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Sermon September 18, 2005 |
A Sermon Preached at
In Paul Reiser’s new film “The Thing About My Parents” a son struggling with mixed emotions about his father asks the older man, “Did you resent YOUR father because he wasn’t home more often?” It got me to thinking about the things I did and didn’t resent about my own father. My dad traveled a great deal, but I don’t think I resented his absences as much as I resented what I thought of as his unfair expectations. For example, I really liked the trust he gave me when we collaborated on laying out flower beds. I liked working with him as a partner, but I really hated his expectation that I would continue to work on those flower beds while he was away, finishing all by myself the backbreaking work we had begun together.
Our readings from Jonah and Matthew this morning are about expectations that seemed unrealistic to some. First, we read the climax of the story of Jonah in which Jonah tells God that he has been resisting taking God’s word to the sinful people of Ninevah—not because he’s afraid the people of Ninevah will hate him for it, but because he is afraid they will accept God’s word, repent and God will spare them. What’s the use of giving a dire warning, Jonah seems to wonder, if you don’t have the satisfaction of seeing it carried out. That strange little bit of twisted logic is followed in our readings by a similar one that doesn’t seem so twisted to most of us. Jesus tells the story of the laborers in the vineyard who are all given the same wage even though some worked all day in the hot sun and some came to work just at quitting time. The laborers who worked all day are incensed that the Johnny-come-latelies got paid a whole day’s wage. In both of these stories, the response to the accusation of unfairness is the same. God is amazed that Jonah could care so little for the people of Ninevah that he would be willing to let them die. The landowner who is the stand-in for God in Jesus’ story of the laborers is likewise amazed that the all-day laborers would begrudge his generosity.
Both of these stories challenge us to get beyond our petty ideas of fairness to a real appreciation of grace. Both stories suggest that there is something small-minded and mean-spirited in us when we think in terms of rewards and punishments. Both stories suggest that God is working on another agenda—a way of life that involves a sense of harmony, unity and compassion.
Most of us find that especially the Jesus story about the laborers is really hard to get. We belong, after all, to a world based on deserving, where one’s self worth is measured in economic value. Most of us only had a twinge of concern, for example, when the 9/ll Commission awarded huge compensation payments to the grieving families of Goldman Sachs’ executives and very small payments to the grieving families of busboys. We live pretty easily in a world in which some human beings are worth more than others. No wonder, then, that most of us agree with the all-day laborers in Jesus’ story: one’s worth SHOULD be based on the measure of one’s productivity.
In his book Santa Biblia: The Bible through Hispanic Eyes, Justo Gonzales says that this parable elicits a surprisingly different reaction when it is read by Hispanic audiences. Hispanic readers, says Gonzales, identify with the problems of field workers. They understand the laborer who travels in his pickup truck trying to find work with little success, or, even if he finds work, he is standing around waiting until the job materializes. At the end of the parable when the landowner pays the wages, the Hispanic congregation applauds when the laborers who worked for only one hour get paid a full day’s pay. They are not confused by this, but understand that the people looking for work and who have been waiting for work need a day’s pay to survive. They rejoice, then, at the grace that is not contrary to justice, but that flows with justice. They are paid what they need and deserve rather than the wages they might have been paid had society’s concept of justice prevailed.
There is, you see, another way of seeing God’s apparent “unfairness.” In this way of seeing, all of us human beings are in the same boat. We are all dependent on God’s mercy and all have reason to be grateful that we are precious in God’s eyes, far beyond anything we could possibly earn. If we are really grateful for the mercy of God—and if we are not secretly thinking we deserve it—then it is the most natural thing in the world to rejoice that the people of Ninevah were spared, no matter what awful things they did in the past. Then it is the most natural thing in the world to rejoice that the workers who finally made it to the vineyard at the end of the day got the day’s pay they needed.
I guess for me the bottom line in these stories is the same bottom line I wrestled with when my father left on his business trips and left me to finish the flower beds we worked on together. Perhaps the strangest expectation my father had and the strangest expectation God has is the expectation of partnership. My dad—with charming naiveté—assumed that I would take the same delight that he did in our mutual garden creation. That I would rejoice when the bulbs came up and the flowers bloomed because we had done something beautiful together, and not be taking an accounting of who did what. God, I think, has a similar expectation: that we will take the same delight God takes in our mutual growing of the kingdom. That we will rejoice when people do each other kindnesses, forgive each other old wrongs, and give each other the chance to begin again—and not be taking an accounting of who deserves what.
My dad’s expectation was not so much unfair as it was over-hopeful. Maybe God’s expectation that we can rejoice in kindness without worrying about who deserves it is also over-hopeful. But maybe not. Maybe by the grace of God we can learn to be God’s partners and rejoice in mercy without worrying about who deserves it.
AMEN