September 18, 2005 - 18th Sunday After Pentecost - Father Andrew Green

FIRST READING: Jonah 3:10 - 4:11
PSALM: 145:1-8
SECOND READING: Philippians 1:21-30
GOSPEL: Matthew 20: 1-16

(Audience participation will be noted in bold print and italics)

This particular Gospel is one that raises up some emotions in people. As I look around the room as I read that Gospel, or as I hear it being read by somebody else, I can see folks experiencing tension about this, and I think it is because we talked about money, and we are talking about whether something is fair or not. But I have to ask you this question: Do any of you believe that the intention of this Gospel was to make sure that we understood who got how much money? Is that the reason that this story is in here, that this parable is here? No! Jesus is really not trying to explain to us that everybody should get paid the same, no matter what anybody does. He is using it as an example. Jesus is using it as an example of what? What is the situation you think might be there with Jesus that He is responding in this way with this particular parable?

Generosity.

Generosity. That is one thing, but what is the situation? The situation is that, immediately after Jesus' death and resurrection, there were at least two camps of His followers. There were the Jewish followers, who became Christians, and then there were followers who had never been Jewish, who became Christians. The ones who represented the Jewish camp were concerned because they felt that they ought to have a leg-up on the others, and, as a result, there was this discord within the community. We read about that kind of discord in First Corinthians and Philippians, to some extent, and in Galatians - we read about it a lot - but, essentially, Jesus is letting folks know that, just because you came in as one of the Jewish followers who became a Christian, you don't have an advantage over the Greek or non-Jewish followers who came later. Now, that is one level.

In fact, there is some interesting language in there. Dr. Wayne is out here. Dr. Wayne is with The Well in the Desert, and, if you approach him at any given time, or have an opportunity to hear him speaking before the city council or with virtually anybody, you will often hear him talking about the way people regard the homeless and the poor in our community - how, when they walk by somebody who is homeless, they will give them the "stink-eye". Right, Wayne? O.K? The stink-eye appears in today's Gospel, and I want to make sure that you understood it. Back at the end of the Gospel lesson, when it says, "Are you envious because I am generous?", the actual text says, "Are you giving them the evil-eye because I am generous". Are you giving these folks the stink-eye because the owner is generous? I think that it is important anytime we can work stink-eye into a sermon, so that we can understand that it is not just people today who do that, but it is whenever our place at the table gets threatened, and we often end up casting an evil eye at the people who we think are threatening us.

When the Jewish Christians were feeling threatened by the Greek Christians, they gave them the evil eye. When people who had been in our country 100 years longer than people who came later, and those new people wanted a place at the table, many times the folks who came first gave them the stink-eye. O.K.? It is kind of the way we do things.

I think that this Gospel has, for us, a message that says maybe there is another way for us to do stuff. Maybe it is not all about how much we can get, how much we can earn, or what we deserve, but how we respond to the Grace and Love of God.

Today, we are going to be baptizing little Daniel DiBonaventura, and I think it is kind of exciting, because Rachael and Jerry's courtship really was conducted here at Church, in many ways. We have observed over the months what we were told was a pregnancy, and, eventually, she began to even look pregnant! And, the next thing we know, there is the baby! So, this is something that really is kind of a part of our family, and we are having the opportunity today to bring the latest of all the late-comers into the Kingdom of God. And so, everything that I am talking about here is what we are going to be applying to Daniel this morning. So, think about it in that context. The way into the Body of Christ is through baptism - that is the sign and the seal of what God does in baptism - and, over the years, we have figured out ways to be worried more about whether my position, as ahead of Daniel and x-number of others, is going to be threatened by these new folks.

This owner, here, is kind of a crazy owner. Many of the heroes in the Gospel parables look crazy by today's standards. It used to be that, if you needed laborers, you could go out on Gene Autry, just north of the airport, where the Work Force Development Office was. I don't know where it is right at the moment. Also, whenever I go to San Diego and go to St. Bartholomew's in Poway, I drive down Pomerado Road, and, at the corner of Pomerado and Rancho Bernardo Road, there is a Vons. At the edge of that parking lot, right up against and one sidewalk away from the street and the wall, there are about 20 to 30 folks waiting to get hired every morning. So, the same thing that this owner ran into is what we see even today for casual labor. The owner went into the town, because he had some work to be done. Most of the time, if you have a job to be done - for example, when they were putting up the shade structure our here - the guy needed one laborer to do x-amount of work. He arrived in town, found somebody, and brought him over. He had a plan; he knew how many he wanted; and he brought them all in. This landowner went out and was, instead, finding out how many people there were who wanted to work, and he sent them all into the vineyard. Did you notice that? And then, it doesn't seem like he has anything else to do, because, three more times during the day, he goes back to check and see if there is anybody else who has shown up that needs work, and, what does he do? He sends them into the vineyard! Right?! And he gets back there at 5:00, an hour before the end of the shift, right? And he finds these guys, and he says, "Why aren't you out working?" And they lied to him. Did you know that? They lied to him. He has been coming back every three hours and checking. It is not because nobody hired them, because he was hiring everybody! They showed up late. They might have been out playing around; they might have been doing anything; but they showed up late; and he said, "Well, whatever. You go work, too".

I want to focus on that. Every once in a while, I hear an interview with somebody who is in the movie industry, and the person who is interviewing the ac-tor - and it will definitely be two syllables: ac-tor! - they will be talking and will say, "Why do you do this?" "Well, it's the work. It's not about fame. It's not about the millions of dollars they pay me; it's the work".

Well, I want to tell you today that this Gospel is about the work. It's about the landowner, who is desirous to find all of those who are available and send them out into the vineyard to do the work. It's about Jesus' concern for the work that needs to be done in the Kingdom of God. It's about Jesus coming and looking and finding whoever is here, whoever is available. He is not being selective. He is not trying to create some kind of a highly-trained elite swat team of Christian evangelists to go do something. He is trying to get whoever is available to go out and spread the news that He has given them to spread. It's all about the work. It's not about the money. It's not about the compensation. It's about God wanting to get everybody who is absolutely available into the vineyard, doing that work for the Kingdom.

Now, I am indebted for some of this to somebody I have quoted before, Sarah Dylan Breuer, and she said that one of the things that, if we look at this particular Gospel wrong, if we focus so much on the who-is-in and who-is-out, or what is the fair wage versus the inherent unfairness of the owner, we will miss the point; and we might miss God's invitation to us - an invitation not to receive wages earned, but an invitation to receive blessings to be shared. That is an incredibly significant difference.

Let me say it again: We don't want to miss God's invitation, not to receive wages earned, but to receive blessings to be shared.

Our lives are about all of the blessings that we have received. When we think of them as wages that we have earned, we kind of feel like they are ours to control; and they are ours to own; and we begin putting them aside and hiding them to preserve them for that day when we will need them. But, if we look at them as a blessing, which we just happen to be in the path of and receive, and all that God asks of us is that we share it, it is a whole different story.

The whole idea of this parable - we have workers; we have workers who came late and workers who were on time; we have a manager; we have the owner - this parable leads us into this kind of hierarchical or ladder-oriented understanding of God's Kingdom, in that the way that we get ahead in life is to make sure that we do more and do it better, so that we get more and are better off than somebody else. We are climbing up that particular ladder.

I think that Jesus is offering us an opportunity in this parable to begin looking at things very differently. Instead of looking at our lives as a ladder we climb by the things that we do and the rewards that we receive, I think God is asking us to view that life as essentially flat - not one where there is a ladder going up, where the people at the top of the ladder have a bigger and brighter star than the folks at the bottom, but a community that is spread out. In fact, one of the most interesting ways to think of it is as a network, where there is enough availability for everybody to find a place to plug in, and everybody can share in all the things that are spread throughout that particular network.

What is the response that God asks of us to God's invitation to be a part of that network, instead of that ladder? God requires one thing from us.

To say yes

To just say yes - that's good! And to say thanks. Our expression of gratitude, by sharing the blessings that we have received, is all that God asks of us. God does not ask us to be better than the next lady or fellow. God does not ask us to be brighter than the next person. God only asks for us to receive what is given, to share it, and to respond with gratitude.

So, I want to say that, when Daniel is baptized today, Daniel is not being baptized into an entry-level position that, with years and years of dedicated, nose-to-the-spiritual-grindstone work, eventually Daniel will arrive at that place where God is willing to look down and love him! No, Daniel is being plugged in today to a network of people who have received God's blessing, and whose only and greatest joy is to share that blessing with others. Daniel, today, is being incorporated into a community where he is as close, today, to God, as he might ever want to be; and God's Love for him is as great, today, as it will ever be! And that Love is so great that it surpasses all that we can ask or imagine.

And so God asks us to do one thing, which is to say -

AMEN