How Much is Enough?

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen, Jersey City NJ

September 21, 2014

Year A, Proper 20: The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Exodus 16:2-15

Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45

Philippians 1:21-30

Matthew 20:1-16

How Much is Enough?

            As a species we seem to have a hard time recognizing how much is enough.

            There are, of course, people here in Jersey City and right here at St. Paul’s who don’t have enough – not enough work, not enough money to pay the bills, and certainly not enough to save for the future.

             And, of course, there are many millions around the world who have nowhere near enough – people who struggle to survive on a dollar or even less a day.

            But, here in rich America, often we really do have a hard time figuring out how much is enough. And big business and the media have no interest in helping us to decide how much is enough.

            Just the opposite; they preach more, more, more…

            So, generally, we eat and drink too much.

            We buy too much stuff – there for a while one of our few growth industries was storage unit facilities, built to hold all the stuff we couldn’t fit into our apartments or houses.

            There are more hoarders out there – and for all I know, in here – than we’d ever imagine – people who fill up every available square foot with more and more stuff – stuff that’s often junk and maybe even literally garbage but for the hoarder there’s just never enough.

            Because of intense economic pressure, many of us work way too much – way more than people in other countries like ours. We leave so little time for family and friends, for rest, and for God.

            Our inability to figure out how much is enough is having devastating effects on the planet, as we burn through natural resources at an alarming rate, leaving little for other creatures, and leaving a bleak future for future generations.

            On Friday night I flew back home after a funeral in Florida. It was a clear night and so pretty much the whole way home from northern Florida to Charlotte, North Carolina, to Newark I could see the sparkling lights of humanity sprawling over what looked like almost every square foot.

            How much is enough?

            Well, if it makes us feel any better, this is not a new problem.

            We see it right in the beginning of the story of God and us, when Adam and Eve are given paradise. In the creation story, God gives the first man and woman a beautiful garden where together they can enjoy an endless number of delights for all eternity.

            But, as the insightful creators of this story recognized, even paradise would not be enough for us.

            Adam and Eve wanted more than that so they eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and get themselves cast out of Eden but, fortunately, they are never exiled from God’s love.

            How much is enough?

            As we heard in today’s lesson from the Book of Exodus, the people of Israel had a hard time figuring out how much is enough.

            Last week we heard the story of how the Israelites miraculously escaped from the Egyptian army. Thanks to God, Moses was able to part the sea allowing the Israelites to escape and leaving the Egyptian soldiers to a watery grave.

            Pretty amazing.

            In today’s reading we pick up one month later and the Israelite attitude towards Moses and his brother Aaron – and really their attitude towards God – might be described as, “What have you done for us lately?”

            The Israelites are already nostalgic for the “good old days” back in Egypt.

            They moan, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

            Now, don’t get me wrong. Their hunger is real. A month in the desert is no joke.

            So, we’re told that the Lord spoke to Moses and said, “I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.”

            First, quails appeared and covered the camp.

            This is actually something that happens to this day. These little birds migrate from Africa to Europe they fly over the Sinai desert and sometimes drop dead to the ground from exhaustion.

            And then in the morning we’re told there was a layer of dew around the camp that left a fine, flaky substance.

            Manna.

            We have a good idea what this was too – to this day desert insects ingest tree sap and then excrete it onto tree branches where it crystallizes and falls to the ground.

            A little disgusting, I’ll admit. But, Nomads use it even today as a sweetener.

            They call it, you guessed it, manna.

            That’s all very interesting, but God uses the manna to teach the Israelites – and to teach us – an important lesson about enough.

            The people are commanded to gather only enough manna for that day – about two quarts. They are required to trust that God will provide more manna tomorrow.

            Except on the sixth day, when they will gather enough for that day and for the next, the Sabbath, the day of rest.

            Enough.

            And then we get to hear Jesus on the subject of how much is enough.

            The challenging – maybe even infuriating - parable that we heard today comes a little after a section of the gospel when a rich young man asks Jesus what must he do to have eternal life. He says that he’s already followed the Law to the letter – but what else must he do?

            So Jesus tells him that if he wants to be perfect he should sell all his possessions, give the money to the poor, and follow Jesus.

            The rich young man can’t do it. Apparently he thinks that if he gave everything away to follow Jesus he wouldn’t have enough.

            In today’s parable the landowner pays all the workers the same amount – those who worked all day and those who just started at 5:00PM.

            Then as now, this parable insults our sense of fairness.

            We would all flip out if we found out that coworkers who worked a lot less than we did were making the same amount of money as we were.

            Maybe you’ve had that experience. Infuriating. Insulting. Hurtful.

            Time to start looking for a new job.

            But, this challenging parable is not about our sense of fairness but instead it’s about God’s overflowing generosity.

            Just as the Israelites received enough manna every day during those long years in the desert, God also gives us – all of us – enough.

            Except, just like Adam and Eve, we keep messing things up.

            We mess up paradise so that some get way more than enough and many more get nowhere near enough.

            We mess up paradise, clinging to our stuff, preventing us from accepting God’s gift of true life.

            We mess up paradise, poisoning the earth, risking a permanent and all too real exile from the kind of life we experience today.

            God keeps teaching us lessons about how much is enough.

            It’s past time for us to start listening and to change our ways.

            Enough is really enough.

            Amen.