Sermon - It's so Unfair! Parable of the Workers and Jonah. Pentecost 15 2014

Sermon:

Text: Matthew 20:1-6, Jonah 3:10-4:11

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who loves abundantly.

            Most of you probably know this but the first three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all follow the same timeline. They have most of the same stories in the same order. We call them the Synoptic Gospels because of this, Synoptic meaning seen together. Mark was the first to be written, and it is thought that the authors of Matthew and Luke had access to Mark, as well as a separate collection of sayings that is often called Q, and they also had their own sources. This means that Mark frames the basic order of the stories, and so when Matthew or Luke add in a story or quotation of Jesus’ into their gospel, they put it into Mark’s story to make a point or to draw attention to something.

            This happens in today’s passage. Today’s parable, called the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, or the Parable of the Generous Employer, only appears in Matthew. Mark doesn’t have it, nor does Luke. Mark though, does have, near word for word, both passages that are on either side of our reading. The passage before sees Jesus talking to the Rich Young Man who asks, What must I do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus responds, sell all your possessions and give them to the poor. After the man leaves, Peter exclaims, We have left all our possessions, Jesus responds by saying that what you do here, will be given 100 fold or more, but many who were first will be last, and the last will be first. In Mark, we then witness Jesus walk further towards Jerusalem and declare again that he will be handed over to the chief Priests, condemned, flogged, killed, and then after three days rise again. Matthew also has this passage, but in between he has stuck this parable.

            It somewhat seems odd to add it in here, but when things like this happen, it’s important to note, because Matthew or Luke don’t just add things in because, they do so for a reason. And here I think Matthew is accenting that the parable is in response to Peter’s declaration that unlike that rich young man, he has sold everything. Look at me Jesus, I’ve done everything you ask! To Matthew this parable is not just a parable about workers in a field, it's a parable that talks about discipleship.

            So Jesus tells this parable. A man has a field, he needs workers, so he goes to the town center where the men looking for work gather in the morning. He hires some and they go to work, later in the day he sees that he needs even more, so he goes back, and some of the men who had gathered in the morning are still waiting for work, so he hires some more. Later he has to do the same thing. He does this four times after the initial hire of workers. Some are at 5, just an hour or two before the end of the work day. He tells his bookkeeper, pay them starting with those who got here last, to those who worked all day, give them all the same, a full days pay.

            So, how would you react? If you were the ones who worked all day long? Or even half the day? I’d be pissed. To use the phrase, It’s Not Fair! Why should they get that when I did so much more!

            Before we move on I want to add in another It’s Not Fair story. With the kids we told the first part of the Story of Jonah. He has walked into the city, told the people to change their ways, and they listened to him. We would think that Jonah would be happy. But, no, he says that he knew this exact thing would happen, God would forgive them, and well, Jonah didn’t want them to be forgiven. He wanted to see destruction for his enemies. He is so upset that exclaims, take away my life, it is better for me to die than to live. Then God asks him if it is right for him to be upset, Jonah doesn't answer but goes to sit on a hill outside town. As he sits there a bush grows and gives him shade, and Jonah likes the bush, but then the bush is eaten by some bugs and withers away and the hot sun falls on him again, and a sultry east wind comes up. And Jonah complains again, he is so hot now without the bush, that again, “It would be better for me to die than to live.” God asks, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” Jonah, says, “It is! I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

            God says, well you didn’t do anything to get that bush, you didn’t even know you needed it until it was gone. What about those people in Nineveh, who until you told them didn’t know they were doing wrong? Should I not be concerned with them?

            Jonah is another “It’s not fair” story. I’m good, they’re bad, I want them to get what’s coming to them. They should get what I think they deserve. I’ve obeyed all the rules, they haven’t, why should they also be forgiven and given grace.

            In Jesus’ parable, I’v done all the work, I’ve shown up at all the right things, they don’t do anything, they never, ever show up at church, they don’t do near the amount of stuff I’ve done. Why should they get the same given the same grace and forgiveness.

            Discipleship is hard, because we always think we are better disciples than we are. We certainly think we are better disciples than others. A young man is told to sell his possesions, Look Jesus! I've done that. And by trying to show we are the best disciples, we fail. Like Jonah, we don't think some are worthy of being disciples and so we attempt to not share Christ's good news with them. We attempt to flee to Tarshish. God calls and we run away. God calls and we exclaim that we've already done it.

But, luckily God is loving.

And sometimes that love is greater and more abundant than we want it to be. We want to decide who is in and who is out. We just finished the story of Adam and Eve in confirmation, and the reason they are removed from the garden is not just that they ate the apple, and it’s not that they now know the difference between Good and Evil, it’s that they think they know it better than God.

These texts are so hard for us, because we think we know better than God. I know who's worthy of God’s love, I know who's worthy of God’s grace, God’s forgiveness. But, the only person who does, is God.

Our text from Romans talks of the struggle we go through as believers in God and Christ. And sometimes that struggle is against people who seek to keep us and others away from God’s grace, and sometimes that struggle is our own fight to keep people from God’s grace.

Sometimes we are the workers who just work an hour, and God showers us with grace. Sometimes we’re the workers who were there all day, and feel we deserve more. Sometimes were Jonah who goes an calls for repentance, and sometimes we’re Jonah, who doesn’t want to give people the chance.

But, no matter what, whether we struggle against others, against ourselves, whether we feel blessed despite little work, or upset at not being elevated higher than others, we do it in the midst of God’s love.

The important thing to take out of these texts is the abundant love of God, a love that never ends, that is never withheld, that never fails.

We don’t go from here to sit on a hill and grumble, we go from here full of the love from our God who reaches out even to little ol’ me.

Amen.