Sept. 20 2020 Sermon

P16A 2020 Matthew 20:1-16
There is perhaps no parable that Jesus tells that makes people angrier than this one. Good,
hardworking laborers put in a full day’s work and get paid the same as the workers who only worked an
hour. It feels unfair. It violates our Protestant work ethic. It challenges everything we have been
taught about the way this world works. But that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do, because this
parable does not describe human nature—we already know how we operate; this parable describes the
kingdom of heaven—God’s vision for the way things ought to work.
A landowner hires workers first thing in the morning, then more at 9, then more at noon, three,
and five. The only group whose salary was explicitly set—for the usual daily wage—was the first
group. So when we hear the landowner promise to pay the others “whatever is right” we might
imagine, if this were the first time we were hearing this story, that the 9 o’clock group will get paid a
little less than the daily wage, the noon group about half of the daily wage, and so on down the line.
Or, conversely, as the laborers themselves start to assume, that if the landowner pays the last workers
the usual daily wage, that he will increase the pay for each of the preceding groups so that those who
were hired first make much more, maybe 10 times more that what the last group made. Shouldn’t those
who worked more get paid more? Isn’t that fair? Wouldn’t that be the only logical way to run a
business? What’s going to happen tomorrow, when the landowner goes out to get workers first thing in
the morning? Who is going start working at 6AM if they know they can wait until 5PM and still make
the same amount of money?
Now, there are a few little details that we want to acknowledge. First of all, the daily wage was
not helping anybody buy a boat or send their kid to college or pad their 401k. Most of Jesus’
contemporaries lived day to day, right on the edge of survival. The daily wage was enough for a
laborer to feed their family for that day…enough to purchase our daily bread, as it were. So giving the
last labors a tiny fraction of the daily wage would be like Grandpa giving you a shiny new nickel to
help him with a chore—a nice gesture to acknowledge your effort, but you can’t do much with it.
Paying a worker less than the daily wage means he isn’t going to eat. We might also stop to think
about why, when there’s clearly plenty of work to be done, at least a few workers are still unemployed
at the end of the day, even though they are waiting in the marketplace where workers go to get hired,
and even though they all take the landowner up on his offer of employment. Why didn’t they get hired
first or at least earlier? It’s reasonable to guess that these might not be the strongest, healthiest,
youngest, most efficient-looking members of the work force. And yet, even weaker, older, less healthy
people need to eat. And we might also remember that the workers who were hired first agreed to work
all day for the wage that they were paid; they had what amounted to a contract; it would be hard to
argue that the landowner cheated them by paying them exactly what he said he would.
But notice what makes those first workers grumble; it’s not that they see the last workers getting
paid the daily wage. And that part may make some sense to us as caring, generous, open-minded
people, right? Everybody’s got to eat, so we can understand why the landowner makes sure that
everybody has the minimum they need to get by. What really angers the first workers is, in their own
words, that the landowner has “made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day.” They
weren’t offended that the landowner gave them the daily wage; they were offended that the landowner
didn’t give them more. They were angry that the landowner gave them the same pay as the others—
even though it’s what they agreed to—and even though that amount represented what was enough—
enough for the first workers, enough for the last workers, enough to ensure that everyone got their daily
bread. Those first workers didn’t mind that the last were deemed worthy of the daily wage; they just
thought that they were worthier—that they deserved more.
We could get into some very interesting conversations comparing Jesus’ economics to our
economics, what it would mean if our society actually applied Jesus’ kingdom principles to the way our
world works. Impractical! Impossible! Unfair! But again, that’s kind of the point. Our human nature
teaches us to operate out of a mindset of scarcity—to look at the the world and the resources in it as a
pie: if someone else is going to get a piece, that means there’s less for us; we me might not mind in
theory someone else having enough, but what if that means that we get—not even less than we need,
but even just less than we want? Yet God doesn’t operate from our perspective of scarcity; God’s
economy is an economy of abundance: a cup that runneth over.
God has tried to teach us this all throughout scripture: manna, the daily bread from heaven that
fell on the Israelite camp in the wilderness; there was enough of it for everybody, but if you hoarded
more than you needed, it would spoil. The story of Jonah that we read today: Jonah’s God-given
mission is to warn Nineveh to repent, and when he does, they do, yet he gets mad. He knows the Lord
is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love…so he runs in the other
direction, would even rather die than watch his enemies receive the same gifts of grace and mercy that
God first gave to him. God keeps trying to show us, over and over again, that there’s enough to go
around—enough resources, enough love, enough grace.
This story is only irritating to us if we think of ourselves as the first workers; or, if we have a
little humility, maybe the 9 o’clock or noon workers; surely we at least beat that 5 o’clock crowd. Yet
to be saved by grace through the faithfulness of Christ means that we earn no part of our salvation—
none, nothing, zero. When we begin to believe that truth, we will finally hear this story as good news:
God has given us more than we could hope for, more than we have earned or deserve, and definitely all
that we need. May we be joyful and not jealous when we see God do the same for others. And may we
who profess to follow this God participate in making that happen.