FIRST READING Isaiah 55:6-9
6Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; 7let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. 9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
PSALM Psalm 27:1-9
1The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid? 2When evildoers came upon me to eat up my flesh, it was they, my foes and my adversaries, who stumbled and fell. 3Though an army should encamp against me, yet my heart shall not be afraid; 4And though war should rise up against me, yet will I put my trust in him. 5One thing have I asked of the Lord; one thing I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; 6To behold the fair beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. 7For in the day of trouble he shall keep me safe in his shelter; he shall hide me in the secrecy of his dwelling and set me high upon a rock. 8Even now he lifts up my head above my enemies round about me. 9Therefore I will offer in his dwelling an oblation with sounds of great gladness; I will sing and make music to the Lord.
SECOND READING Philippians 1:12-14, 21-30
12I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
19For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, 20as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. 21For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. 24But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. 25Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, 26so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again. 27Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, 28and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. 29For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, 30engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.
GOSPEL Matthew 20:1-16
1{Jesus said,} “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ 5So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ 7They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ 8And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ 9And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ 16So the last will be first, and the first last.”
IT AIN’T FAIR
Before I joined the Air Force I worked at R&K Lumber Company’s door plant. R&K was an employer that paid well and tried to treat their employees right. One Friday, one of the guys and I stopped for lunch and sat on a stack of lumber in the shade to eat our lunch. Near the end of the lunch break, one of the contractors rolls up in a new, fully loaded, Scottsdale trim Chevy pickup. The guy seated next to me looks over the truck and remarks, “it ain’t fair.” There he is driving that fancy pickup and all I have to drive is my four-year-old Dodge with 85,000 miles on it. Interested in where the conversation was going I nodded and simply acknowledged that life isn’t fair. My co-worker continued.
Here we are slaving away in this hot warehouse, building doors for $4.00 an hour so that guy can ride around all day in his fancy air-conditioned truck. My truck sure doesn’t have leather seats. I bet that guy makes 20 or $25,000 a year. Keep in mind this was 1978 when minimum wage was $2.65 per hour. My co-worker continued griping for a few moments about the unfairness of it all and then finally remarked, “hey it’s Friday. We get paid today. Good thing, because I have a date tonight. I sure hope mom washed my new jeans and pressed my favorite shirt. Speaking of mom, I wonder what we’re having for supper?” No life just isn’t fair is it!?
By the way, I found out later the guy we were so jealous of, was a supply runner driving his boss’ truck. As it turned out, he made less per hour than we did. Too often we seemed to be focused on what we see in others and forget to stop and consider all the blessings we have. Maybe it’s because we’re near-sighted. Maybe we’re so focused on the perceived unfairness of life, that we forget to consider the very promising future we have as a child of God.
One day a rich young ruler came enthusiastically running up to Jesus and asked: “What must I do to be saved?” Jesus answered: Keep the law. “This I have done from my youth up,” came the reply. There’s only one thing you lack said Jesus. Go and sell all your stuff and give it to the poor. Then come and follow me. Scripture tells us that the young man walked away sorrowfully, for he had great wealth. Concluded our Master: It will be hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God (Matt. 19:17-25.) Now that’s a difficult statement for us to hear.
Every adult here owns at least one car. I’ll bet that 90% or better of us carries a cell phone. We all have income coming in each month. And I don’t know about you, but the Ridged tool company has me on their Christmas card list, since I own practically every 18-volt cordless tool they make. Am I rich? I guess that depends on your definition of wealthy and who you’re asking.
The disciples had been watching the dynamics of this conversation and they were quite disturbed. Jewish tradition had always taught that God had especially blessed the rich and that’s why the young ruler was rich. In the Jewish way of thinking, if a wealthy man couldn’t receive salvation, then how could a poor man have any hope? Confused by Hebrew teaching and mindset they ask: who then can be saved?
It reminds me of the movie Fiddler on the Roof. The poor Jewish milkman who lives in early 1900 Russia sings what he would do “if I were a rich man.” His then wife reminds him: money is a curse. He immediately shouts up to heaven: curse me God, curse me. Jesus has just turned away a wealthy man, and in the Jewish way of thinking it doesn’t make any sense.
It’s Simon Peter who draws the question even more clearly into focus for us. He asked what’s on the mind of every one of us, only we’re too sophisticated to ask and possibly too self-righteous to admit that we even think it. Peter, as we’ve come to learn didn’t have any of those same inhibitions. He simply laid his cards out on the table. He said, “Lord, we have given up everything, riches and all, to follow you.” What then shall we have?” On the surface, this is a real question. The disciple had indeed left home, family and occupations to answer Jesus’ call. However, there’s another way of reading Peter’s question. One that’s not so innocent; one that’s a bit more in line with how many of us think.
Another way of looking at this question is to consider that Peter is really asking, what’s in this for us Lord. How do we stand to profit? Where’s the payoff? And to answer Peter’s question, Jesus told the story we find in our gospel reading for this morning. It’s the harvest time of the year. At 7 A. M. a wealthy landowner goes to the Town Square to hire workers. Then, about noon, he goes back into town and hired still others. Toward the end of the day there was still a need for more laborers. Perhaps this was a harvest of grapes that had to be brought in before the rains began. So, at 5 P.M. the landowner again goes back into town and hired more laborers. At sunset, everyone who had come to work that day formed up to be paid.
When everyone lines up in front of the paymaster, lo and behold, all of them get paid the same amount. The men at the front of the line who had worked just one hour got paid the same wage as the ones at the back, who had endured the heat of the day for eleven hours. Everyone received a full day’s wage. True to human nature, and greed I might add, this enraged the all-day workers. But the truth comes out. The landowner replied, “Do you begrudge me my generosity?” Am I not allowed to do what I please with what belongs to me?
This parable of Jesus must have fallen like a big thud upon the ears of its listeners. Here Simon Peter had asked Jesus a serious question and in reply he gets a story that on the surface sounds quite ludicrous. A landowner that pays equal wages for men who do not work equal hours. That’s simply not the American way. It certainly doesn’t follow Union rules. It runs counter to our whole system of justice and fair play. Who would work all day if you could simply wait till the last hour and then collect a full day’s pay? The fact is, that deep within each of us, we have a kind of sympathy for those grumbling laborers. The story that Jesus told turns our whole economic, free enterprise system upside down.
Peter must have been particularly offended by the story, because it’s obvious who he identified with. He sees himself as that laborer who was chosen early in the morning and has worked all day. He doesn’t comprehend why these Johnny-Come-Latelys, should have preferential treatment. Now, don’t get Simon Peter wrong. He isn’t opposed to favors being dispensed. He simply believes that if anyone should receive preferential treatment, it should be those who worked in the fields all day; people just like himself.
By telling this story, Jesus is informing His followers that they will get no more reward from discipleship than anyone else. The person who comes late is just as important as the one who comes early. There’s no such thing as an ecclesiastical hierarchy. The bishop need forgiveness just as much as the newest convert.
A large prosperous downtown church had three mission churches under its care that it had started. On the first Sunday of the New Year all the members of the mission churches came to the city church for a combined Communion service. In those mission churches, which were located in the slums of the city, were some outstanding cases of conversions, thieves, burglars, and so on, but all knelt side by side at the Communion rail.
On one such occasion, the pastor saw a former burglar kneeling beside a judge of the Supreme Court of England. It was the very same judge who had sent him to jail where he had served seven years. After his release, this burglar had been converted and became a Christian worker. Yet, as they knelt there, the judge and the former convict neither one seemed to be aware of the other. After the service, the judge was walking home with the pastor and said to the pastor, “Did you notice who was kneeling beside me at the Communion rail this morning?”
The pastor replied, “Yes I did, but I didn’t know that you noticed.” The two walked along in silence for a few more moments, and then the judge said, “What a miracle of grace.” The pastor nodded in agreement. “Yes, what a marvelous miracle of grace.” Then the judge said, “But to whom do you refer?” And the pastor said, “Why, to the conversion of that convict.” The judge said, “But I wasn’t referring to him. I was thinking of myself.” Surprised the pastor replied: “You were thinking of yourself? I don’t understand.”
“Yes,” the judge replied, “it didn’t cost that burglar much to get converted when he came out of jail. He had nothing but a history of crime behind him, and when the Holy Spirit revealed to him that Jesus was His Savior, he knew there was salvation, hope and joy for him. And he knew how much he needed that help. But look at me. I was taught from earliest infancy to live as a gentleman; that my word was to be my bond; that I was to say my prayers, go to church, take Communion and so on.
I graduated from Oxford, took my degrees, was called to the bar and eventually became a judge. Pastor, nothing but the grace of God could have caused me to admit that I was a sinner on level with that burglar. It took much more grace to forgive me for all my pride and self-deception, to get me to admit that I was no better in the eyes of God than that convict that I sent to prison. Yet even with that, it just doesn’t seem fair does it?
The unmerited grace that God extends to everyone goes against the business mentality that dominates our lives. We’ve always been taught: you only get out of life something directly in proportion to that which you put in it. Yet, that’s not what happened in Jesus’ story. In our way of thinking, the laborers who came to the field late got something for nothing. This parable challenges us not to see the Kingdom of God, or the church, as a free market system. Yet, that’s difficult for us to do, because that’s our point of reference.
We live in a world of tenure and seniority and it goes against our grain when we hear Jesus say, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first” (v.15.) Certainly, this was foreign to the Jewish mentality, for they are God’s chosen people. They’re the laborers who had been in the field from the beginning. Of course, their real problem, and in turn our problem, is that we really don’t comprehend the nature of God’s unmerited grace. We sing songs like “Amazing Grace,” but the truth is, we’re usually uncomfortable with last minute, death bed conversions. We feel that these persons have gotten the best of both worlds. To our proportional minds, it just doesn’t seem fair.
Dr. William Power, a professor at Southern Methodist University, describes an experience he had in Sunday school when he was a boy. His teacher was trying to explain to him and his rowdy friends the meaning of grace, but wasn’t getting very far. She tried definitions and abstractions, to no avail. Finally, she realized something the boys had known from the start. She wasn’t connecting. She wasn’t getting through to them. They didn’t have the foggiest notion what she was talking about. So, she took a deep breath and tried again: “Look boys, grace is the break you get when you don’t deserve it. That’s the simple explanation. But you won’t really understand it till you experience it.”
God’s grace isn’t based on what’s fair, but on God’s unlimited love and generosity. It wasn’t fair that the laborers who worked only one hour receive a full day’s wages, but maybe we need to look beyond the obvious. All day they’d been wanting employment and no one had chosen them to work. Maybe they had a night watch job and went home to get a couple hours of sleep and at the end of the day they headed back to the town square to see if they could work a second job. Maybe someone was sick at home and this was the first opportunity they had to earn a day’s wage. Maybe there was a new born in the house and they’d been up all night tending to a fussy baby. Maybe they had made a few mistakes in life and were considered the rejects. Who knows.
You know, even as a child in grammar school I distantly remember feeling uncomfortable when sides were chosen for teams, because invariably there were a couple of kids who were chosen last or got left out. They were always the last ones to be selected, and you could see the hurt on their faces. The landowner in Jesus’ parable asked of them: Why are you standing idle. Their response: Because no one has hired us. They were the ones left: some might say they were the rejects, some might see them as the bottom of the barrel. That’s the problem, we don’t always see the bigger picture. We see the fancy new truck, but fail to see that the one driving only makes minimum wage.
Now go back to the beginning of the parable and reread what the landowner said to those he hired at the beginning of the day. He said, “I will pay you what is right.” What he paid these last workers who were in the fields only one hour was not correct based upon the minimum hourly wage scale, but it was right because of the desperateness of their condition. God’s grace isn’t based upon fairness; it’s based upon His unmerited generosity and our desperate need for His help.
If there’s any special payoff for being selected early to labor in the Lord’s field, it’s simply the inner satisfaction that we receive so much from being in God’s employ. But, truth be told, we’re much more like my co-worker and those all-day laborers. Notice how they worded it: we carried the burden in the heat of the day. Isn’t that precisely how we so often look upon service in the church: It isn’t a joy, it’s not a privilege but a burden to carry in the heat of the day. Clearly when Simon Peter asked Jesus what they were to receive from the Kingdom, he had in mind something a little more substantial than inner satisfaction.
But we still don’t think that the whole thing is fair, and by the world’s standards it certainly isn’t. But then again, neither was the Cross. It wasn’t fair that Jesus, the Son of God, a sinless man, suffered and died a cruel death for our sins. Yet, that’s precisely what happened. We live in a world of tallies and accounts, of debts owed and debts paid. We live in a world of boundaries and schedules, spreadsheets and bookkeeping, and of hourly wages. But God tells us in Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (55:8-9.)
The Kingdom of God is on another dimension, one that turns our world upside down. But that’s precisely why Jesus was so free. When He chose to go to the cross in our place, He didn’t first ask the questions that we would ask: do we deserve it and can we repay it. If He did, the answer to both questions, is no. The economics of God’s kingdom are nothing like the economics of the world. And, like Simon Peter, we bitterly complain about the unfairness of it all. We miss the point that if God had our tally book mentality, and went strictly by what’s fair, then salvation would be completely out of anyone’s grasp. The issue isn’t about what’s fair. The issue is: How can we bring more workers into the fields to serve. Why? In the words of Jesus: Because the harvest is great, and the laborers are few (Matt. 9:37.)
After serving as a missionary for forty years in Africa, Henry C. Morrison became sick and had to return to America. As the great ocean liner docked in New York Harbor there was a great crowd gathered to welcome home another passenger on that boat. Morrison watched as President Teddy Roosevelt received a grand welcome home party after his African Safari. Resentment seized Henry Morrison and he turned to God in anger, “I have come back home after all this time and service to the church and there’s no one, not even one person here to welcome me home.” Then a still small voice came to Morrison and said, “You’re not home yet.”
We have a great reward coming! That’s the good news for today. Because God isn’t fair, we have a reward coming, but not all of it will be realized in this world. Today I thank God, that the economics of His kingdom are different from the economics of this world. For if they were, we’d all be in trouble.
Amen
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