In the gospel today we hear Jesus tell Peter and the other
disciples another parable, a story that used ordinary settings and objects that
were familiar to his audience to teach them something about God.
Parables sometimes feel like riddles or folktales like Br’er
Rabbit stories or Aesop’s fables. We read them and try to figure out what Jesus
meant.
But theologian and Presbyterian pastor Frederick Buechner
offers this advice about reading Scripture: “Don’t start looking in the Bible
for the answers it gives. Start by listening for the questions it asks.”
When we listen to the parables, listening for the questions is
fruitful.
First, Why is the vineyard owner doing the hiring? Wouldn’t the
manager be in charge of finding workers?
Second, why doesn’t the landowner hire everyone he needs the
first time? Instead, the parable tells us he goes out every three hours all
through the day and finds new workers.
Third, who were the workers who were still there at the end
of the day, the ones who told the landowner no one had hired them?
And fourth, why does the landowner tell the manager to
reverse the order? Was he making a point or was he simply sympathetic to those
like the Turners or the Valentines who know that always being at the end of the
line gets old?
But the question I hear most clearly is the one the text
explicitly asks. When a grumbling worker confronts the landowner after everyone
received the same pay, the landowner asks,
“Are you
envious because I am generous?”
The parable isn’t about the workers at all. It doesn’t
matter how much effort or discipline they demonstrated, and it doesn’t matter
when they showed up.
What matters
is that the landowner in the parable, who we can now understand as God, generously
disperses an abundant grace that exceeds any measure we can devise.
Our relationship to the God who created us,
who calls us into the world as God’s children,
who equips us with gifts for every vocation we pursue,
who sends us into the world to share God’s love and mercy —
that relationship has nothing to do with human
effort,
or goodness, or work,
and everything to do with who God is
and what God has already done.
Too often we look at the person next to us and ask whether
they deserve what they have, or whether they are being good stewards of their
belongings.
Division and resentment, envy and suspicion infect our
relationships, and instead of participating in a kingdom where all are fed or
housed, welcomed and belonging, we turn inward and become self-centered. Like the workers in the parable, we become so
preoccupied with others that we forget the richness of the grace that we ourselves
have experienced.
In the parable, Jesus says that the right response to great
generosity isn’t to see if we all got what we deserved, but to respond with
gratitude and thanksgiving, recognizing
that all we have is given to us by a generous God who provides for us and wants
us all to be fed and nourished, whole and healed.
I, for one, am really grateful that God’s grace breaks any
scale or measure, any accounting system or logic. Every day I do something that
falls short of the grace I’ve been given — in thought, word or deed, or in what
I’ve done or failed to do — but God’s love for me is abounding and steadfast. That’s
the promise we’re given, when we are brought to the foot of the cross by the
recognition of our sin and our utter inability to do anything about it; God is
there with us, loves us, forgives us, and adopts us as sons and daughters. It doesn’t matter how often or how loudly
we tell God he’s doing it wrong, God still insists on loving each one of us
immeasurably.
The question we hear from the landowner prompts other
questions, too, like “What are the places in our lives that are places of
abundance?” and “What are the places where we’ve been blessed and we didn’t
deserve it or earn it?” These questions prompt us to recognize God’s generosity
in our everyday lives.
As part of my story of call, I often tell people how every
congregation where we have worshiped since Casey was two years old had female
pastors; time and time again, wherever I was, I witnessed ordained women
leading ministry and sharing the Gospel. I didn’t know until seminary how
unusual that still was.
Another story I tell is the memory of a quilt we received
when Casey was born. Lots of babies are given quilts, but this one stands out
in my memory because Casey was born just a few weeks into a new school year and
it was Jamie’s first year teaching there, so the woman who sewed the quilt
hardly knew him. The quilt was pretty but it was the gift of her time that was a
precious blessing to us.
As we follow Jesus together and listen for the questions
that we hear in God’s Word, may we remember to watch for all the ways that
God’s grace defies all of our human systems of rank and merit and counts each
of us beloved and forgiven.
Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your gift of grace, unearned and without
measure, that you give each of us;
Teach us to respond to your generous mercy with thanksgiving
and rest in the promise of your steadfast love for us.
Help us recognize your abundance and not be captive to fear
or envy.
By your Spirit, strengthen us to share your love and mercy
with the world.
In the name of your Son Jesus,
Amen.
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