The Fairness of God
Matthew 20:1-16
A professor at Virginia Theological Seminary conducted workshops all across the United
States. At these workshops, the group was given a piece of wood, and told to reach some
agreement about its length, without measuring it in any way – purely an eyeball estimate.
Then they were to gather together as many others as possible who agreed with them.
One person had been told beforehand the exact length, but he was not allowed to reveal
the source of his knowledge. As far as the rest were concerned, he was guessing just as
much as they were.
The estimates varied widely. The only agreement was that no one agreed with the one
person who had the correct answer. He tried to gather several groups but couldn’t get
other people to agree with him. So eventually, he joined a group who advocated the
wrong answer.
When he was asked, at the end of the exercise, why he would throw his lot in with a
wrong answer, when he knew the right one, he replied, “I’d rather be wrong than alone.”
That is an honest answer that reveals a lot about our sinful condition. When we apply
this to young people we call that “peer pressure.” For adults and communities we call
that “societal norms.” What other people expect can greatly influence what we do and
how we make decisions. We often aren’t even aware of these societal norms until
someone bumps up against them, violates them, or calls them into question. This parable
of the laborers in the vineyard does just that. It forces us to confront our norms – which
is something that Jesus asked his disciples to do rather frequently.
This parable comes after Jesus had blessed the children, whose only value then was in
becoming future adults. Valuing children for just being children was not the norm for the
people of Jesus’ day, but it is the norm in the Kingdom of God.
This parable comes after the rich young ruler is told that he must give up his power and
his wealth to follow Jesus. Giving up what you have worked so hard to get is not the
norm, and the rich young ruler can’t do it because no one expects him to give it up.
While it may not be the norm for the people, counting all as loss in order to gain life with
Christ is the norm in the Kingdom of God.
This parable comes immediately after Peter asks very nervously if there is any reward in
following Jesus. Long before psychologists called it “operant conditioning,” we knew
that rewarding a behavior will reinforce that behavior, and make it more likely for that
behavior to happen again. It doesn’t matter if we consider it a good behavior or a bad
behavior – it is the reward that makes it more likely to happen again. The reward may be
the high of a thrill, a sense of belonging, a reputation that is honored, or any thing else
that makes the behavior memorable and the person noticed.
When we ask, “What’s in it for me?” we expect the answer to be some kind of reward. If
God wants us to act like Christians, then there should be a reward for doing Christian
things – that’s what we would normally expect.
Instead of telling Peter about any possible rewards, Jesus answers Peter’s question with
this parable of a landowner who hires throughout the day, and then at the end of the day
pays everyone exactly the same. That is not the norm for the world we live in, but it
points to the norm in the Kingdom of God.
Let’s face it – the actions of the vineyard owner in this parable are unfair. These actions
would be fought tooth and nail by any union grievance committee. These actions would
be disparaged by any business owner. But this parable is not about labor relations. It’s
not about establishing a new economic theory. The vineyard owner is God, and this
parable is about grace. And the good news of this parable is this: “all who accept the call
will receive it all.” Let me say that again: all who accept the call will receive it all. Say it
with me: all who accept the call will receive it all.
There is an old story that some of you may have heard before. A man dies and goes to
heaven. Of course, St. Peter meets him at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter says, “Here’s how
it works. You need 100 points to make it into heaven. You tell me all the good things
you’ve done, and I will reward you with a certain number of points for each item,
depending on how good it was. When you reach 100 points, you get in.” “Okay,” the
man says, “I was married to the same woman for 50 years and never cheated on her, not
even in my heart.” “That’s wonderful,” says Peter. “That’s worth three points.”
The man thinks for a while for something that might be worth more points. “Well, I
attended church all my life and supported its ministry with my tithe and service.”
“Terrific!” says Peter. “That’s certainly worth a point.” “One point? Well, I started a soup
kitchen in my city, and I worked in a shelter for homeless veterans.” “Fantastic,” Peter
says, “that’s good for two more points. You now have a total of six points.”
The man cries out, “At this rate, the only way to get into heaven is by the grace of God!”
St. Peter smiled. “There’s your 100 points! Come on in!”
We don’t earn heaven. We don’t deserve heaven. It comes to us as a gift of grace
because “all who accept the call will receive it all!” Say it with me: All who accept the
call will receive it all!
The last two weeks, our scripture readings have challenged persons who don’t want to
repent, and persons who don’t want to forgive. Today’s scripture challenges people who
don’t want to be gracious. We affirm that if we accept the call we will receive it all. We
just wonder how fair it is for others to receive it all.
Most people do not believe in grace – and when I say most people, I mean us. When
push comes to shove, when we look around at the world and measure ourselves against
the societal norms of the people we see on the news, and the people we see on the
freeways, and the people we see at the ballparks, we do not believe in grace – at least, not
the grace of Jesus Christ.
Oh, we may believe that Jesus loves us, and that Jesus died for our sins, and that we have
been forgiven, and that all this is grace, and we would be right, as far as that goes. It just
doesn’t go as far enough. It just doesn’t go as far as Jesus did, welcoming the outcast and
stranger, healing and forgiving the sin and the sinful, dying for us all on the cross.
Even if we believe that Jesus loves those “other people,” we may have doubts that Jesus
loves them as much as Jesus loves us. We have doubts because we are trying to be good,
trying to do the right thing, and we just know that other people aren’t as good as we are.
We know this because we have our checklist to prove it, much like the man trying to
show he had enough points to get into heaven. We avoid alcohol; we watch our tongue;
we go to church; we write a check. Some of us have worked at the church for many years,
doing the Lord’s work. We just know in our heart of hearts that this is all evidence that
we are better than most folks. We are all set, except for one small detail: heaven is not
the eternal home for better people.
Most of us, most of the time, are closet Swedenborgians. Emmanuel Swedenborg was a
preacher’s kid, an inventor, a scientist, a civil servant, and a philosopher of the 18th
century. But he gave all that up for what he believed to be God’s calling to be a rational
revelator during the Age of Enlightenment. He believed in grace and faith, heaven and
hell, Jesus and the Bible. But to all these, he overlaid rational categories, based on his
frequent visions of heaven.
Swedenborg apparently never read this parable about the vineyard owner hiring
throughout the day. I say this because he believed that the people who went to heaven
could achieve different levels, based on how they lived their life after accepting Jesus.
These different levels were identified by what color robe you got when you passed
through the Pearly Gates. All the people who got blue robes lived in blue heaven; all the
people who got purple robes lived in purple heaven; all the people got white robes lived
in white heaven, and so one throughout the color spectrum. Each group lives on their
own level, with their respective benefits. Every level of heaven is still heaven, but to
paraphrase a line from George Orwell’s book “Animal Farm,” some levels of heaven are
more equal than others. The better you were, the higher your level of heaven, and the
greater your benefits.
We want to believe that heaven is just like the work force or the playing field, where the
societal norm is “fairness.” We want to believe that you get out of something directly in
proportion to that which you put into it. Work hard, play fair, do the extra things, and
you will get ahead – every business leader and every coach preaches that message as
gospel. On top of that, we want tenure and seniority to have benefits that accrue to us –
the longer we have been at it, the greater our rewards should be. We don’t want to live in
a world where people get something for doing nothing. Well, that’s not quite true – we
don’t want to live in a world where other people get something for doing nothing.
We like to sing “Amazing Grace,” but when we come across passages like this one for
today, it sometimes feels more like “exasperating grace.” And it is exasperating, as long
as we cling to the notion that somehow, someway, we are earning rewards in God’s
kingdom. And as long as we act and believe as if we have to be pious, and we have to be
servants, then grace will seem exasperating. But when we discover through grace that we
get to spend time with God, and we get to love our neighbors as Christ has loved us, then
grace truly is amazing, and we will find and know our joy!
It is tempting in this life to go along with the crowd, and to be wrong rather than to be
holy. That is true whether we are talking about going along with the crowd that leads us
astray, or going along with the crowd at church that denies the amazing grace of Jesus
Christ for all people. God wants all God’s children to enjoy the complete fullness of
eternal life, which begins as soon as we accept the call to follow Jesus. Grace means
there is nothing we can do to make God love us less. Grace also means there is nothing
we can do to make God love us more! And that is what this parable is all about. All who
accept the call will receive it all.
Maybe you answered the call to follow Jesus many years ago. Maybe you answered the
call recently. Or maybe today is the day you will answer the call to follow Jesus. The
good news is that no matter when you answer the call, God will do what is fair and right
in the kingdom: God will take care of you!