Fairness

 

Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church

September 20, 2020

Rev. Natalie Bowerman, Pastor

Let us pray:

An Equinox Prayer

As we mark this time of equinox,
may we find the balance we desire and need in our lives:
– light and dark,
– spirit and body,
– mind and soul.

At the Spring equinox
may we recognize the promise of rebirth
both within and all around us.

At the autumn equinox
may we recognize and give thanks for
the blessings of the summer harvest
and the fruits of our gardens.

As we mark the equinox in either the northern or southern hemisphere
let us wonder at the Mystery that is Life
and open ourselves to the blessings
of both dark and light.
Amen.

Our Gospel reading is Matthew 20: 1-16

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius[a] for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

A Message

“Fairness”

This morning's Gospel lesson makes you really wonder what it would be like to have Jesus as the head of the company you work for.

Now, personally, I can see a lot of advantages to having Jesus as your boss. You'd get one day off every week, guaranteed, provided of course that you planned to use that day as a Sabbath day. The great healer would provide excellent health insurance benefits for all of his employees, out of his tremendous compassion for the sick. Though you may occasionally find, after you refill the water cooler, that its contents have been turned into the finest quality wine, you'd also never have to worry about bringing your own lunch, as Jesus could feed your whole company from one person's fish sandwich. He'd set the bar for all equal opportunity employers--finally, women and men would be equals in the work place, and he'd be especially generous about holding job interviews for the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the lame. He wouldn't ask for references from your previous employers. Matter of fact, he wouldn't even ask for a resume. It wouldn't matter if you used to work as a tax collector, or even as a prostitute. You'd be welcome to work for his company. And since he meant it when he said let the little children come to me, you working parents would never have to worry about child care again.

In a lot of respects, I bet it would be pretty awesome if Jesus was your boss. Except, possibly, for one major thing that might seriously hinder your company's morale: the pay.

Sure, the figure Jesus would quote you for your annual salary would look fantastic when you accepted the job. And you would know how seriously unethical it is to compare pay checks with your co-workers. But, you're human, so you would do it anyway. And as you did, you'd quickly find out that the people Jesus hired in December reported the same annual income on their tax return as the people Jesus hired in January. And if you started working for Jesus much closer to January than December...you might find, in spite of all the perks of this great company, that you're starting to resent your boss.

And you would know you don't really have a leg to stand on--after all, what would you have to be so upset about? The Lord provides for you. The salary he'd offer you would not only be a living wage, it would be the best pay any employer has ever offered you. So you really couldn't say that what Jesus is paying you isn't fair. It's perfectly fair. It's downright generous. But what Jesus offered the people who just came on to the company right around Christmas is so much more generous--it's the same compensation as you, for far less time at work. What gives? This wouldn't be acceptable anywhere else.

But let's expand this metaphor. Because we don't have to just pretend Jesus is our boss. Jesus really is our boss. We all work for Jesus. Everyone who calls Jesus Lord works for Jesus. Jesus' company is the biggest in the world, with roughly 2 billion employees worldwide. And, inasmuch as Jesus is the most important part of our lives, he is our CEO.

And things here in Jesus' company are very different than in someone else's company. We follow a different set of rules than everyone else. That's what we agreed to when Jesus called us to our ministries--whatever that means personally for you--and we said yes.

We have a different set of rules here. Outside of this company, if you will,  out in the secular world at large, we expect fairness. We frequently don't achieve it, but we expect it. Outside of the Church, the gold standard is fairness. You get what you have coming to you. You get what you pay for. You get what you deserve. No more, no less.

What Jesus offers us is much better than fairness. Here, we get what none of us deserve. Here, we get what none of us worked for. Here, we get what none of us should have coming to us: grace.

A clean slate. A whole new lease on life. Forgiveness. Redemption. And salvation.

Your mistakes? Washed away. Jesus doesn't hold them against you. Your guilt? Gone. Jesus doesn't care. Your shame? Gone. Jesus doesn't want you to feel that way. We're emancipated. There's nothing weighing us down. We're at peace with God, and we're his.

But being part of this flock, this Church, this human family, this company, isn't fair. Jesus' decisions aren't fair. We don't see fairness among us. We see equality.

When Paul wrote to his community in Galatia, he wrote "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians‬ 3‬:28‬ NIV)

Jesus treats all of his flock with equality because Jesus himself is equality. He frees us from the shackles of our prejudice. No more sexism. No more classism. No more racism. No more lines in the sand. We're equal. We're equally loved, and equally saved.

But that brings us back to our one gripe with our boss: the pay. We're the beloved children of God, the proud employees of the greatest boss of all time, but we're also human so we find it awfully hard to overlook what we see as an injustice. Why should Jesus be just as gracious to someone who comes to him late in the game as he is to someone who has always believed? Or, maybe more to the point: why should we bother being good people, honoring God, serving our Church and loving our neighbor if Jesus would treat us exactly the same if we spent all our lives goofing off and messing up? What do we get out of a lifetime of discipleship if it's not our works that save us? What's the point?

These are the questions this morning's Gospel lesson helps us pose. These are the questions that the laborers in Jesus' parable ask in anger. And they're misguided questions.

It's perfectly fine to ask questions. It's perfectly fine not to understand how all of this discipleship business is supposed to work. It's perfectly fine to not take what you see and hear about Jesus at face value, and to question it. But it's also okay, once you've asked all the questions you need to, to trust how Jesus takes care of each of us.

And when Jesus comes to you in the marketplace, or at your house, or at your school, or your place of work, or to your dreams, or even here to your church, and he asks you to work for him, you don't need to worry about the hours, or the nature of the work, or what you're going to get out of it, and you definitely don't need to worry about what he's asked of or given to anyone else. Jesus will take care of that. When Jesus asks you to work for him, when Jesus calls you to action and to ministry, you don't need to ask any follow-up questions at all. All you have to do is say yes, and trust your boss to handle the details.

Amen.

I invite you to receive the benediction:

Our God, our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, will guard our going out and our coming in from this time on and forevermore. And the people of God all say together: Amen.