelly, Outrageous Grace, preached on 18 September, 2005. I’m grateful to Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Lectionary Reflections Year A, Proper 20A for the link.
[2] Robert Hamerton-Kelly, Outrageous Grace. Altered
[3] Robert Hamerton-Kelly, Outrageous Grace. Altered.
[4] Patrick Butler, Extreme poverty 'will double by Christmas' in UK because of Covid-19. Guardian, 14 Sep 2020. Trussell Trust, We must act now to protect people from needing emergency food.
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