I have been reading the Matthew text all week, which is what I usually do when I'm preaching. It was fascinating to read and re-read the parable of the workers in the vineyard while the economic system of the United States spun out of control and came close to crashing and burning.
The parable of the workers in the vineyard who all received the same day's pay regardless of how long they worked is not a popular story. It ranks right up there with Jesus' visit in the home of Mary and Martha, when Jesus compared unfavorably the hard-working Martha with her more contemplative sister Mary. Right up there with the parable of the Prodigal Son, where the conscientious older brother learns that his fast-living brother is having a banquet thrown for him now that he has got up from the gutter and returned home. "It's just not fair," is the usual response.
Many Christians identify with hard-working Martha, who busied herself with preparing a meal when Jesus was a guest in her home. And many Christians see themselves in the shoes of the older brother, who stayed at home managing the farm while his impetuous younger sibling squandered part of their father's estate in a spectacular tour of the big city club scene, ending up losing everything including his clothes. When he slinks home in shame, he gets a banquet more lavish than anything given in honor of the solid-citizen brother. "Unfair," is the widespread response.
I need to remind myself, and, of course, all of you, that when we go to the Bible, we can expect to be challenged, even dismayed by its message. Too often we go to the Bible with our priorities in place and our belief system fully developed, wanting to get a kind of spiritual icing for the cake we have baked using our culture's recipe. But the Bible won't let us get off that easily. Jesus won't let us use him for decoration, for a dose of feel-good spirituality apart from the view of reality he presented and lived.
It's interesting that the parable of the workers in the vineyard is immediately preceded and directly followed by the same teaching of Jesus:
Many that are first will be last, and the last first.
So the last will be first and the first last.
Central to Jesus' message was the theme of reversal. In the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Kingdom of God, things have value that is different from what we might expect. It's as though someone sneaked into a display window at Bloomindales during the night and put cheap price tags on the expensive items and expensive price tags on the cheap items.
This story, framed between two affirmations of divine reversal, reminds us that God's economy is not ours, that our economy is not God's. In our culture we are so enamored of capitalism that we recoil from Jesus' emphasis on need rather than greed, which is what the unrestrained pursuit of wealth can lead to. That word greed surfaced repeatedly this past week as analysts and commentators talked about the crisis in our nation's economic system. It was almost like watching Saturday Night Live to see the Republican candidate for president say on Monday that the fundamentals of the economy are fine and then see him a few hours later say, "We're going to put an end to the abuses on Wall Street! Enough is enough! We're going to put an end to the greed!" Thus spoke the Republican candidate for president—or more likely, his speech writers.
I wanted to say, "Are we really going to put an end to greed? Or are we advocating socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor?" The plan advanced by the administration would spend billions of dollars to bail out investment companies, banks, and insurance companies—which may well be needed to avert disaster. But it is Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, who is insisting that the bailout also help individual homeowners who are facing foreclosure and put some kind of cap on CEO salaries. She hasn't always held fast to her principles in the past, but I hope she does this time.
There is a lot wrong with a system when the chief executive officer of a failing company, Merrill Lynch, retires with a package of one hundred and sixty-one million dollars. Our tax dollars are going to subsidize that level of greed? Thirty years ago the heads of large American companies were paid about thirty or forty times what ordinary workers were paid. Last year the heads of large American companies were paid three hundred and forty-four times what ordinary workers were paid. Greed is alive and well in our economy.
In Jesus' parable of the vineyard laborers, early in the morning a landowner contracts with workers in the marketplace for a day's work at the standard daily rate. They agree and go to work. Throughout the day the landowner goes back to the marketplace at regular intervals and gives work to those who have been looking for it. At the end of the day his manager pays all the workers, starting with the ones who were hired near the end of the day. They receive the standard daily rate. Those who were hired at daybreak expect more, but the same amount of money is paid to all the workers. The workers who worked all day grumble, or in my preferred translation, they murmur (which is what church people sometimes do).
What is rarely mentioned in discussing this parable is that the standard daily rate at the time was just about enough for a family to have a bare-bones life. No extras, no luxuries. So if the landowner had paid the workers hired toward the end of the day a fraction of the standard daily wage, their families would have faced starvation. Jesus' parable about the workers is not about economic theory. It is about meeting human need. I am not knowledgeable enough about economic theory to say very much about the present crisis in our national economy. But I do know that Biblical faith calls us to make human need as important as individual merit or human greed, to inject healthy measures of compassion into the decisions we make about money.
The climax of the parable comes in verse 15 of the chapter. The land owner says to one of the laborers who are murmuring about the way he has paid the workers, "Friend [and that word is important in looking at labor relations], are you envious because I am generous?" I know I need to keep hearing that question. What is my reaction to God's generosity? Am I envious of other people who receive more of God's bounty than I think I do?
Here again we have contrast that amounts to reversal. The Biblical God is a God of abundance. The world contains enough for everyone to have plenty to eat, comfortable shelter, and enjoyable companionship. But we human beings have created systems based on scarcity, so that small percentages of the population control large percentages of the abundant resources while multitudes struggle for survival. The Biblical witness is that a system of scarcity is bound to fail because it generates jealousy, animosity, fear, and resentment.
I'm sure you know me well enough to know I am not saying that the present economic crisis is God's judgment on the greed of America. I am not saying that, and I don't believe that. What I am saying is that the crisis we are in provides an unprecedented opportunity to re-examine our national priorities, especially our national economic priorities. At our best as a nation we have talked about the responsibilities as well as the privileges of wealth. We have endorsed mutuality, compassion, and generosity as values. And we have not settled for short-term pleasure at the cost of long-term well-being, nor have we been comfortable with short-term solutions for long-range problems.
Obviously we are not at our best because hardly anyone—certainly not our president—is talking about mutuality, compassion, and generosity. And we're considering short-term solutions for long-range problems.
At the core of the Biblical faith we celebrate week after week in this place, there is the incredible news of God's amazing grace. If there is the abundance of anything in this world, there is an abundance of God's love. God loves not on the basis of merit but because God is love. That is the meaning of grace.
Commentators over the centuries have heard in today's parable the message that God welcomes into the Kingdom of Heaven people who come to faith early in life and those who come to it later on, even on their deathbed. For some people that means going to heaven instead of going to hell.
For others, and I include myself in this group, it means embracing the reality of God's inclusive, unconditional love as the foundation for living, the ultimate reality of the universe. To be invited to work in the vineyard is to be welcomed into a family where caring love defines everything. Personally I am glad for the generosity of God's amazing grace. If I had to earn it on the basis of my deserving, I'd be exhausted and frustrated. But I don't have to earn it, and neither do you. It's all around us and inside us. We just have to let it flow.
That's our gospel. That's our good news.
Thanks be to God.