God chooses to let us in at 5...

We often pay close attention to what is fair or unfair in our lives and society.  Today's parable can be very jarring to us who expect fairness in our lives.  But God grants us many things we have not earned, including our very lives back from sin and death.  God's blessings for us are undeserved, and as such when God chooses to be merciful, we can rejoice!  All receive the same blessings, no matter what they've done, in God's house.

14^th Sunday after Pentecost (Year A) – Sunday, September 18, 2011

Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, Lancaster, PA

Texts: Jonah 3:10-4:11, Matthew 20:1-16

There's nothing quite like going all day without food and then arriving early outside a church building and waiting three hours to come inside to give you a keen sense of fairness. I don't speak from experience, but from the opportunity I have to spend time with people at the community meal. If you've ever been blessed to be there, you know what I mean. All eyes are peeled, on watch, ready to expose any violation of fairness. “Hey, she came in late!” “That's the third time he's gone through and gotten a plate!” “This old lady's been waiting here 20 minutes!” Please don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming anyone. Many folks at the meal have spent much of their lives learning first-hand how unfair the world is. I think it's reasonable for people to hope that at least in God's house they'll be treated fairly. But experience so often teaches otherwise - that the quick and cunning get the extra plate and patience and faithfulness often go unrewarded.

It's true – the world is not fair. It's not fair that we have over 8 percent unemployment here in Pennsylvania. It's not fair that people wait on temp agency after temp agency, desperate for a job, choosing between food and bills when they have kids at home. We look to our neighbors who seem to have things handed to them. We mutter to ourselves as we pass the welfare office down the street. We see those who have come to this country to take things we believe we deserve – jobs, the help nobody ever gave to us - and we become angry. Our innate sense of fairness kicks in. Who do those people think they are? Why doesn't God give people what they deserve?

Jonah's story puts these oh-so-human feelings of entitlement and outrage on full display. God had pardoned the mortal enemies of Israel. If God pardoned the people who were trying to kill us, wouldn't we get a little upset too? When explaining why he ran away from God, Jonah says “I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” You'd think those are qualities that would get you running toward God. But when that divine love and mercy is directed toward people who in our eyes don't deserve it, we want to run away too.

Then there's this outrageously unfair story Jesus tells today. If you've ever put in a long, hard day at work, especially outdoor, back-breaking work, doesn't this story get your blood pressure rising? To see the shirkers who came in at 5:00 get paid the same as you, when you've been out there all day under the blazing sun? What kind of a boss is that? It's not fair.

These stories raise hard questions. What are we really entitled to? What do we really deserve? If we believe that God created the world and everything in it, then we have to answer those questions from God's perspective. When God created the world, God didn't stamp our name on anything. When was the last time we paid a bill for the air we breathe or the sunlight that keeps us alive? What did we do to earn the little moments of grace in our lives? The wonderful, but difficult, truth is that God made everything in the world, including us, and everything and everyone belongs to God. Therefore we deserve nothing at all. That is, we do not have a claim to anything on our own merits. All is given to us as a gracious gift of our creating, redeeming and life-giving God. The forgiveness and love we enjoy from God is a gift we do not deserve. We live in a society that's based on rules, rewards, punishments, and the concept of ownership, so for us this is pretty hard to swallow. We are caught up in these systems that teach us to be angry when other people, the so-called undeserving, receive what we think should be ours. We are bound to the sins of greed and power.

Jesus came to proclaim a new society called the kingdom of heaven, in which everyone gets what they do not deserve, and this got him killed. He turned all our basic principles of who-should-get-what upside down. Like most people who have ever challenged the systems of wealth and power that run our world, Jesus ended up dead. Jesus was nailed to a cross because he insisted that everyone should get the same.

But in the resurrection of Christ, God showed that nothing can stop his love from toppling our systems of greed and power. In the resurrection, we also are freed from the power of these sins. We're free to live the way Jesus is showing us. We are free to see the good news in today's story – that none of the workers in the vineyard went home hungry that night. God, our landowner, kept going out all day to find those who had no work and he gave them an equal share in his blessings. God chose to be gracious with what belongs to him.

In our baptisms, God marks us with the cross of Christ and seals us with the Holy Spirit forever. We don't belong to a corporation. We're not owned by someone else. The sign of the cross on our foreheads is like a big sticker that says “MADE BY GOD, COPYRIGHT BEGINNING OF TIME UNTIL FOREVER, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.” On the cross we all were bought and paid for by our Lord Jesus. Our status before God is a free gift on account of God's endless love in Jesus Christ. God's material blessings are also free gifts meant to be shared. Food, water, shelter, air, a job, physical safety, medical treatment, good government – for those of us who have them, these are great gifts from God who provides for us. We have contributed nothing but inherited everything.

We are therefore stewards and caretakers, not owners. All the blessings we have are not ours to hoard for ourselves. God gives them to us to be shared with our fellow workers. As the people of Christ Lutheran, you have been blessed with each other for many years. You have been blessed with this building and the generosity of all those who have kept it in good repair for many more years of ministry. You are blessed with countless thankful and gracious hearts who tirelessly do God's work. I am deeply blessed to be among you.

We go out into a world in which God is actively working to topple the forces of greed, power and hierarchy. As we are sent down Strawberry Street, down King Street and down Manor Street, and all around our city, we will find God already there replacing those powers with generosity, gratitude, equality and unconditional love. In many ways, through countless people, God is welcoming the desperate newcomers who have fled other nations. Right here in our building and all across the city, God is working not only to feed the hungry but to change the systems that made them hungry. God is giving gifts to all God's people, none of whom deserve it, but all of whom are infinitely loved. I ask us to consider how God is calling us to participate in God's ongoing work of transformation.

But before we go, let us remember that God has come to us here. Our Christian lives always start with God coming to us. God doesn't ask where we were born or what our citizenship status is. God doesn't ask whether we've worked hard or slacked off, whether we've made good decisions or not. Friends, it's 5:00 and our landowner, the merciful God, is inviting us into the vineyard so that we would not go hungry tonight. At this table, in this vineyard, the fruit of the earth belongs to God, and so do you. At this table, God chooses to give you everything, and here no one is ever sent home hungry. Amen.