SERMON
Psalm 43 Matthew 20:1-16
“Fair Opportunities?”
“No matter how you approach this Gospel story, it’s going to upset someone.
Jesus intended this! (ucc.org, worship ways,
PRAYER
Let me share with you a story of fairness.
“For months, Laura Steiner, seventeen, prepared her chemistry project for the area science fair competition. In previous years, Laura had won several ribbons, but she had never won a chance to go to the States. As a senior in high school, this was her last chance.
Laura’s fourteen-year-old brother, Ken, a freshman, also entered the science fair. Scientific concepts came to him easier that they did to Laura. Ken put together his project on the solar system in just a few days.
On the opening day of the fair, Laura, Ken, and their parents arrived in the family car. Laura rushed to see her project that simulated a nuclear reaction, while her brother and parents went to see Ken’s entry. Laura couldn’t wait to see the prize she expected from the judges.
But there was no ribbon. “Have the judges been here??? She cried. Yes, they have, she was told. “Then there’s been some mistake!”
Ken ran up to Laura. “I won first prize!” yelled Ken. “I am going to the state fair!” “That’s unfair!” wailed Laura, who started sobbing. “Your project isn’t even unique.” When she had settled down a bit, her parents tried to comfort her, but were not very successful. “It just isn’t fair,” Laura muttered time and again. “I worked so hard but Ken just threw his together at the last minute.”
Then mom reminded her… “Remember when you beat Ken in the skiing competition, after he had taught you to ski?” “He didn’t think that was fair, but you didn’t mind winning.”
Laura was still disappointed, but started feeling better for her brother. “Congratulations and my best wishes at States,” she finally told him. We have all been told that “Life is not fair.” Laura obviously found this out, the hard way!” (The Youth Bible, Justice, It’s Not Fair! pg. 943)
“Some parables of Jesus are harder to understand, because somehow they just do not seem to make sense… This one can be compared with the parable of the Prodigal Son. The elder son in the story is angered that the younger brother, who frivolously spent his inheritance is lavishly welcomed home by his father. It is not fair. It is not fair that the elder son, who stayed and did what he was supposed to do, does not get his just reward. No, it is not fair – and that is exactly what many people will think when they hear this parable. How unjust of the landowner not to give those who labored all day in the hot sun their reward. How unfair of the land owner to treat each of the laborers equally, despite the disproportionate hours they worked.
How easily we can relate to the grumbling of the laborers who assumed that
because they went into the vineyard early in the day, they would be paid more.
Such dangerous assumptions can be true in our closest relationships, within our work settings, within our congregations, within our national thinking. There is a saying: “Assumptions are planned resentments.” Whenever we assume anything, we set ourselves up for possible disappointment or even worse, as we set the other person, place, or thing up as the object of our disappointment, anger, or resentment.” (Charlotte Dudley Cleghorn, “Feasting on the Word,” Year A, vol. 4, p.92-94)
On the other hand, we can ask: “What kind of God would offer the same reward to those who have earned it and to those who have not?...
If God is a just God, “…the workers must recognize the opportunity to work in the vineyard, as a gift in itself. There is no room for human pride, since one’s only choice is either to answer the call to work in God’s kingdom, or to stand idle and waste one’s life altogether. God does not will that anyone’s life should be wasted, so God extends the invitation indiscriminately and repeatedly, in order to gather as many as possible into the vineyard. God shows no partiality among persons, all are equally deserving – or undeserving of the opportunity to work, so the reward for all workers is equal as well… this parable makes clear that there is radical equality before God. Reward comes not from each worker’s individual merit, not from the quantity or even quality of their labor, but rather from the gracious covenant offered by the one doing the hiring.” (Kathryn D. Blanchard, 94)
“What we learn from this parable is that the landowner begins by giving everyone in the story work. Each of the laborers is unemployed and each is given work to do with the promise of pay. They all begin in the same situation but easily forget that by the end of the day. Their energy goes not to the fact that they have had work and are being paid but to the inequity they see. Envy becomes more important than what they have received.
“Are you envious because I am generous?” asks the landowner.
Do we find ourselves envious of another’s gifts, talents, abilities, possessions, social status, and so forth? How often I am envious of other’s good fortune? Envy can cause us to diminish our own gifts and talents and secretly to rob others of theirs. God is a giver of every good gift, whether it is ours or someone else’s… God’s generosity often violates our own sense of right and wrong, our sense of how things would be if we ran the world. Are we unable to celebrate another’s good fortune because we have not celebrated our own? How often am I ungrateful for God’s graciousness and mercy? How often do I deny God’s love and forgiveness in my own life?
Jesus leaves us with a question: can we learn to see through the eyes of God? Our ideas of right and wrong, of what is just and unjust, are not necessarily God’s ideas – and that is a very good thing…. When we look for equity, we are surprised to find generosity.
You and I are invited and challenged to look at where we see ourselves in Jesus’ parable. This parable reminds us that God is a lousy bookkeeper and invites us to transform our pride, envy, and hardness into joy by admiring and celebrating God’s astounding generosity.
The parable calls us to look at ourselves honestly and lovingly, as God looks at us. It invites us to turn from holding grudges because things did not go our way, to let go of the stuff of our lives that keeps us from being joy-filled and grateful people.” (Idem,94-96)
“The conclusion to this parable is a call to humility (and trust), “that the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (v.16). God’s people are those who work in the vineyards of justice from the moment they are called until the time for reward arrives.” (Kathryn D. Blanchard, “Feasting on the Word,” Year A, vol. 4, p.96)
What is fair or not fair in God’s vineyard is not for us to question. One thing we know for sure, God is a fair God, a God that loves us where we are in the weariness of the day and invites us to work to grow the kingdom.
The time we were hired is not what is important here, what is important at the end of the day is the reward of God’s forgiveness, mercy and love that is equal to all and for all of his people. Amen!
BENEDICTION
May God’s Holy Spirit lead you.
God’s strength protect you.
May God’s peace be with you.
Go now in the name of God, by the grace of Christ,
and with the presence of the Holy Spirit. Amen!
