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I’ve preached on this parable
before. In fact, I’ve preached on it several times! Why do I
choose to preach on it again?
Let me share with you the top
ten reasons for preaching on the parable of the workers in the
vineyard.
Reason no. 10: I had a
house full of grandchildren this week and didn’t have as much
time as I usually have to create a new sermon.
Reason no. 9: We
welcomed a new grandson in our family this week. Most of
Thursday and Friday were taken up with that.
Reason no. 8: Most of
you have forgotten that I preached this sermon before—or you
weren’t here the last time.
Reason no. 7: It’s an
authentic story of Jesus. Scholars sometimes disagree as to
whether all of the material in the Bible is directly from
Jesus or not. This story is generally considered to be one of
the original parables that he told.
Reason no. 6: I think
it’s one of the most important parables Jesus told.
Reason no. 5: It’s a
fun story to preach.
Reason no. 4: It’s a
surprising story, maybe even a shocking story. Jesus sets us
up. It is a well crafted, skillfully told story with an
unexpected conclusion. It’s a story that doesn’t go where you
think it should go.
Reason no. 3:
Undoubtedly it’s a story that created quite a stir in
conversation among Jesus’ hearers. The same thing, I think,
can happen today.
Reason no. 2: This
is Labor Day Weekend. Therefore the parable about the laborers
in the vineyard is appropriate.
Reason no. 1: It
is Sunday morning and I need a sermon!
This parable has troubled
Christian believers for centuries. It didn’t go over very well
in the first century. It doesn’t particularly set well now. In
the story we meet a most unusual boss. Here is a man who pays
an inept group of last-minute laborers $40 in wages. Then he
pays those who worked all day the same amount. As the story
unfolds, a grievance committee files a quick claim. They file
for unfair labor practices. And how does the boss reply?
Essentially he says, “If you don’t like it, get off my farm.”
All of this seems patently
unfair. And then, get this: Jesus says, “This is what the
Kingdom of God is like.” And we say, “Huh?” And we want
to join the grievance committee.
Not only is this about unfair
labor practices, it’s also about unfair religion. The Kingdom
of God is like this? The last and the lazy get the same reward
as the first and the faithful? What’s going on here?
A FEW DETAILS ABOUT THE PARABLE
First, a few details about the
parable will help us in our interpretation. “Work day” in the
Biblical period was from sunup to sundown. It’s still true of
many rural areas today. There is no such thing as a 7-1/2 or 8
hour day. There is no such thing as a 40-hour workweek.
People were hired out of a
marketplace as a kind of union hall. The first to be hired
were there at 6:00 a.m. These were the eager, dependable,
reliable, able-bodied men. Their résumés were in good order.
All of their references were in.
The second group was hired at
9:00 a.m. They were there a little later, but they were still
reliable. They still had good résumés. They were just not
morning people. You know who you are. Six a.m. is an ungodly
hour to go to work. We have a Covenant Discipleship group that
meets here at 6:30 a.m. one weekday morning. I’m going to be
starting a CBS group sometime in October that will meet at
about the same hour. I don’t expect a huge number of you to
sign up!
At noon the boss goes back and
hires another group of people. These are the really late
sleepers. There’s a little more sloth here. They’re a little
less energized. They’re like college students home for a
break, and want to earn a little extra money.
At 5:00 p.m. the boss goes back
and hires a final group. These are the hung-over, the
goof-offs, the lazy. The 5:00 p.m. crowd are those who are
looking only for enough money for the nightly 6-pack. They
don’t ask for much more.
The final thing to notice about
the parable is that some negotiations go on only with the 6:00
a.m. crowd. Jesus says the owner of the vineyard bargained
with the first group. To the rest of them (9:00 a.m., noon and
5:00 p.m.) he simply said, “I will give you whatever is fair.”
Most scholars would agree that the amount of money agreed upon
was at the low end of the wage scale. Nevertheless, it was
what was promised.
So what’s going on here? Does
this story mean that all your years of faithfulness count for
nothing? Is there no reward for faithful service? When God
opens up the books and totals up the accounts, isn’t there
some special place for those who worked harder and longer?
Some of us were born into the
church. We were publicly baptized. We were raised in the
Sunday School. Maybe we even taught Sunday School for a season
or two. We try our best to live a faithful, Christian life.
Do we not deserve more than
part-time, C&E (Christmas and Easter) Christians? Is God going
to show the lazy, the sluggish, the minimal churchgoer the
same reward as the one reserved for Dr. Billy Graham? When you
do more, don’t you have the right to expect more? After all,
we don’t want our Sunday morning golfing neighbor to get saved
for free.
In the 1930s there was a motto
hanging in almost every union hall in America. The motto read,
“A fair dollar for a fair day’s work.” The church motto for
many of us might read something like that: “A fair heavenly
reward for a fair life lived.” Isn’t that our done deal with
God? Or is this parable an unreasonable teaching about both
bad business and bad religion? Let’s look at the parable
closely.
EVERYBODY IS CALLED
First of all, notice that
everybody is called—everybody. Everybody gets invited to come
and work for the boss. Everybody is worthy of that invitation.
He calls the strong and the weak, the mentally abled and the
mentally disabled. He calls the adorable and the addicted, the
lovable and the laughable. He calls the learned and the lazy,
the faithful and the flunkies. Everybody is called. To each
one he says, “Come. Help me out in the garden. I need you.”
I guess this is what I like
about the hospitality emphasis here at Christ Church. “We are
an open and hospitable community of believers who eagerly
invite everyone.” It is also the emphasis of the United
Methodist Church in a very special way over the next few
weeks. You see the banners hanging outside the church this
morning. You see the slogan around the church. You’ll see it
on television in the coming days: “Open minds, open hearts,
open doors.” I realized just this week that this is the very
message of the parable for this morning.
God issues the invitation to
everybody, even those whom we might think twice about hiring.
NO KEEPING TRACK
Secondly, the parable tells us
we don’t keep track of the hours. We don’t add up the points
we’ve earned. We don’t track someone else’s points. We don’t
calculate the dividends. We don’t decide the pay scale or who
gets what. God is God, and I am not. That’s pretty radical
stuff to assimilate, but that’s exactly what Jesus is saying.
INCREDIBLY GENEROUS
Thirdly, the parable teaches us
that God is by nature incredibly generous. Most scholars agree
that the key text in the parable is the one that is printed in
your worship guide this morning. It is the heart of what Jesus
is trying to say: “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with
what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”
(Matthew 20:15)
There is a story of a woman
stockbroker who invested some money for a very wealthy Middle
Eastern sheik and earned him a great fortune. He called her on
the phone and thanked her profusely. He said, “I want to get
you some kind of a gift.”
“Oh,” she said, “that’s not
necessary. This is my job. I’m glad I was able to help you.”
“No,” he insisted, “I want to
get you a gift, and I’m not talking about perfume or a box of
candy. I want to get you something really nice. What do you
really need?”
“Well,” she said, “if you really
insist—I really would like a few new golf clubs.”
Two weeks later the wealthy man
called her again. “I have some good news for you,” he said. “I
got you three golf clubs… but is it okay if only two of them
have swimming pools?”
It is the nature of God to be
incredibly generous.
I want to tell you a story that
some of you have heard before. In the summer of 1956 I worked
in the Isaly’s store on Washington Road in Mt. Lebanon. My pay
was 65¢ an hour and half off the cost of my lunch. I thought
it was a pretty small wage, but I needed the money and so I
went to work. About the middle of August I decided that I had
had enough. I wanted to have some time off before I began my
senior year in high school. I went to the manager of the store
and told him that I was planning to quit. I’ll never forget
his response. “Oh,” he said, “I’m very sorry you’re planning
to leave. I was just planning to give you a raise. You were
going to go from 65¢ to 70¢ an hour starting next week.”
I thought about it for about 5
seconds and then I said, “I don’t think so. I’d like to resign
at the end of next week, but I will help you train my
replacement.”
We agreed and a replacement came
in. At the end of the training week I said farewell to my
replacement. “By the way,” I said, “how much is he paying
you?” He replied, “They started me at 70¢ an hour.” I was
furious. How dare they pay this new guy who knew nothing about
dipping skyscraper ice cream cones more than they had paid me?
I felt it was patently unfair.
I now look at that experience
through the lens of this text. God is God, and God has decided
to be incredibly generous. That’s why Paul writes in one of
his letters that generosity is one of the fruits of the
Spirit. That’s what the Bible means when it says you and I are
made in the image of God. It may not fit into our system of
justice and fairness, but the fact is that God is incredibly
generous.
EVERYTHING IS GRACE
Finally, the parable tells us
that in God’s world—in Kingdom living—everything is grace.
Chris Whitehead is preaching a wonderful series of sermons on
Sunday night on grace these weeks. I believe the last one in
the series is tonight. Jesus puts that message in the face of
his hearers. In this parable, he puts it in the face of you
and me. In God’s kingdom, everything is grace.
There’s a story about a man who
was standing at the gates of Heaven waiting to be admitted to
his eternal reward. St. Peter engaged him in some
conversation. Peter said, “You must have 100 points to get
into Heaven.”
The man thought for a moment and
then said, “Well, I’ve been in the church all my life. I was
baptized in the church, I was confirmed in the church, I was
married in the church.” St. Peter replied, “That’s good.
That’s one point.”
“One point?” exclaimed the man.
“Oh, my!” He thought for a moment and then said, “Well, I
taught Sunday School for a few years. I even taught junior
highs. It takes a special kind of person to teach junior
highs, don’t you think?”
St. Peter replied, “That’s very
good. That’s worth one point.”
Again the man exclaimed, “One
point? Oh, my!” He thought for a while and then said, “Well,
I’ve tried to be a good husband and father, and I’ve tried to
live a Christian life.”
“Yes,” replied St. Peter, “and
that’s worth one point.”
“One point!” exclaimed the man.
“I will never get into heaven except by the grace of God.!”
“That’s exactly right,” said
Peter, “and that’s worth 97 points. Come on in.”
You and I can’t earn grace. We
don’t deserve grace. We can’t be moral enough to attain grace.
There is no way we can really comprehend that. We simply
cannot.
A few years ago I stood at the
graveside service for a woman whose life had been a wreck. She
died of long-term alcoholism. I think it would be fair to say
that she was literally possessed by alcohol. Her parents had
both died a few years earlier. I had known them both. They
worried about her constantly. They were deeply committed
Christian people. At the point of her death she had no known
family and no known relatives. In fact I heard of her death
first from her lawyer, then from her social worker, and
finally from the funeral home.
It was a simple graveside
service. I pondered what to say. Should I say, “She had her
chance and she blew it. There’s no room for drunks in the
Kingdom of God.”? Or should I say something like this: “God is
far more generous than we are. God is more gentle. God is more
compassionate. God is often full of surprises. And maybe—just
maybe—she has a glorious reunion this morning with her two
dear parents in God’s Heavenly Kingdom.
Grace is handed out freely to
all—to saints and sinner alike. You are never too old or too
late or too far gone to receive the grace of God. I like the
way the hymn writer puts it in one of the hymns we love to
sing: “Two wonders I confess: the wonders of redeeming love
and my unworthiness.” (United Methodist Hymnal #297)
God says to you and me this
morning, “Come, work in my garden. Help me with the harvest.
Welcome everybody else who joins the team. Welcome everybody
who comes when they are called. Don’t try to keep track of the
hours. Don’t try to compare yourself with others. Just enjoy
my incredible generosity and my amazing grace.”
And that’s the way it works.
That’s the startlingly beautiful message in this Labor Day
parable. That’s the way God works. Amen. |
