pocket presbyterian church

                               “God’s Generosity”

“Don’t I have a right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous? So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (from Matthew 20:1-16)

When I was in Middle School, we had to give an oral book report one day in English class. Our teacher had given us a long list of books we could choose from. So each of us had picked one, and spent the last three weeks reading through it, and getting ready for the big book report. Well, as usual, a couple of my friends hadn’t even opened their books until the night before the book reports were due! But one guy in my class made a plan: Instead of taking hours and hours to read through his book, he went to the local drugstore, bought a 15-page comic book with the same title, and used that for his report! Of course the teacher didn’t know about the shortcut he’d taken—and she gave him an “A” on his report! Some of my classmates thought it was funny… But I remember thinking “Hey—I spent two weeks reading this book, and he got the same grade I did. THAT is NOT FAIR!”

That’s a phrase you hear a lot when you have children—especially children around 7 or 8 years old. “He broke in line—that’s not fair!”… “Hey, no fair! She got more cookies than I did.”… “Oh, Dad! All my friends have seen that movie! Why can’t I see it? You’re not being FAIR!”

And the truth is, life is not “fair.”

            *       Not everybody has a happy family…

            *       Not everyone gets a good job…

            *       Not everybody stays in good health—in spite of eating right and getting plenty of exercise.

            *      And every year, millions of babies are born into crushing poverty in Haiti and Malawi and North
                   Korea—instead of this “land of opportunity” you and I have been so fortunate to be born in. Let’s face it:
                   Life on earth is not a very fair thing!

One day, Jesus was teaching his disciples about God’s unusual idea of what’s fair—and he told them a parable to illustrate it. It’s a story about a farmer who owned a vineyard. It takes place in the fall of the year, probably around September, and it’s harvest time. The grapes are ripe, and they need to be picked—and picked soon! So the owner of the vineyard goes to the market in his town, and looks for people who want to work. That was how it worked in the ancient Middle East—people with no job gathered at the main market in the center of town, where employers who had openings came to find laborers who wanted a job for the day.

It’s early in the day when these first workers go to the vineyard to work—around 6 a.m.—so they make sure to negotiate their pay before they start. Field-hands worked from sun-up to sun-down… so the landowner agrees to pay them a “denarius,” which was the standard pay for a blue-collar worker for a normal eleven or twelve-hour workday. At $7 an hour, they’re going to make around $80. It’s not fortune, but it’s enough to put some food on the table that night, and help pay the rent! The laborers are satisfied with the arrangement; so they head to the vineyard, and get to work.

It’s been a good growing season—not too hot, with just the right amount of rain coming in from the Mediterranean Sea—and the vines are loaded with grapes. So at 9 a.m., the owner of the vineyard goes back to the marketplace, and finds more workers to take into his vineyard. At noon he does the same thing, and again at 3 p.m. Each time, he promises to pay them “whatever is fair.” Finally, the landowner goes into town one more time, and hires one last group of people—at 5 p.m.!! By now we start wondering: “Does he really need that many people working in the vineyard… Or is the owner more concerned with making sure that these willing workers have some money to take home at the end of the day?”

Well, at six o’clock in the evening, the sun is setting in the western sky. The whistle blows, and the boss tells his foreman to line up the whole group and pay them—starting with those who were hired last. The first group had only worked one hour; but to their great surprise, they each get paid a full denarius—a whole day’s pay! When the “first hour workers” see what’s happening, they can practically feel the bag of money they’re going to collect! If the men who only worked one hour get that much, just think what they’ve got coming!

But when they open their pay envelopes, the laborers who’ve worked all day long find a single denarius—which is exactly what the boss paid the men who only worked one hour! And they cannot believe their eyes! “IT’S NOT FAIR!” they tell each other. They’ve worked 12 long hours in the vineyard—from that chilly morning all the way through the burning heat, on until sundown. Shouldn’t they be paid 12 times as much as those who only worked one hour? It’s not right! How could the boss cheat them out of all the money they should have been paid?

But the truth is, these hard-workers have not been cheated out of anything! At the beginning of the day, they were just glad to have a job… And they agreed with the owner of the vineyard to work at the normal wage of one denarius a day. And they really didn’t have a problem with that— UNTIL they compared themselves with the workers who were hired late in the day.

Just when you I are shaking our heads, and wondering what this story means, Jesus wraps it up by saying “So, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”   Where will that happen? In God’s kingdom! Because that’s what this parable is about! Jesus starts the whole story by saying “The kingdom of God is like this.” Which tells us that Jesus’ story is going to take us to a different kind of place—and a different way of life. Because in God’s kingdom, the rules are not the ones we’re used to! You and I believe in a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work… And, that you deserve to be rewarded on the basis of what you’ve accomplished or produced, or how much time and effort you’ve put in.

But this parable is NOT a lesson in Christian economics! Any employer who paid the people he hired in December a whole year’s salary would have trouble finding anyone to work the next year from January to November! And a professor who gave an “A”—and a full semester’s credit—to a student who registered on the last day of the semester would face an angry mob of students who’d come to class every day and handed in every assignment!

Remember… This is a parable of the Kingdom—which means it gives us a glimpse into how GOD operates. Not just in heaven, but also right now—with you and me. When we stand before God this morning here in church, do any of us come to “claim our pay” for what we’ve done for God? No—we kneel before the Lord as forgiven sinners—and nothing more! None of us has right to claim a “just wage” from God, because none of us deserves anything from God’s hand. The gospel tells us that we never earn God’s love by our faithful deeds, or through our perfect attendance at Sunday school. Everything we receive from God’s hand is a gift.

But here’s where the real good news is—because we serve an incredibly generous God!

?       He’s generous enough to forgive sinners who don’t deserve it…

?       Generous enough to bear with us when we continue to disappoint him with the things we say and do…

?       Generous enough to send His own son to die in our place, so that our sins can be forgiven.

God, like the owner of the vineyard, stuns us with his generosity! And that’s what God’s kingdom is like. So if we want to be part of that kingdom, we’d better get used to a God who treats people much better than they deserve!

At the end of the day, we see that the owner of the vineyard is more concerned with the workers than he is with his profit. When he hands out the paychecks, he doesn’t give the workers what they deserve, he gives them what they need instead. Because the workers who were hired at three and five o’clock have to feed their children and pay the power bill just like the people who worked all day. So he pours out his generosity on all those who’ve worked for him—just as God does for us.

This parable is great news for those who are “latecomers” into the family of God. But it challenges those of us who’ve lived as part of God’s family for a long time.   Because WE are the first-hour workers—those who come to church each Sunday instead of sleeping in… The ones who’ve given our time and talents and money for the work of God’s kingdom year after year. Some have only worked in God’s vineyard for an hour or two. But many of us have been there hour after hour, sweating in the sun, hanging in when times have been tough.

At the end of the parable, the owner of the vineyard asks a very penetrating question: He looks the unhappy men who worked all day in the eye, and asks, “Are you ENVIOUS because I’m being generous?” Apparently, they are! But how about US? Do we resent God’s generosity toward others? Do those of us who’ve served the Lord faithfully for years resent God’s grace to people who’ve had a conversion experience late in life? When someone who’s lived life rough and hard—someone who’s been self-centered and greedy—comes to Christ, do we resent God even giving them an invitation?

One Bible scholar says that in the end, you have to feel sorry for the workers who were hired first. Not because they didn’t get paid what they deserve—but because even though they got paid fairly, at the end of the day, these first workers went away bitter!   He says: “God gives everyone a daily wage so extravagant that no one could ever spend it all. A deluge of grace descends on all; torrents of joy and blessing fall everywhere. And here these first-hour workers stand, drenched in God’s mercy, an ocean of peace running down their faces, clutching their little contracts and whining that they deserve more!” For those of us who’ve worked in God’s vineyard long and hard, the way we respond to God’s mercy toward others is a real test of our Christian character.

In the passage right before this one in Matthew’s gospel, Peter asks Jesus what he and the other disciples will receive for leaving their work and families and following him. Jesus’ answer: “One hundred times as much as you’ve given up, plus eternal life.” In other words, in the end, everyone who’s worked in God’s vineyard will be rewarded way beyond our imagination. It’s a daily wage so extravagant that no one could spend it all.

Let me end with a short story: In one family, the two young sons always seemed to get into an argument about who got “the bigger half” of the last piece of cake, or the last homemade chocolate-chip cookie. Their mother got so tired of their bickering that one night—when it happened again—she told her oldest son, “Alright, Jim—you cut that last piece of cake in half.” Jim smiled, and picked up the knife—ready to cut himself the largest piece. But his smile faded when his mother added, “But remember— your brother gets to choose the first piece!”

Friends, remember that “God’s cake” is more than big enough for all of us to have a nice big piece—even those who’ve come late to the party! And in God’s kingdom, there will always be enough for seconds!

Closing prayer: Merciful God, teach us to be as generous with each other as you have been with each of us. Amen.

                                                                                                                 -preached at Pocket on September 21, 2008