Sermon: Jesus as Generous Employer

Texts: Matt 20:1-16, Exod 16:2-15

18 Sept 2005

I’ve been working through the gospel of Matthew over the last few months and particularly focusing on parables. What have they told us about the character of Jesus, and about the character of the Kingdom of heaven? In my opinion the parable we have read today is one of the best, but also one of the most challenging. It seemed especially appropriate to speak about it today when we induct new team members. Mind you, its possible that Merilyn and I feel a bit like the labourers who were there from the start of the day, slogging through the long hours and hot sun, and these Johnny-come-latelys, or should I say “Jimmy-come-latelys and Toby-come-latelys” are here getting the pats on the backs – I’m only joking. I’m pretty excited to be working amongst the team that we have now, and together we hope we will serve the church well and grow ourselves in our faith and abilities.

But back to the parable – although it is a story that was told over 2000 years ago it seems to be very up to date, and we still have a very human reaction to it. I’d venture to say most of us have a deal of sympathy for the grumblers – the ones who had worked hard all day but were only paid the same wage as the 11^th hourers. Any household that has had kids in it at some time has probably heard the phrase “that’s not fair”. Apparently in the US there's a television program called Kids Court where children can bring complaints against siblings, friends, and even parents. They can complain, "it's not fair" to whatever troubles them and be properly heard. (Most kids get a less sympathetic response such as "It's just not fair, not fair at all that you are the kid and I am the parent - that you have to follow the rules and that I get to make them -- but that is the way it is.")

But this sense of fairness and justice isn’t confined to kids. Labour reform is in the air, but even so I am sure if the story we just read in the Gospel took place today, there would be a huge hue and cry. For us justice in work has a very definite connection to equality. Salaries are linked to hours of work, and while some jobs seem to expect longer than award hours they usually also pay more than award wages. Even the salaries in this church are based on recommended levels related to skill and experience. A skilled worker gets more than an unskilled worker. If workers have the same skills, the same hours of work and similar responsibilities, we expect them to get the same wages. Equality is justice and justice is equality.

But an experience I had in the last week reminded me that even this attitude comes from a privileged perspective. The expectation that we’ll be rewarded for work is based on the assumption that we can work, and work at something that satisfies, and will have the potential for promotion and further reward. Earlier this week I was helping a friend who has applied for government housing. Although she is on the priority list she has been told there is a wait of up to 18 months. If she tries to rent privately she goes off the list, and pays market rents, with only a little relief from rent assistance. But in order to afford the private rental market she needs to find a job. And as someone without transport she needs to be able to live close to where she works. So the suggestion of one agency I was referred to that she rent a caravan in Eaglehawk or Fyshwick doesn’t seem too helpful. I have spent time with another lady in a similar situation, who managed to get a job but because it was shift work she was spending half her wage in taxi fares for early morning and late night shifts. It just seems there is not an equal baseline – some start from a much more difficult position than others. So the attitude that comes through some commentaries on this text need challenging – the ones who assume that the people employed last in the parable had either not been there earlier or were the lazy ones – “layabouts, drunks and gossipers” was one suggestion. Because perhaps their unemployability had much more to do with their situation and opportunities in life than their attitude.

As I read the parable I was reminded of a scene in the movie “The Motorcycle Diaries” about a journey Che Guevera took through South America that conscientised him to the plight of many of his compatriots. He comes upon a group of people sitting on rocks in a desolate landscape in the vicinity of a mine. From time to time a truck pulls up and a foreman walks around the group selecting workers for the mine. All jump up eagerly but only a few are chosen, the truck drives off and the crowd is left in the barren landscape with seemingly barren prospects. A number of people have wives and children with them – you have the sense that they are desperate for work as it is their only hope of feeding their families. And yet they are completely at the mercy of the foreman’s selection, perhaps without even knowing what the selection criteria are.

Another terrible image that came to mind was the news of yet another car bomb in Iraq, driven up to a line of men waiting to be interviewed for a job amongst the security forces. More than 700 policemen and prospective recruits have been killed in insurgent attacks since April last year. Most were killed in suicide bombings, and many were simply applying for jobs. One young man interviewed who had been waiting near the site of the blast, said it was only the promise of a paycheck that had led him to apply to be a policeman, widely viewed as the most risky profession in Iraq today.

And in the parable one denarius was the agreed wage for a day’s work – the text note in my bible says it was enough to feed a family for one day. By any standards, then, this parable speaks of precarious work. A daily wage for daily work without job security, super, holiday loading or sick pay. But that was the agreed to wage for the first employed. Those taken on late in the day must have been anxious that even with some work they still wouldn’t have enough to feed the family that night.

So this story which raises such contemporary emotions and anxieties can also cast our minds to justice issues around employment: from CEOs on multi-million dollar wages – arguably too much pay for too little work – to the subjects of the global fair trade campaign – where not even a decent daily wage is paid for long hours and poor conditions.

What sort of an image of the Kingdom of heaven is it? If God is the landowner and Jesus is representing God, what sort of an image of God is it? We need to wrestle with a story that undermines expectations and conventions – a god that bargains with his workers, who ignores union regulations, who responds to complaints fairly abruptly - “Take what you agreed to and go.” But also a god who turns to the latecomers, the ones who had only been labouring for an hour, and gives them the same subsistence wage as if they had done a day’s work – the denarius that WOULD have been enough to feed their families that day.

It is probably helpful to think about what impact this story would have had when it was first heard. Given the frequent conflicts in the gospel between Jesus and the Pharisees over the company Jesus kept, it may have been a reminder that in God’s kingdom all were welcome – not just those who had worked hard and prided themselves on knowing the reward for faithfulness, those who had bargained with God perhaps, but also the tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes. On another level the emphasis may have been on the inclusion of Gentiles as well as Jews in God’s kingdom. All would receive the reward of God’s favour. Because it certainly is a parable about who is in and who is out, or who is expected to be in or out by others.

But it is also a parable about the generosity of the kingdom, where the needs of ALL can be met because the landowner is gracious and compassionate. It is an echo of the Old Testament reading where God patiently and compassionately provides for the grumbling Hebrews in the desert. Manna, the Hebrew word for “what is it” – rained from heaven, but just enough for each day. Still precarious, still the need to trust in the good provision, but “bread enough for each day.”

• Bread enough for each day - in a world where normally only those fortunate enough to be hired first are able to get enough to eat and to provide for their dependents.

• Bread enough for each day – in a world where your background and access to resources such as education and inherited wealth often determine the choices available to you.

• Bread enough for each day - in a world where normally even those fortunate enough to have the strength to work are left standing in the unemployment line because of oversupply or corporate downsizing.

• Bread enough for each day - in a world where even those who work hard and long in the heat of the day are often forced to agree to less than a day's wages because of an employer's desire to maximize profits and reward share holders.

• Bread enough for each day – in a world where politics of terror even come between countrymen and enormous risks must be taken out of desperation to fill the basic necessities in life.

The bread of the Kingdom of heaven is truly bread from heaven – surprising and new and fulfilling despite the realities of our world. Someone has said “in God’s world everything is gift.” What a privilege to live with that understanding.

Because I think the key to understanding this parable is to begin to understand the heart of the gospel, which can be summed up in the word grace. Grace and fairness are not necessarily the same thing. A sermon title I saw for this text was “Stop Looking For a Fair God, and Be Thankful For the One You Got." It is certainly possible to draw parallels to the story of God liberating the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt (where they would have surely perished), and the story of the cross of Jesus and how it liberates from sin and death: with the underlying motive being God’s love for his people.

One of my older commentaries put this very well: TW Manson said “it is fortunate for most of us that God does not deal with us on the basis of strict justice and sound economics. In the last resort the rewards of such poor service as men can give to the Kingdom are not an exact quid pro quo. They are an expression of God’s love towards his servants; and God’s love cannot be portioned out in quantities nicely adjusted to the merits of individuals. There is such as thing as a twelfth part of a denarius. It was called a pondion. But there is no such thing as a twelfth part of the love of God.” (quoted in AM Hunter, Interpreting the Parables, 1960)

And so what will WE do with this story we have heard today? How will it affect what WE do tomorrow in our own workplaces, homes and encounters with other people?

Jim spoke in the pastoral letter about our work in this church as a vocation – or a calling. In the parable of the labourers in the vineyard the landowner goes out five times to hire workers. They come at different times but they all come because they are called – God’s call is to all humanity – Jews and Gentiles, Pharisees and tax collectors, young and old, rich and poor. And God’s grace is available to all who are called. The parable is left open though – we don’t really know if the grumblers have been convinced by the owner and learned to accept his generosity and express it in their turn. When he tells the story Jesus leaves this question with those who hear. Can they learn from him to see with the eyes of God? The punch line of the parable is “are you envious because I am generous?” or the literal translation: “is your eye evil because I am good?” That is our choice: to depend on our evil eye or to depend on God’s goodness.

None of us can earn God's love; but all of us are invited to respond to it. And we are called to work for it - to reach out to others and bring a healing word, a gentle touch, the generous and embracing love of God to them. May we be good workers and may we bless the Lord “for the grace that redeems, for the love that makes whole”