Sermon Tone Analysis

TITLE:  It's Not FAY-YUR!!! SCRIPTURE:  Matthew 20:1-16

 

Has life ever been unfair to you? 

 

Have you ever done your very, very best, only to see someone else walk off with the purple ribbon?

Have you ever been the one who came to work early in the morning and turned off the lights at night only to see someone else get the promotion?

Have you ever seen a co-worker promoted because of charm or connections instead of hard work?

During the 1960s and early 70s, this nation was in turmoil.

Young people were rioting in the streets and smoking dope in Greenwich Village and wallowing in group sex at Woodstock -- but I was faithfully keeping my nose to the grindstone and doing what was right -- right and lawful, I might add.

I figured that justice would prevail -- that I would prosper and the hell-raisers would suffer.

There was some truth to that.

Some hippies died with a needle in their arm or ended up on the streets.

But others ended up as owners of profitable businesses or professors at Ivy League universities.

Some of them inherited money and spent their lives on the beach.

A few became rich and famous.

As kids would say, "It's not FAY-YUR!" ("Fair" can be a two-syllable word.)

Or how about men and women who spent their lives working on the assembly line at General Motors -- working hard -- working long hours -- enduring noise and heat and heavy lifting -- only to see the company fall into decline and their pensions fall into jeopardy.

Only a few years ago, General Motors was the biggest, richest company in the world.

Today, Toyota is worth TEN TIMES as much as General Motors-- TEN TIMES!

There is plenty of blame to go around -- but there are lots of good, hard-working people saying, "It's not FAY-YUR!"

And, in many cases, they are right!

In Jesus' Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard -- our scripture reading today -- Jesus tells a story that doesn't seem fair.

This parable comes around in the lectionary every three years, and I have more or less gotten used to it -- but it still has the potential to set my teeth on edge.

It's one of those stories that makes me want to shout, "It's not FAY-YUR!"

The fact that the parable has God dishing out the unfairness makes it especially unpalatable.

I expect better from God!  I expect justice.

In the parable, the landowner -- God -- hires five groups of people:

 

     - He hires one group early in the morning, and they work in the vineyard all day.

- He hires the second group a 9 a.m., and they work most of the day.

- He hires the third group at noon, and they work half a day.

- He hires the fourth group at 3 p.m., and they work only a few hours.

- Then he hires the last group at 5 p.m., and they work only an hour.

Fine!

No problem!

He has to get the grapes harvested!

He has to do what he has to do.

Except that there is no hint in this parable that there is any desperate need to harvest the grapes.

As the landowner goes about his business, he seems more concerned for the people standing around the labor hall than about his grapes.

From the sound of it, he just wants everyone to have a job.

No problem there either!

He is a nice man.

We need more nice men.

BUT!!!

And this is big!  BUT at the end of the day, the landowner does some strange things.

First, when he pays the workers, he starts with the latecomers -- the workers who came at 5 p.m.

He pays them a full day's wages, even though they worked only an hour.

No complaints so far!

The other workers sense that this is a generous man, and they smell a bonus coming their way.

Next, the landowner pays the other groups, and each receives a full day's pay -- everything that they are due, but no bonus.

Finally, he turns to those who worked all day.

These workers sweated in the sun the whole day long.

They worked their hearts out for this man.

They did everything that he asked of them.

But when they come to the pay table, the landowner hands each of them a full day's pay-- everything that they are due, but NO BONUS!!!

 

Jesus reports their response in highly cultivated language.

According to him, these all-day workers say of the latecomers:

 

     "These last worked only one hour,

     and YOU HAVE MADE THEM EQUAL TO US

     who have borne the burden of the day

     and the scorching heat!"

I have spent some time in the company of people like that, and that isn't how they talk.

When they are upset, they say things that I cannot repeat from this pulpit.

They shake their fists -- and stomp their feet -- and threaten violence.

Sometimes they throw stones or break windows or turn cars upside down.

Jesus obviously cleaned up their language in this parable.

They didn't really say:

 

     "You have made them equal to us."

 

No, they didn't.

I am sure that their language was very colorful.

They were not happy -- not in the least.

But whatever their language, they meant, "It's not FAY-YUR!"

But the landowner -- who, in this parable, stands for God, took one of them aside and said:

 

     "Friend, I am doing you no wrong;

     did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?

Take what belongs to you and go;

     I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.

Am I not allowed to do what I choose

     with what belongs to me?

     OR ARE YOU ENVIOUS

     BECAUSE I AM GENEROUS?"

There's the point, isn't it!

OF COURSE, they are envious -- envious and jealous and mad as ---- mad as they can be ---- envious, jealous, and mad.

So what does this story mean?

In its original context, it meant that God was going to give equal access -- equal rights -- to Gentiles.

The Jewish people had thought of themselves as God's people for many centuries -- since the time of Abraham.

They thought that they should live in a gated community -- protected from the riff-raff -- no Gentiles allowed.

But this parable meant, for one thing, that God was planning to unlock the gate -- to invite Gentiles to the party.

That should make us glad, because most of us are Gentiles.

This parable tells us that God loves us too.

But what does this parable mean for us today?

It means that our status with God isn't determined by the number of years that we have served him -- or the offices that we have held in the church -- or the money that we have given -- or anything else.

It means that we come to God with empty hands.

It means that we are dependent on God's grace-- totally dependent on God's grace.

In the parable, after all, the landowner was generous to all the workers -- even those whom he hired early.

Those crack-of-dawn workers didn't have to stand around the union hall all day, wondering if anyone would hire them -- wondering where their next nickel was coming from -- wondering if they would be able to put food on the table.

Yes, they sweated all day in the hot sun, but they didn't have to sweat whether their children would go hungry that night.

They STARTED the day secure in the knowledge that they were employed -- that they were earning money -- that they would be able to provide for their families.

So hiring workers early in the day was a generous act.

It was a different kind of generosity than paying latecomers for a whole day's work -- but this landlord was generous to both groups.

And so this parable promises God will be generous to all of us.

Let me repeat an old joke.

A man dies and goes to heaven.