It Isn’t Fair!

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

September 21, 2014

It Isn’t Fair!

Matthew 20:1-16

Jesus loved to teach through parables:

The parable of the prodigal son;

The parable of the sower of seeds;

The parable of the lost coin;

The parable of the unjust judge;

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus;

The parable of the Good Samaritan.

Parables are stories that have a point,

a point that is left to the listener to figure out.

Jesus often did speak directly:

“Do not judge,

so that you may not be judged”

(Matthew 7:1)

But he loved to teach by parables,

even if his listeners often found them confusing;

the disciples even complained to him,

“why do you speak…in parables?”

(Matthew 13:10)

Jesus wants us to figure things out for ourselves,

each of us to learn what it means to be a disciple,

what it means to live a faithful, righteous life.

We are not called to live by a rule book,

we are called to live by the Living Word,

by the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now of course, what happens with parables

is that 10 different people

can hear the same parable

and come to 10 different conclusions:

Our neighbors are Samaritans;

our neighbors are people

who walk the same road we do;

our neighbors should be willing to pay our bills

when we are injured.

There are two billion people

who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ,

but we certainly go about it

in many different ways,

and we often disagree bitterly,

even within denominations,

even within church families.

What we tend to do with parables

is listen to and learn from those we like,

and put away on a shelf those parables

that seem difficult to understand

or which lead us to conclusions we don’t like,

like today’s lesson.

We hear the parable from Matthew’s gospel,

and our first reaction,

a very human reaction,

is probably to agree with those laborers

who were hired first thing in the morning,

who worked hard the entire day,

who sweltered in the vineyards

under the blistering sun.

They were mad that they were

paid the same wage as those who

didn’t work a full day;

paid the same wage even as those

who worked for only an hour.

We’re likely to side with the laborers

who were up out of bed before dawn,

who were the first in the marketplace

to assure that if anyone was to be hired that day,

it would be them.

They were hard workers, go-getters.

Surely they would have known the Proverb,

“Do not love sleep,

or else you will come to poverty;

open your eyes,

and you will have plenty of bread.”

(Proverbs 20:13)

        

How can anyone think it was fair of the landowner

to treat those hard-working laborers

the same as those layabouts

who didn’t show up in the marketplace

until 9:00 am, 12 noon, 3 pm;

some not even getting to the marketplace

until 5 in the afternoon,

as though they really didn’t want to work,

that they were making an appearance.

They barely had time to break a sweat

and get their hands dirty

before the sun went down and the day was over,

and the wages were paid out.

Who wouldn’t support the complaint

of the exhausted laborers who said,

“These last worked only one hour,

and you have made them equal to us

who have borne the burand the scorching heat.”

If the landowner was committed to

paying the last group hired a day’s wage,

surely it would have been the fair thing, then,

the just thing,

to have paid the first group hired something more,

a bonus of some sort?

The denarius the first group agreed to take

was the standard day’s wage in those days,

and it was the equivalent of the minimum wage,

barely enough to assure that a laborer

could feed his family.

But the landowner was unmoved:

if he chose to be generous to the last group hired,

he was adamant that it was of no concern

to the first group hired.

They had been given what they’d been promised;

they had not been cheated

or short-changed in anyway.

We hear the words and we just don’t like them.

It doesn’t sound fair at all.

But this is not a parable about what is fair;

this is a parable about the Kingdom of God.

Jesus tells us that right at the beginning:

“The kingdom of heaven is like…”

And the kingdom of heaven

is a place where all are treated…

the same.

All are treated the same.

No one is holier;

there are no VIP sections;

no preferred seatings;

no first-class lounges;

no private areas that say,

“Reserved for those who did more;”

And no luxury skyboxes that say,

“Clergy Only.”

                                            

God doesn’t have an accounting staff

measuring our credits and debits,

giving us a few more points

when we do a few more good deeds,

or taking away points when we’ve had

a particularly bad, self-indulgent few days.

We are children of grace,

children of love,

given a gift freely and generously

by the Lord our God,

and we are called to respond to that gift,

which we all do differently.

In God’s kingdom all will be treated the same;

and in God’s kingdom

all will have what they need:

no one will have too little

and no one will have too much;

everyone will have their daily bread.

Saying such a thing in our

current political atmosphere

might lead to wondering whether

I am describing socialism or even communism.

But God has no interest in our “isms.”

God cares only that all are cared for,

all the same,

in community,

bound together.

Our Lord Jesus teaches us,

“strive first for the Kingdom of God

and his righteousness”

(Matthew 6:33)

Our Lord teaches us this directly,

not through a parable,

so we won’t misunderstand.

Strive first for the Kingdom of God.

But for as directly and as clearly

as our Lord teaches us that lesson

what do we strive for?

Money? Comfort?

Getting ahead?

Doing better than this person or that?

We are called to labor in the vineyards together,

as we build the kingdom here on this earth,

a kingdom built not on riches or power

but on compassion, on justice,

on righteousness,

on assuring that all have a place,

a seat at the table.

Our Lord warns us in words direct and blunt:

“‘Woe to you, …

 For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin,

and have neglected the

weightier matters of the law:

 justice and mercy and faith.

(Matthew 23:23)

This isn’t just a warning to the

religious leaders of 2000 years ago;

this is a warning,

a lesson,

 to you and me here and now.

Richard Rohr has written,

“The key … is never our worthiness,

but always God’s graciousness.

Any attempt to measure or

increase our worthiness

will always fall short…

To switch to an economy of grace

is a switch that is very hard to make”

in a world where almost everything we do

has some sort of “worthiness guage”

attached to it.

Yet, that is what our Lord wants us to do,

learn as we go through life

to set aside the worthiness guage

and live instead in grace,

sharing love

with neighbor as well as for God.

“Are you envious because I am generous?”

asks the landowner.

He might well have asked,

“Are you mad because I am generous –

to others,

including those you deem less worthy?”

“The last will be first,

and the first will be last.”

                                   

We may say that isn’t fair,

and in this world, perhaps it isn’t.

But in God’s world,

God’s kingdom,

where there will be no winners and losers,

no rich and poor,

no powerful and pitiful,

no insiders and outsiders,

all will be worthy,

for all will be loved –

the same.

Friends, hear the word of the Lord:

Strive first for the Kingdom of God.

AMEN