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Pentecost 16A
September 20, 2020
Matthew 20:1-16
INTRODUCTION:
Today’s readings address one of the most basic values of humanity: fairness. From a very early age, humans develop a sense of what is fair and what is not. In fact, even animals have a sense of this! And today’s readings will challenge your understanding of what is fair. In Jonah, we’ll hear the lesser known part of the story – Jonah has already been eaten and burped back up by the large fish, and has preached his sermon about repentance to the people of Ninevah, and now is eager to see God’s retribution on their sinfulness. After all, they were just a bunch of Assyrians, Israel’s enemies. But God changes God’s mind… and Jonah does not think this is fair!
In the parable of the workers in the field, we definitely have our sensibilities about fairness challenged, as people who worked one hour get paid the same as those who worked 12. But notice, Jesus doesn’t introduce the parable with, “This is how to run a business.” He says, “The kingdom of God is like this.”
In both stories we will see what it looks like, as Paul writes in Philippians, to “live a life worthy of the gospel” – and it might not look like our gut thinks it should! As you listen, notice how these stories make you feel – are they offensive to you? Do they make you feel a sense of justice, or frustration? Imagine yourself in the position of Jonah, of the 12-hour workers, and also, of the 1-hour workers. How do you experience the story in their shoes? Let’s listen.
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Well, I think it’s safe to say that we are all pretty much over 2020. Any one thing that has happened would have been enough: the virus and all the loss it has brought; the social unrest, especially when it has come so close to home in the Daniel Prude story and cover-up; the west coast in flames; losing two civil rights icons in short order, first John Lewis and then this weekend, on Rosh Hashanah, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And just in case you were still holding it together, Rochester woke up yesterday to news of the largest mass shooting in recent history, two promising young people dead, 14 wounded.
It’s a lot. And you know what? It is really not fair. None of it seems fair.
That’s a very human reaction to struggle, isn’t it? We try to make sense of things, to fit them into our understanding of what is and isn’t fair, what should happen. Generally, what would be fair would be for people to get what they deserve, right – good, hard-working people should be rewarded, and evil people should be punished. So… why are so many good people suffering?
I know that this is a congregation with a diversity of views about how any number of these issues should be handled, and I respect that. But even in our diversity, I think we can all agree that we want people to have what they need. And we want people to be treated fairly. And if you are watching this service, it’s also fair to say that you believe Jesus might have some guidance about all this.
Well, he does, but turns out that Jesus might not give us the affirming advice we thought he would. Someone once said, “Whenever Jesus told a parable, he lit a stick of dynamite and covered it with a story.” In other words, Jesus’ parables blow apart everything we think we understand about God and how the world works. That’s certainly true in the parable we just heard, which totally turns on its head any understanding we thought we had about how fairness works.
There are several ways that this parable blows our worldview to smithereens. The first is in the motive of the landowner. We in America are quite familiar and even comfortable with capitalism as our economic system. It makes sense, and for the most part, it works, because it motivates us to work hard and succeed. So if you are a business owner – or in this parable, a landowner – then you will strive to make shrewd business choices, because that benefits you. You will have only as many workers as you need in order to get the work done, and you will (hopefully!) pay them what is a fair wage for the work they do so that they will be motivated to return to work day after day and be loyal to you. Capitalism is, in the end, centered around the needs of the business owners, the bosses, and in theory, when they benefit, so do the workers. Clear. Fair.
But here’s the dynamite: this parable instead centers around the needs of the workers. Maybe you filled in the gaps in your mind as to why the landowner went out looking for more workers. Because I’ve been formed by a capitalistic society, I have always assumed it was because he needed more workers – why else would he go looking? But it doesn’t say that. It just says he went out and saw more people in need of work, and so offered them jobs. It says he asked them why they weren’t working, and when they said it was because no one had hired them (for reasons unknown to us), he gave them jobs. Several times during the day this happens – he keeps going out, not to satisfy his need for workers, but to satisfy the people’s need for work.
So, what does this show us about God’s economy? It shows us that faithful living is motivated by the needs of the less powerful. It shows us that in God’s economy, those who are powerful – the proverbial landowners – go out in search of those in need, listen to what those needs are, and satisfy them, even over and above their own needs. In other words: in a gospel-focused economy, those in power focus not on their own needs, but on the needs of the less powerful.
The second stick of dynamite hits in the motives of the workers. The first workers have a chance to bargain with the landowner, and to agree with him about what they will be paid: a denarius each, which is the going rate for a day’s labor, enough to provide one family their daily bread. The next batch are told only that they will be paid “whatever is right.” Those hired toward the end of the day aren’t told how much they will be paid or even that they will be paid at all! They take the job simply on trust of the landowner, that they will be treated fairly.
Would that trust be well-placed in today’s world? Sometimes, sure. There are certainly good people out there who are true to their word, who have integrity and strive to treat others with dignity and respect, doing what is best for the other rather than what is best for themselves and their own power. And, there are plenty of people, even people in power, who will stop at nothing just to keep their power and riches, even if it is at the expense of God’s more vulnerable children. We see this in agriculture (like tomato pickers who get paid a measly 2¢ per pound of tomatoes), and we see it in politics, and everything in between.
And yet this parable shows that in God’s economy, those in need can trust the landowner, because he is generous and just. We, the workers, can trust in God, the landowner, because we know that he will always provide us what we need, our daily bread, even when the rest of the world will not.
The third stick of dynamite is for the economy of compensation, and this is the one that really gets our goat. The landowner pays in reverse order, first paying the workers who arrived last. To their surprise and delight, they are paid a full day’s wage, despite only working an hour! Surely the other workers seeing this are thinking, “Our lucky day! If those guys got paid a full day’s wage for only one hour, just think what we will be paid!” But then to their shock and dismay, they are paid exactly the same. And their gut reaction is the same as mine would be in that situation: “But that’s not fair! I worked hard all day, and in the scorching heat, by the way, so I should get paid more than that guy!” The landowner’s response, in essence is, “Who said I was in the business of fairness? I am in the business of justice.” Didn’t he say as much with the second batch of workers, that he would pay them not what was fair, but what was right? And so he did – he paid them exactly what they needed: a full day’s wage. Enough for their daily bread.
You see, God’s economy is not about being fair. Capitalism is fair: you work hard, and you get what you earn. And sure, it works… sometimes. It motivates hard work… sometimes. And then, sometimes the deck is stacked in such a way that the same hard work for one person only pays half or three quarters as much for another person. You see, fairness gets murky really fast.
But God’s justice goes beyond fairness. In God’s just economy, people get what they need, regardless of whether they have earned it. When God is the landowner, and we are the workers, God seeks us out to learn our needs. We, the workers can trust that God is good and just. And we can be certain that we will always get from God exactly what it is we need – whether that is a day’s wage for whatever we were able to work, or the forgiveness of our sins big and small, or the knowledge of love and belonging that we receive at the baptismal font.
God’s economy doesn’t work well as a business practice. This parable is not a model for a business owner to follow. It really isn’t a practical economic system for this world. Still, this parable allows us to see into a world, for a moment, that operates on generosity rather than greed, ambition and competition. It allows us to imagine and see a world in which all are valued for what they can contribute – even those who stand ignored or discarded by society. It shows us the generosity of a God who lifts up the dignity of each person, regardless of their circumstances, and who offers all of us, every day, exactly the grace that we need to live.
Could we live into this vision, even and especially in 2020? Is this what a life worthy of the gospel looks like, and is it possible for us? If so, what will we do to bring it about, to bring hope into a despairing world?
Let us pray… Generous God, your justice doesn’t always make sense in a world driven by greed and competition. Help us to pursue it anyway, in the way we see and treat one another, especially those among us who feel their needs are ignored and discarded. Help us to see the dignity of all people, not through our earthly lens, but through the lens of your justice and grace. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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