Pentecost 19, 09/21/2008

Sermon on Matthew 20:1-16, by Samuel D. Zumwalt

1"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. 15 Am 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."

WHY WO

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Kids know all about unfairness. It drives them crazy. The only thing that drives them even crazier is to hear a parent say: "Life isn't fair."

So try out Jesus' story sometime with a couple of siblings. Get one of the kids started doing a household chore, telling him you're going to pay him $5. Just before he finishes, send his sister in to help. Then give the first one $5 and while he's enjoying the feel of the bill in his hands, give his sister the same amount of money. You've just started WWIII in your house and guaranteed that getting the boy to do any future job just got very, very hard.

Kids are all about fairness. And, despite how often adults say "life isn't fair", adults are all about fairness, too.

Adults that work together are always trying to figure out what each person makes. If they do figure it out, then they start comparing what they do with what the other person does. They start adding up hours worked, projects completed, et cetera. And, if they don't get a raise, then they either want to quit or sulk.

It's especially hard on people who think they are smarter than everybody else. Invariably they sound like little kids who say, "But it isn't fair!"

There was this bright guy that got hired to do a job. The boss told him the amount of the starting salary. She said that was all she could pay at the time. She said that if things went well the pay would increase considerably over the next couple of years. What the guy heard was that it was a done deal quite apart from any job performance on his part. Now he was a bit obsessive compulsive (which is like "a little pregnant"). He would spend a lot of time on minor tasks, and then, when he got to the end of his work week, he was done.

Unfortunately, there was no one else to pick up his slack. While he did a few things well, his overall job performance did not merit the considerable increase in pay. When he didn't get what he thought he should, he began to work even less. When he still didn't get the big raise, he grew more resentful. Finally, he quit his job just before he was to be let go, making noises about being on the moral high ground. But he wasn't through; he spent a goodly amount of time after that bad-mouthing his boss to everyone that would listen. The boss was a liar and a cheat, he said. Life just wasn't fair.

The boss, who had given him the job in the first place and kept him on far longer than she should have, commented that no good deed goes unpunished.

DAY LABORERS

I'm told that day laborers get about $10 an hour in our local job market. So that $80 would be the equivalent of the denarius in the Lord Jesus' story.

Any kid, whose folks don't regularly throw free money at them, would jump all over an offer to get $80 for a day's work. And that kid would assume that anybody that started work later in the day would get paid only for the amount of work done. Oh, yes, there would be howling at pay time if everybody got the same amount. It isn't fair!

The Lord Jesus' story still gets under our skin. Just talk about jailhouse conversions with most people, and they start to gripe. Just talk about the scoundrel that gets religion on his deathbed. A lot of people just aren't buying that stuff.

Most Christians deep down inside are right there with the kids that say, "It isn't fair!"

The most active folks in a congregation are always talking about the ones that don't do anything. The biggest givers are always griping about the ones that toss in an occasional dollar or two. Deep down inside most pastors that give 10% or more of their income resent the folks who throw in a little money while enjoying their big cars, boats, and great vacations. We church insiders like to sing with the Virgin Mary: "God has cast down the mighty from their thrones. He has filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he has sent away empty" (Luke 1:46ff.).

Middle class Christians always love Jesus' stories about the rich dropping dead or being in hell or being as likely to get to heaven as getting a camel through a needle's eye. We want it to be fair according to our definition. We know who ought to be in and out!

Then, the Lord Jesus tells this story about God's unfairness. It just sucks!

NAILED

If the Christian faith were about fairness, everybody would be on a rotisserie in hell. Yes, especially us folks that are so sure we are smarter, more compassionate, and just downright morally superior to everybody else. For if we want to play the fairness game, then God is going to nail us for every infraction of the rules and every bit of resistance to His ownership of everything.

Instead God shows His unfairness by nailing His own Son, Jesus, to the cross for the sins of the whole world, not the least of which are yours and mine. His Son does the work of complete obedience to the Father, not failing in any way, not grousing or whining or shortchanging the Father. No, Christ Jesus completely does His Father's will, and then, at the end of the day gives us His paycheck as if we had done the work.

The Lord Jesus gets nailed to the cross for our sins and in our place. He takes our sin and death and gives us His life and righteousness as a free gift. Luther calls it's the "froehliche Wechsel," the happy exchange. What gracious unfairness we get when we are clothed in Christ's righteousness as the Holy Spirit makes us children of God in the washing of Holy Baptism.

Thanks be to God, it's not fair!

WORKING FOR FREE

Any parent knows when a kid is doing something to get something. And he knows when a kid is doing something out of love. It's those latter moments that a parent treasures.

Because we know that God is graciously unfair, we get to show our love for God by working for free. We can't earn God's love. We've already got it. We can't buy our way to heaven. Jesus has already done that for us. We don't have to compare ourselves with others. It's not our job. God's the Boss and can do with them as He wills!

As the old joke goes, the benefits of church work are out of this world.

This guy ran a division of a major corporation. His group accounted for about $1 billion in annual sales. Then he went with his church on a mission trip to Honduras and helped to lay brick as part of a new sewer system. At the end of day two, he said with big tears in his eyes: "This is the best thing I've ever done in my life." It was all joy. He even paid to go on the trip and used a week of his vacation, too!

He got it. His life was changed by the unfairness of God's economy.

Would that every Christian would get it this week!

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Samuel D. Zumwalt
St. Matthew?s Evangelical Lutheran Church
Wilmington, North Carolina USA

E-Mail: szumwalt@bellsouth.net

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