Table of Grace

CEB Matthew 20:1-16 “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 After he agreed with the workers to pay them a denarion, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 “Then he went out around nine in the morning and saw others standing around the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I’ll pay you whatever is right.’ 5 And they went. “Again around noon and then at three in the afternoon, he did the same thing. 6 Around five in the afternoon he went and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you just standing around here doing nothing all day long?’ 7 “ ‘Because nobody has hired us,’ they replied. “He responded, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the workers and give them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and moving on finally to the first.’ 9 When those who were hired at five in the afternoon came, each one received a denarion. 10 Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more. But each of them also received a denarion. 11 When they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 ‘These who were hired last worked one hour, and they received the same pay as we did even though we had to work the whole day in the hot sun.’ 13 “But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I did you no wrong. Didn’t I agree to pay you a denarion? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I want to give to this one who was hired last the same as I give to you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you resentful because I’m generous?’ 16 So those who are last will be first. And those who are first will be last.”

INTRO

This morning, we continue our sermon series called Come to the Table. Each week, we explore different aspects of the Eucharistic Table and our call to live out the theology of the table as we offer Christ to the World. This week, we will explore the grace found at the Eucharistic Table.

Today’s Gospel reading is a familiar passage: the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. It comes on the heels of Peter’s question found in the 19th Chapter of Matthew: “What will there be for us.” The disciples want to know what their reward for following Christ the longest will be. Like the parable of the prodigal son, it’s easy to relate to the grumblings of the oldest son, Peter and the other disciples, and in our passage today, the laborers who worked all day. If we are honest, for us and many Christians, this is our first reaction. We ask ‘how is it fair?’ ‘Why do they get the same as us?’ ‘Why is their voice just as important as ours when we’ve been here longer?’ ‘Why do they seem to get more than we get?’ This is something we wrestle with over and over again. Our perception of what is right and fair or what is owed to us.

Peter asked this question of Jesus earlier in the gospel. Jesus answered with the parable of the unforgiving servant. As Peter continued to struggle with it, Jesus moved into our parable this morning of the workers in the vineyard. In the midst of our questions and feelings, we find comfort and relief knowing we are not alone in them. And as we continue to wrestle with what is fair in the eyes of God, there is good news: God continues to engage us even when we continually fail to understand the implications of God’s grace. God invites us to receive the generosity of grace offered whether we receive it first or last. God gives abundantly where we are grumbling or grateful. And in all of this, we discover that the parable of the laborers in the vineyard is actually a parable of the generosity of God.

One commentary notes: “This parable is essentially about the generosity of God. It is not about equity or proper disbursement of wages but about a gracious and undeserved gift. It is not about an economic exchange but, rather, about a bestowing of grace and mercy to all, no matter what time they have put in or how deserving or undeserving we may think them to be. God’s generosity often violates our own sense of right and wrong, our sense of how things would be if we ran the world.”

This is what Jesus does. He turns the expectations and understandings of the human world and how things are being done upside down. The human world says we need power, status, and wealth. We should only get what we have earned and deserve based on these worldly values. God’s kingdom says the last is first. God’s kingdom says when you care for the least of these you are caring for Jesus. God’s kingdom says you must become poor to inherit the riches of God. God’s kingdom says the weak will be made strong. God’s kingdom is not like the kingdoms of this world - AMEN?? On the one hand, we praise and give thanks for this, and in the very same breath, if we are honest, we struggle in our humanness with the “fairness” of the laborers in the parable, getting the same generosity of God.

This, friends, is the very reason we stand in need of God’s generous grace for each of us. Not because we’ve earned it. Not because we deserve it because of how much we’ve done or how long we’ve worked. But simply because of how generous and loving and good God is. This is who God is. And we, the laborers - all the laborers who say yes to God’s invitation, receive this generous goodness of God.

The custom of Jesus’s day was to pay the workers when evening came. Many workers in the field were so poor that their pay would have enabled them to buy flour (their daily bread) on their way home to bake the bread they would need for nourishment the next day. In fact, the laws of the Torah command the workers to be paid at the end of the day for this very reason. The normal payment order would have been the order in which the workers were hired so that each group was paid less than the previous group. The reversal of this ordering alerted Jesus’ listeners to the unusual event that was about to take place.

The objection of the first hire is not that the customs have been disrupted; it was not about the payment order but rather the fairness of equal pay for unequal work. The first hire felt a sense of hierarchy over the other. They held the prominent position of power and were due more because they had worked the fields the longest. They had been promised enough to buy their daily bread as a day's worth of work, yet they desired to attain more. Their comparisons of others inflated their sense of worth. In God’s kingdom, hierarchies disappear, and every person, regardless of rank, hours worked, or resources, has a place at God’s table; there is enough for everyone. God’s table is the table of generous grace.

Church, humanity has long exhibited behavior patterns whereby we compare ourselves to others. In fact, recent studies indicate that people who regularly use Facebook or Twitter are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. Social media isn’t bad; however, it leads to competition. It leads us to be envious of the other. Interestingly, the central conflict of the parable for this morning comes into play when the first hired workers see that the other workers that they have deemed less worthy have received the same award. They are envious. The landlord's words hit us just as hard: “Friends, did I wrong you?” “Are you resentful because I’m generous?” Of course, we are! We want our life to look like so and so. We make this same kind of comparison and take on the enviousness found in the parable through tools such as social media, and it undermines our own sense of self-worth. We constantly struggle with our own sense of worth and the value we place on other’s sense of worth. And it is here that we find ourselves in need of God’s grace that says we are enough, we are valued, we are loved. And just as we are enough, we are valued, we are loved, and we have received God’s generous and abundant grace - so too is everyone else. Not because of what they’ve done or when they showed up or how much work they’ve done, but because of who God is.

We are invited into the holy and sacred ground of God’s vineyard to receive the very gift of grace that God offers. Grace that is given freely to each of us, and then in a way that only God can do, we are invited to celebrate with others when they, too, receive God’s generous grace. In our brokenness, in our judgment, in our criticism, in our humanness with all the reasons that they/them/the other shouldn’t receive the same generosity of God that we have received….. God gives it to all. Not because we deserve it or have earned it. But because of who God is. And in receiving it, God’s grace invites us to live as grateful, thankful, grace-filled people who then offer grace freely to others. One author says it this way, “Thus, while this parable calls us to be thankful for the work of grace in our lives, it also challenges us to walk the way of grace as we live now in this ungracious world.”

The way of grace means we must sit in the tension of our envious feelings and God’s generosity. For us, for the world, and for those who live in a capitalistic society, it's not just equality or fairness that’s at stake, but if the landlord is going to “play favorites,” then we want to be the favored ones. If God is going to be generous, then we want that generosity. Yet, if we wait and watch long enough, like the first hired workers in our parable, then we will come to know about God’s goodness. In fact, we only seem to notice God’s goodness when we see it given to others. Maybe that’s part of our issue. We are too close to ourselves, too self-absorbed, too concerned with our own needs to see the grace that God offers to us. The truth of the matter is that God’s generosity is offered to all. All of us are beloved in God’s eyes; all of us are sustained by God’s gracious actions.

Bishop Willimon tells a story about his early years of ministry when the church created a “vision team,” and when they shared their vision with the administrative board, the board got angry. They criticized the plan, raised their voices, and accused the team of sneaking behind their backs and trying to steal their church. Willimon said the next morning, he met with his lay leader and shared his despair over the whole ordeal, and the lay leader was surprised that his pastor read the meeting in such a negative light. His lay leader told him, “Last night’s meeting was the best meeting we’d had recently. There was more energy and commitment. I was wondering if people really loved their church enough to get busy and move the church forward. Their anger and hurt that they expressed last night was a sign of deep love for and commitment to their church. We can work with that. It is a lot easier to put out a fire than raise the dead.”

As a Pastor, I often remind myself that people act out and fuss out of love for their church. The hope is always to take that passion and envy and recognize it as a hopeful movement toward God’s grace. Change is hard; sometimes, it seems unjust, and sometimes, it seems like the church is being stolen or robbed as it changes from what we know to what it is now. Sometimes, we who have been working the fields the longest are like the first hired of the parable, and we wonder what the landowner is doing. Because we worked the field so long and hard, we feel we have some stake in its ownership.

Yet, our reward is not ownership, nor is it based on individual merit, quantity, or quality of our labor, but on the gracious covenant offered to us by God. Our parable reminds us that how long you have been a Christian or a member, how “good” you are doesn't matter. What matters is our openness to both receive and recognize that all are favored, all receive grace, and all are given enough. This morning's parable isn’t about labor or us vs. them so much as it is about God’s generosity. You see, at the table, we are called to experience and then live into the generosity of God. We are called to become the body of Christ. “Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood.”

Like those in the fields, we are given enough; the generosity of God has been given freely; it not just grace, but it is grace upon grace that we receive. And when we discover this good, generous grace of God in our own lives, we discover that God’s grace transforms us to freely offer the same grace to others when they, too, say yes to God - no matter what they’ve done, when they show up or how hard we think they’ve worked. We become one body who is called to offer God’s generosity to the world! So, might we be joyful in the perspectives that going last has to offer? May we be humbled by the God who has favored us, and may we proclaim God’s favor to others.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen