Matthew 20:1-16 and Jonah 3:10 - 4:11
Our God is indeed gracious and merciful. Our God is slow
to anger and abounding in steadfast
love. Those familiar words and words like them form prayers we repeat
throughout our worship, are contained in the texts of the hymns we sing and even
frame our liturgy. We lift them up because, aren’t these the things we love about God, the things in our relationship
with God for which offer our thanks and praise? Isn’t this the gospel that we yearn to and need to hear – that God is full of
mercy; that God loves us; and that God’s grace is bountiful and big enough to
forgive all our sins?
While all of that is true, God is all of these things and more, as
our scripture texts illustrate this morning, one thing that our God is not, is fair. And somehow, despite all those things that I just listed and
all the other attributes of God we could name, deep down inside we want a God who is fair. More to the
point, we want a God who is fair as we
judge fairness.
I was reminded of this recently. When
I visit my son and his family which includes our grandson in Pennsylvania, I
usually spend a lot of my time, most
of it, in fact, playing with 4 year old Alex. We play all sorts of games. While
the other adults are talking, preparing a meal or otherwise engaged, I become this child’s favored playmate
– a role I really enjoy.
While I was on a trip up north on business not long ago, however, I decided
to stop by to say hi and to load up my car with some things I needed to bring
to Easton. I didn’t get to play with Alex that day, despite his repeated
requests (which are really more like demands, truth be told) of, “will you play
with me now?” My repeated answer was,
“I’m afraid not this time, Buddy. Next
time I come, we’ll play together again.”
How to explain to a four year old
the very real demands of adulthood and limitations of time? As I was preparing
to leave, I found Alex sitting on the couch next to his mother. He wasn’t in
the mood for a hug or a kiss or a tickle. As I turned and walked away, I heard
the lament in his voice as he quietly told his mother, “It’s not fair. It’s just not fair!” Alex was disappointed.
He expected Grandma to behave in the way she had always done – as his playmate.
I had disappointed his expectations. I had scrambled the usual order of things.
We can all probably relate, and empathize with Alex and join his lament at
times.
Back in the day when John McEnroe
was a big name in the tennis world, I
used to love to watch him play, less, to be honest, because of the tennis being played, and more for the entertainment value of those matches.
John was known for his firey temper and bad behavior. It was not unusual for fist and voice to raise,
feet to stomp, and expletives and tennis rackets to fly when John was
displeased. And what set John off the most was what he felt were unfair calls on the part of the umpire
or line judge.
As I think about it, what probably attracted
my attention and held my interest in these performances was that even though I
thought John’s reactions to perceived unfair calls and plays, and his frequent
misbehaviors were outrageous, infantile, and even downright shameful, I got it. I understood what
it was like to want to flail around
protesting what was unfair.
John was only doing, on the public
stage, what the inner child in me wants
to do when I feel disadvantaged, disillusioned,
and frustrated because things don’t go my way and injustice reigns. John’s fury
mirrored what I feel deep down inside when someone else gets what should be my rewards, or their rewards are simply out of balance with who they are and what
they have done.
When I watched those matches and
rooted for John McEnroe, maybe what I was really
doing was living out my own protest
to the injustices and unfairness in my own life vicariously through John’s
antics. “It’s not fair. It’s just not fair!”
Both the story of Jonah and his
reaction to God’s mercy toward the city of Nineveh, and again in the gospel
text today, we read echoes of this same indignant response to God’s mercy which
seems unbalanced and unfair. We see echoes of the gut-level response we might feel when undeserved mercy and
grace are shown to those we deem
unworthy. And the stories and indignation resonate with us.
In Jonah’s case, God’s grace was
dispensed to the city of Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria, detested enemy
of the people of Israel. These are not
the favored people of God, as Jonah’s
people are. These are not decent,
peaceful neighbors of the Israelites. Ninevites don’t follow the Law as received and shared by Moses. They are not worthy of God’s notice let alone God’s grace.
Yet, God has chosen to show this
city mercy. When they heard God’s word, spoken through Jonah, they repented and
mended their evil ways. Jonah’s reaction
was to become angry and morose. It’s bad
enough that God issued this merciful reprieve to the city, but the fact
that God used Jonah as the vessel through which God’s word was
delivered and the city saved is more than Jonah can bear. He would rather die
than see this great city of the enemy nation be saved. It’s not fair, LORD.
It’s just not fair!
In the gospel lesson, we are
confronted with more seemingly
unjustifiable mercy. When we read this parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard,
our “fairness meter” just goes flat. The story doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t
play out the way it is supposed to. The laborers who have worked all day get
paid the same wage as those who have worked only an hour? It doesn’t matter
that they got paid the wage they agreed to, which they thought sufficient and
fair when they were hired. The laborers deem the landowner’s generosity
frivolous, and unjust. They should
get more! It’s not fair, LORD. It’s just not fair!
Deep down inside we know that this
story is consistent with the kingdom of heaven as Jesus has been illustrating
it throughout his parables and
indeed, throughout his ministry. We should know by now that the generosity of
God, which knows no bounds, doesn’t
operate in the same way as the world around us. In this parable once again,
Jesus is scrambling the usual order
of things, and challenging the usual assumptions about who is in and who is
out, who is first and who is last, who receives mercy and who does not, who is
valued and loved and who is not. In the kingdom
of God all who believe are welcome, all are forgiven, all receive grace
upon grace. The lesson Jesus imparts may be a tough pill to swallow – unless
you hear with a renewed heart and mind.
Eric Barreto, professor at Luther
Seminary, says that we hear this text through the lens of our 21st
century Western culture, and we interpret it as a parable about fairness in the
kingdom of God.
We live in a culture where we are
taught from the cradle that hard work will yield just rewards. You have to work
hard for what you want. Nothing comes
easy. Conversely, the spoken and unspoken lesson that we learn well is that the
“have nots” are in dire straights because they have just not tried hard enough,
not worked hard enough, not lived well enough to deserve the same kinds of
rewards as those of us who have
slaved away to earn what we see as
our just reward.
Conversely, Barreto says, people of
two thirds of the world that is undeveloped, people who live in lands where
survival is a struggle, people who live on the fringes, hear in this parable a
word of promise and grace. For them,
this story is the story of a God who loves
so much, whose mercy is so large,
whose desire for relationship with
the creation is so intense, that it
turns the world upside down. For people who are open to receive it, this
parable is not about what is fair and
not fair. Instead, this parable is a
story about a love so strong that it pushes through boundaries and grants the
gift of grace to the least, the last, the lost, the little and the lifeless.
God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast
love – for all. In baptism we each receive the grace of God that is freely
given to all. The truth is, that as Martin Luther wrote, in the presence of
God’s mercy, we are all beggars.
Indeed, in the presence of God’s
mercy, we are all a mess. God doesn’t give any
of us what we deserve. Rather, God gives us what we need. We need God’s
grace. We get offended by God’s divine distribution of grace because, my friends,
we forget who we are. We forget that we
are beggars. We forget that while
some of us may clean up better than others and some of us may be better at
hiding our sin than others, we are all
like the Ninevites, and the last-minute laborers. We all fall short of that to which we are called. We all mess up. We all disobey. We all
are utterly dependent on God’s mercy and grace.
But God’s generous gift of grace scrambles
our expectations, scrambles the status quo, and scrambles our sense of fairness
and justice. God’s gift of grace redeems us all.
God’s grace makes forgiveness and
reconciliation possible. God’s grace means there is room at the table for each
of us, time and time again, no matter where we’ve wandered, no matter who we
are.
And that, my
brothers and sisters in Christ, is a game-changer, because the truth and the
good news of this gospel is that God is not
fair. Thanks be to God!
