Sermon on September 20, 2020: 16th Sunday after Pentecost
It is just not fair.
We’ve all said these words, at one time or another, in one form or another. How long has it been since you said them? Has it been a long time—years? Or less—maybe just weeks or days? Or hours? Or only a few minutes?
The complaint that this or that is “not fair” can sometimes have a childish ring to it, which is why it’s easy to dismiss. Children will often say, “It’s not fair!” It’s not fair that I have to do chores but the others don’t! It’s not fair that they get to have a play date, but I don’t! But grownups always have our grown-up response at the ready, don’t we? “Well, I’m sorry, but life isn’t fair.” Be thankful. Have an attitude of gratitude.
Life isn’t fair. This is a very grown-up answer, which turns out to be just as unsatisfying to grown-ups as it is to children. Like children, adults too are captive to the question and language of fairness, which is the language of justice. It’s not fair for a woman to be paid less than a man for doing the same work. It’s not fair that the incarceration rate for Black Americans is five times the incarceration rate of White Americans. It’s not fair that your life expectancy is in large part determined by your zip code. In America, the list of unfairnesses is so long that they cannot be counted. At times, these unfairnesses will be deeply personal to us—not just statistics on a page, but the harshness of lived experience. Unfairness that can be felt in the gut. The sense of injustice that is felt by children and adults alike, the sense that things are just wrong.
It’s like what one of my children once said to me: “Dad, I know you say that life isn’t fair. But I really think it should be.”
Jesus came preaching good news about something he called the kingdom of heaven, and he told a lot of stories about it. We heard one such story today, known as the parable of the workers in the vineyard. A landowner is hiring workers at various times throughout the day—some have been there working in the vineyard all day, while others were hired only for the very last hour. In a dramatic scene at the end of the day, the landowner tells the manager to pay all of the workers the exact same amount, starting with the ones who had worked the least. This absurd payroll decision is most certainly not fair. The laborers who had been there all day can’t contain their disbelief, and they grumble among themselves. Who does this guy think he is?! Hasn’t he ever heard of a sliding pay scale? Does he know nothing about “best practices”? This has to be bad for business—bad for employee morale and workplace culture, bad for the bottom line, harmful to the brand image.
What would possess this man to give equal amounts of pay for unequal amounts of work? And how on earth does this story show us what the kingdom of heaven is like?
A theologian once said that Scripture is like a large mansion, with many locked doors. The keys to the doors are placed all throughout the house, and you often have to go a long way in order to find the right key. But eventually, if you look long and hard enough, you will find it.
Perhaps the key to understanding the parable of the workers in the vineyard lies in an entirely different parable in an entirely different Gospel—in Luke’s Gospel, in the parable of the “prodigal son.” This is also a story about fairness. A man has two sons, and one of them runs away with his inheritance, and squanders it on wild living. Eventually he has nothing left, and he is starving, and survives only by becoming a pig-keeper. He has brought shame upon his family, and is at the end of his rope. Finally he decides to go back to his father and ask permission to work for him as a hired hand. But when he returns, his father sees him, runs out and throws his arms around him, and kisses him. His lost son has finally returned, and he wants to throw a party! But the other brother, the ‘good’ one who stayed at home, gets upset. His black sheep of a brother wasted everything, and now he gets a warm welcome back home, and is honored with all sorts of gifts. It doesn’t make any sense. It just isn’t fair.
What these two stories show us is that life in God’s economy is absolutely, undeniably unfair. But unlike all the normal unfairnesses and injustices, this unfairness is absolutely, undeniably good news. Because it means that God forgives sinful people who are in need of forgiveness, and that we receive God’s grace simply because God gives it to us, and not because we have done anything to earn it. In God’s kingdom, even if you arrive late, if you didn’t work as much as others did, even if you weren’t expecting much of anything, God chooses to give it all away to you, anyway. If the kingdom of God was fair, if we only ever got what we truly deserved, then none of us would be very happy with the outcome. Instead, God’s grace extends to those who did not earn it, to those who do not especially deserve it.
It is far too easy to read the parable of the workers in the vineyard, and imagine ourselves in the place of the laborers who showed up to work early, before 9:00 AM, putting in a full-day’s work and expecting full compensation. It would be better to assume that we are like the ones who showed up late, and received far more than they were expecting. That is a healthy theological orientation, and healthy theological orientations will have an impact on how we approach our daily life and work. It may even change how we think about our neighbor, and their work. Perhaps we will develop the capacity for showing the same measure of grace that we have been shown; perhaps it may set us free from the tyranny of meritocracy.
Meritocracy is the antithesis of Christianity. The grace of God is not a merit-based system. We do not receive God’s love because we’ve earned it. God chooses us not because we deserve to be chosen, but because it delights God to do so.
Maybe one of the best examples to illustrate the truth of this is the Sacrament of Baptism. Just last Sunday, in the afternoon, I baptized a little boy here in the church—the first baptism in the church since January, I think. His name is Dylan, and a small group of us gathered for the Baptism to receive him into the household of God. Dylan is an infant; he didn’t come last Sunday of his own free will, ready to make a decision to follow Jesus. He had no idea what was about to happen to him.
What did Dylan do to deserve this gift of welcome into the household of God? Absolutely nothing. God didn’t choose Dylan because he deserved to be chosen. God chose Dylan because it delights God to do so.
So it is with us. Sacraments are gifts that show us the love of God made material. Today, we are invited to the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist: the love of God made material through Bread and Wine. And how do we come to receive the Sacrament? Do we come ready to grab what is ours, to claim what we think we have earned? Or do we come with open hands, ready to receive a gift? For none of us earns Holy Communion. It is a gift that we can only receive with hands held open. Let us draw nigh, and know that the grace of God is a miracle. We will not understand it. All we need is to receive it, with gratitude and gladness, with our hands outstretched and our hearts held open.