The Church of St.
Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
September 20, 2020
Year A, Proper 20:
The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Exodus 16:2-15
Psalm 105: 1-6, 37-45
Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16
God’s Economy is Generous
A
couple of weeks ago I was invited to a meeting with some people who are looking
to help the men and women who are homeless and spend much of their time in
Journal Square.
When
I agreed to attend this meeting, I had assumed that it was going to be on Zoom,
like almost everything else these days. But, to my surprise, it was an
in-person meeting, my first one since March! Although I’m generally pretty
cautious, and I did hesitate, in the end I still decided to go.
I
have to tell you that it felt weird to be with others in person, to not be just
looking at everyone stuck in little boxes on my computer screen.
A
couple of people tried to shake my hand – sorry not in a pandemic! But, aside
from that, it was fine.
Anyway,
about the meeting.
I’m
no expert on homelessness but I’ve been on the board of Garden State Episcopal
CDC long enough to know that this is a complicated challenge. If it were easy,
we would have found a solution a long time ago.
Helping
people who are homeless often requires a “multi-pronged approach.” There needs
to be affordable housing, of course, but also quality health care for mind and
body. Often people need help with addiction, and, last but not least, people
who can work need jobs – jobs to pay the bills and jobs to restore a sense of
dignity and self-respect.
And,
maybe most of all, we – all of us – need to care about the poorest among us.
So,
sitting at that meeting, I felt a little overwhelmed.
And,
I also thought about all the hot air that has been expended during this long,
long presidential campaign, with candidates talking about issues that most of
us made up our minds about long ago, and now with the death of Justice
Ginsburg, attention has turned to the Supreme Court, which is definitely
important.
But,
unless I’ve missed it, there has been very little attention given to poverty,
very little concern for people who are poor and struggling – very few plans for
helping the many people who were already on the edge before the pandemic, and
are now losing jobs, getting evicted from their homes, and falling deeper into
poverty.
As
the line at our Triangle Park food pantry gets longer each month, and as the
lines at food pantries all across the country grow longer, it seems to be
business as usual.
Most
seem not to care, or, even worse, in our usual American way, we blame the
victims for getting into this mess and we expect them to somehow figure a way
out.
But,
we – you and I - should be different, because God’s way is different.
God’s
economy is generous.
In
our first lesson, from the Book of Exodus, the people of Israel are well into
their wilderness journey. It isn’t going so well – there’s not enough food, for
one thing - and the people are complaining to their leaders, Moses and his brother
Aaron. The people have already grown nostalgic for life back in Egypt, where,
yes, they were enslaved and were being worked to death, but at least there was
enough to eat.
Well,
God hears the complaints, and God responds by giving the people quail in the
evening, and in the morning, manna, the mysterious bread from heaven.
Each
morning, God generously gives the people enough manna to satisfy them for the
day – or two days in the case of the Sabbath.
One
interesting thing about manna, though, that today’s excerpt just hints at, is that
the Israelites learn that there’s no point in taking more than they need for
the day. If they try to hoard extra manna – and being human beings afraid of
not having enough or wanting to have more than the other guy - of course they try
to hoard manna – it quickly rots and is no good.
Just
like many of us, the Israelites were haunted by a sense of scarcity – take as
much as you possibly can now because who knows if there will be anything
tomorrow?
But,
out in the wilderness, the Israelites are required to trust God’s generosity – recognizing
and appreciating that God has been generous today - and God will be generous
tomorrow.
Now,
let’s get to the gospel.
I
just want to say upfront that I love this parable.
It’s
interesting that, unlike many other parables, it doesn’t have a famous title.
What
should we call it?
The
Parable of the Day Laborers?
The
Parable of the Generous Employer?
Well,
by whatever we call it, it’s one of my favorite parables because unlike some of
the others, where the meaning seems unclear or we’re not sure how people back
in the first century would have understood it, in this case people two thousand
years ago and people today hear this story and respond in exactly the same way:
Not fair!
And,
I also want to mention that this parable probably reveals something about the
state of the economy in Jesus’ day. There sure seem to be a lot of idle men,
men who apparently have experience working in vineyards, which is delicate work,
requiring a good bit of skill. Is it possible that they used to have their own
land and have lost it? Or, that they used to have regular employment that they
could count on? In any case, now they are day laborers, at the mercy of people
like the landowner, who might hire them for a full day of work, or just a few
hours., or not at all.
In
the economy of the day, just like in our economy today, day laborers begin each
day not knowing if they would earn enough to feed themselves and their
families.
But,
as we discover, God’s way is different.
God’s
economy is generous.
Jesus
tells us that the kingdom is like a landowner who hires laborers for his
vineyard, promising them the usual daily wage, which, by the way, was one
denarius.
The
first group started work at 6:00 AM and then, as we heard, over the course of
the day, the landowner went back out and hired more and more workers for his
vineyard, vaguely promising to pay them “what is right.”
Desperate
people don’t quibble over the details. They’re just grateful to have any work,
any pay.
The
last group was hired, quite late in the day, long after they had likely given
up hope, but were still hanging around, maybe because they couldn’t face going
home empty handed. This last group is hired at 5:00 PM, meaning that they
worked for only an hour.
So,
when quitting time comes at 6:00, everybody in this story and everybody hearing
this story all make the same assumption: the crew that worked the whole day
will get paid a denarius, while everybody else will receive a wage that is
prorated, depending on how much, or how little they worked.
But,
of course, that’s not what happens.
In
God’s downside-up kingdom, where the last come first, those who worked only an
hour get paid first and they received the full daily wage – and it’s the same
for everybody who worked more hours – including, to their dismay, those who had
been working since 6:00 AM.
They
all receive the same payment.
And
the audience in the first century, and the audience in the twenty-first century,
all cry out in one voice:
“Not fair!”
God’s
way is different.
Last
week, we talked about one of the most challenging pieces of the Christian life,
forgiveness. In the week since, I heard back from more of you than usual, everybody
talking about how hard forgiveness sometimes is.
And,
all I can say is, you’re right – and it’s hard for me, too – and often it’s
only possible with God’s help.
And
now, generosity – God’s kind of generosity - is not much easier, is it?
Especially
in the frightening time we live in, very often we are like the Israelites in
the wilderness, not sure if there will be enough for tomorrow, so we better try
to grab some extra manna just in case – and, if we give anything, it’s usually
not very much, and only if we have something left over, or something we don’t
want or need.
And,
it’s so easy for us to buy into the way of the world, which says, actually,
there really is not enough for everybody, or it’s every man for himself, or if
you would just work harder you would be fine, or greed is good, or your need is
not my problem.
But,
God’s way is different.
God’s
economy is generous.
God
is generous – not content to just give us what we think we’ve earned, but eager
to pour out upon us all kinds of blessings, way more than we expect – blessings
on us and on other people, including those who we might think haven’t done
enough to earn it, who don’t really deserve to be blessed.
So,
if we want to live in God’s downside-up kingdom, then we should aim to be like
God.
With
God’s help, we are expected to forgive – a lot – and we are expected to be
generous, too – especially generous to the people who maybe have only been
working for an hour, or the people who, for whatever reason, are not able to
work at all – like the people who are hanging out at Journal Square, probably
right this minute.
The
world sees God’s economy and cries, “Not fair!”
But,
we are meant to be different.
God’s
economy is generous.
Amen.
Posts
