Mercy or Merit
Merit or Mercy?
Theme of passage: What the kingdom of heaven is like.
Proposition of passage: The value of the kingdom of heaven is not the same as the worldly values. God is merciful, compassionate and generous. God values mercy over merit.
Sermon proposition: Our values should be that of mercy as God is merciful.
Sermon: Narrative in nature.
Introduction
This parable is very close to my heart, because before I was a Christian, I used this parable to ridicule Christians. There is no equality. We are not rewarded as per our effort. Imagine how unfair the landowner is and how can a religion preach such unfairness.
Perhaps it was because of what I said about Christians in the past that God convicted me to come up here to share this passage and repent.
Explain the Passage
First I would like to point out a few key facts of this passage:
1) The workers were employed at the 1st hour, 3rd hour, 6th hour, 9th hour, 11th hour
2) The landowner agreed to pay one denarius for a day’s work with the workers employed at the 1st hour
3) As for the other workers, he will pay them whatever is right.
4) He paid them in the reverse order from 11th hour, 9th hour, 6th hour, 3rd hour and 1st hour. That is from the last ones to be hired to the first who were hired. So that the first hired workers will know how much the late comers are getting.
5) All were paid one denarius.
6) Those who were hired first expected to receive more. When they did not, they began to grumble against the landowner. They said “You have made them (the late comers) equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.”
Here we have to assume that the workers have the same productivity. If we assume the workers harvest at the rate of 1basket of grapes per hour, then the first hired workers would have harvested 12 baskets of grapes while the workers hired at the 11th hour would only have harvested 1 basket of grapes. Yet the workers were paid the same.
I must stress that it is not because the first hired workers were lazy and harvested only 1 basket of grapes.
The Questions
Now, let me ask you some questions.
Imagine that all of you are the workers at the marketplace. Yesterday, the landowner paid all the workers one denarius whether they worked from the 1st hour or from the 11th hour. Now assuming the landowner comes to employ workers again.
Who would like to be employed at the first hour?
Who would like to be employed at the 11th hour?
Do you expect to be paid the same?
I would like to ask a more challenging question. Listen carefully.
Anyone wants to work for him free? Like the previous day the workers employed at the 11th hour would like to pay back out of gratitude.
Workers’ viewpoint
Let us now look at the grumbling workers’ point of view.
During the time of Jesus, 95% of the people are poor and most of them are unemployed. There is no social security to fall back on and certainly no unions to protect the workers. The landowners can literally do anything with regards to employment policies.
Imagine again the 1st hour workers have to bear the burden of 12 hours of work and the heat of the midday sun. Whereas the 11th hour workers, just worked the last hour in the cool evening and yet pay the same.
In today’s situation, I guarantee you that the following day there will be a strike in front of the vineyard. It is a recipe for disaster and bad human resource management. The chances are that the workers will slow down and drop their productivity.
I remember in the early 1990’s, there was a construction boom in Malaysia because of the Commonwealth Games.
There were so many jobs. New airport, express railway line, highways, stadiums, sport facilities, athlete’s accommodation, hotels, condominium and of course the world’s tallest building then.
This is a one off opportunity. Once in a life time opportunity and the window of opportunity will close if you do not grab it.
Every contractor was over committed in capacity and was short of staff. Our company was no exception; we contracted a lot of work.
We air freighted the new equipment from Europe, no time to ship by sea. And the company have to employed staff to execute the jobs as soon as possible.
When it is an employees’ market the salaries will goes up. Basically it sky rocketed. We employed contractual staff at much higher salary for same position to cope with the increased workload. I am talking not a few staff but triple the size of your company in a very short time (i.e. few months).
There was so much protest from the existing staff even though the company revised the salary scale every 3 months. To the staff, the best is to adjust every time you employ a new employee. That is really fair, I guess. Despite we have employment agreements with the existing staff with agree salaries.
The character of the employees are always very self centred (what is it in for me?) and envy (what is my neighbour getting?). The employees are calculative and must be treated equally and of course, equal pay for equal work.
The formulae that work were the concept of merit or meritocracy. That is how the companies are managed and run in the marketplace. And we were quite successful in implementing the projects.
So what the landowner in the parable did was absolutely wrong and will not work in the marketplace.
Then I will add insult to injury, and say to the Christian. You know the CEO of a company controlling about 1000 staff is paid probably 25K and yet a pastor of a church of about 1000 people is only paid 3k. Where is the equality?
Owner’s viewpoint
We look at the landowner as less than fair. I tell you he is more than fair.
1) He chose to take on additional workers even though he has employed enough at the first hour. The late comers do not deserve to be employed. Yet he created jobs for the workers every few hours. He is doing them a favour by giving them a job and hence food on the table. He has feelings, for the workers, he used his resources to bless others, not just for himself alone.
2) He is concerned for the workers, he pays what the workers needs, a subsidence wage which will be sufficient to feed the worker’s family. That is the minimum to survive for the day.
He knows if he pays the workers pro-rated like a half or a quarter of a denarius it would not be enough to feed the workers’ family. And the family will go hungry. He has full of sympathy for the poor and hungry. Compassionate for the marginalised. God is like that.
3) No one received less than they were promised or deserved. Though, some received more than they deserved. He is doing more than fair by paying the workers more. He is showing mercy and generosity. His generosity transcends human ideas of fairness and understanding.
4) So much so the workers who are fairly paid were unhappy over the late comers. They were jealous and envy. It is the case of the one who deserves nothing but was given everything.
Like the parable of the prodigal son. The younger son was not worthy to be a son anymore but was received with joy to son ship again by the father. And what happened in the parable? The elder son became angry and jealous. The parable was told to Pharisees, who were unhappy that Jesus welcomed sinners in Luke 15. Jesus’ grace for the underserved should be a cause for joy and not jealousy.
5) God is delighted to give. Not only give, so that we do not go hungry but give that we may be snatched from the consuming fire.
6) Yes, we do not deserved to be sons and daughters of God because of our sins. But God has a big heart; he gave his son to die on the cross to pay for our sins; that whoever believed in Him will not perish but become his sons and daughters in the kingdom. He restored the relationship with him that we may inherit the kingdom one day.
We are like the workers, who do not deserve to be hired, but God is good. Every opportunity he has, he calls us. Our God loves each and every one of us here the same, whether we know him 10 years, 5 years, and 1 year or like the thief who accepted Jesus at the cross just before he died. He loves us the same.
7) God is very upfront about it with us. It is very clear from the passage that God is going to reward everyone the same in this parable.
The deeper meaning is that God’s values are totally different from the worldly values. That is why I started with the verse, many who are first will be last , and many who are last will be first.
Conclusion
To summarise, the world thinks that the landowner is absolutely wrong because they do not understand what is mercy or generosity. They only know merit. There is going to be a great reversal.
I am speaking with almost 30 years of experience in the worldly marketplace. It is very easy to be drawn into the worldly values.
It is when we identify with the values of this world that we make ourselves think more like “under law” and less “under grace.” If we identify with equality and meritocracy, then we oppose God’s mercy and generosity. It is a thinking that reflected our failure to share God’s values.
I know all of you are being trained in this college to serve God in the future. As you go out into the world, in the beginning you will not live with the values of this world. The journey of service is not short and there will be times of temptation. This parable is not for you to ask for more pay as a pastor. Let this sermon remind you to be firm and chose God’s values. Let us be clear in our mind, do not think or act in terms of the worldly values.
I urge you brothers and sisters to choose mercy over merit, Godly values over worldly values.
Amen.