14. Sunday after Pentecost, 09/18/2011

Sermon on Matthew 20:1-16, by Frank C. Senn

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; 4and he said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went. 5When he went out again about noon and about three o'clock, he did the same. 6And about five o'clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, 'Why are you standing here idle all day?' 7They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard.' 8When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.' 9When those hired about five o'clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 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 the usual daily wage? 14Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?' 16So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

Some people are not going to like this parable of Jesus, especially employees working in the public sector and not-for-profit agencies who are being asked to work longer hours for less pay and whose pensions and health plans are being cut. On the other hand, those in the 9.1 per cent of the chronic unemployment group might be encouraged by it.

The story is quite straight forward. A vintner wants his grapes harvested. He starts out with a group of workers early in the morning. At 9 o'clock he goes out into the marketplace and hires more workers, telling them that he would pay what is right. He did this several times during the course of the day, even up to the 11^th hour. We wonder why he did this. Perhaps he simply wanted the job done that day. But it certainly seems likely that he hired workers toward the end of the day it simply out of compassion.

But then there's a strange twist to the story, as there usually is in Jesus's parables. The signal that it is coming is the fact he decided to pay first the workers hired last. He treats them with generosity, knowing that they depended on a full day's wage to meet their daily needs. Well and good. But then those hired earlier in the day expected to receive more. Instead they received the same wage. To them this seemed unjust. They worked all day and bore the heat of the sun and the heavy burdens. They certainly should have received more than those who came in only at the last hour to help clean up. But the vintner points out that he was not unjust: he paid them what they agreed to. As for these last, "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?"

A proper interpretation of this parable is going to hinge on this point. But as we try to understand the point, we have to admit that this is no way to run a business, neither in first century Palestine nor in our 21^st century global economy. To pay the same wage for an hour's worth of work as for twelve hour's worth of work might have gotten the landowner a reputation for generosity, but it would not have made many of the workers eager to sign up with him on the next day or the next year. Moreover, the landowner would have to have a lot of capital at his disposal to be able to keep up this policy. It sure would eat up his profits if he did this day after day.

Also, we must admit that this act is not really fair or just. No argument is made that it is just, only that it is not unjust to those hired first. They received what they agreed to. No, the act is willful and arbitrary. The landowner is doing what he wants with what belongs to him. But it is also called good or generous. I like the older, more literal translation, "Is your eye evil because I am good?" This statement indicates the landowner's motive. He was being compassionate to those who had not been employed and whose families might otherwise have gone hungry that night. But, still, it was a sheer act of will by one in the position of an autocrat who had the right and the power to override all considerations by his own.

So the parable is not about business practices and it is not about justice. What is it about?

The key to the interpretation of the parable lies in it's opening line. "The kingdom of heaven is like...." Jesus is talking about the kingdom of heaven, or the rule of God. He is not talking about economic policy or anything in the realm of human life, even though he uses a real life situation to give us a clue about the kingdom of God. Jesus told this story about a vintner and laborers whom he hired and paid in order to disclose to any listener who has ears to hear a great truth about God and how God deals with his people.

But we cannot stop with his. Life is not so simple and so sensible that the goodness of God can have its way and everyone lives happily ever after. Every true picture of God's goodness must show its antithesis in sharp conflict with everything that most people regard as reasonable and fair.

The goodness of God does not exist in splendid isolation. Over against God's goodness is the stony glare of the eye that shows itself as evil. We cannot suppose that the grumblers were either convinced or silenced by the landowner's words that night. They undoubtedly went home jealous and bitter and rehashed it with their spouses. If they had a farm workers union they might have called a union meeting to organize a resistance to this landowner's unfair labor practices.

We cannot ignore how the world responds to the gospel of Christ. So long as God is good and human beings are evil, God must be in conflict with human beings and defeat them before he can bless them. And God is in conflict not only with our baser motives, but even with our higher motives, such as our sense of justice. In this parable, God's goodness, his generosity, his compassion, stands over against our standards of justice. The kingdom has a king. We may not like that, but our only hope for goodness lies in God's being autocratic, arbitrary, self-willed.

So this parable confronts us with God's goodness over against the human sense of justice, with God's way of dealing with his human creatures over against the way we deal with one another. It says that the patterns of human culture and civilization which we have built up are under the judgment of a good God who does not see things the way we do.

Can anyone who hears this parable today fail to agree that the logic of the disgruntled workers is the logic on which our business and commerce, our economics and politics is built? But if our very ideal of justice comes into conflict with God's compassion and generosity, then doesn't that suggest that there's something wrong with our standards of justice? Like the workers in Jesus' parable, we can argue with God all we want about what is fair and just, but we will not change his mind, even if all the world agrees with us.

Beyond our sense of justice, of course, there is human mercy, maybe even enough of it to help us keep justice and compassion in balance. There is a lot of mercy, of benevolence, in our society. Disasters strike and look at how people respond. But the parable stops us here once more. If it is true that in human society no corporation or government can afford to act as this landowner acted, is that not a judgment on human society? We've had some fierce arguments recently about our national debt. At the same time we are facing an intractable unemployment situation. It is not just to indenture future generations, that is true. Is it compassionate to go into debt so that more of our fellow citizens can earn a living?

We're in a mess. God's goodness shines in such clear relief because it shines in the darkness of a messed-up world. We can hardly acknowledge God's goodness without at the same time recognizing and deploring the mess we've made of our world. We cannot put our trust in what God wills for us and still think that we can continue doing things as we have done.

This gospel is a judgment on our human ways and a call to repent of what we have made of the whole human enterprise by our selfish and acquisitive motives, our fear and envy of one another, our love of the world and our treason against God. The English critic, John Ruskin, in his essay Unto This Last was at least right to see that if this parable is a clue about what the kingdom of God is like, some changes need to be made in our economics and politics and commerce and industry, and maybe even in our arts and sciences.

But further - and here is the gospel - our parable affirms that there is a Goodness beyond all human dreams of the good, that the will of God is not compliant and politely wavering but firm and true, that the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind, that He says no to us so that we may say yes to him, that he overrules us so that he may rule us in love. Amen.

Pastor Frank C. Senn
Evanston, IL
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