Member-ship - Priceless! by The Rt. Rev. Andrew D. Smith
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Trinity Church 15th after Pentecost September 21, 2014 Proper 20A
Over these past weeks, as we have progressed through the teachings of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, each building on the other, we definitely have been on a roll. One teaching following another, one parable, one image after another - all defining the Kingdom of Heaven, and what it is to live in it right now. Member-ship. Spiritual fertility and how to improve on that. How someone can be both a rock for Christ and at the same time a stumbling block for the gospel. The expectation of forgiveness, no matter how little or how great the debt.
Now we have the story of the vineyard owner who goes to the town square at different times in the day to hire workers. (Its place in Matthew’s gospel is right before Jesus makes his entry into Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. The stories we shall read in weeks ahead are placed from his time in the Holy City just before his betrayal and arrest.)
Let’s walk around this parable, poke at it, look into it.
Jesus said, there was a landowner who went into town to hire workers for his vineyard. He first went out early in the morning. 6 am? After agreeing with the laborers for the normal daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went.
Same thing at noon, and at three, and at five (“Why are you still here standing around?”) in the late afternoon.
20:8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o'clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received — the usual daily wage. And they complained to the landowner, saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have worked eleven hours, borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.'
First, in the worldly scheme of things, let’s admit that the landowner’s action is just not right. The principles of employment in business or in the factory would be in chaos if there are not a clear delineation of what we call “hourly wages.” “You work one hour, you get paid for one hour, your work half-time, get paid half-time. Work full-time, full time pay. More than that? Overtime!”
Ah, but the Kingdom of God is not about worldly schemes. Sure, there are business principles and practices that apply to the church’s day to day accountability, but the Church is something much different, so much more, than a business; it is the embodiment and sign of the Kingdom of God.
That’s what this story points out so clearly. It’s not about farm owners and workers. It’s about the Kingdom of heaven. So. The landowner is …. ? (God) The hired workers are …. ? (you and me). The work is ….? (to go into the fields and bring in the harvest; to go out to live and proclaim the Gospel and bring in others who will come to God and give their lives for the Kingdom).
The “usual daily wage” ….? The gift of salvation — becoming a member of, belonging to, the Kingdom, reborn as a new child of God, receiving the Holy Spirit living inside, hope-filled for heaven. And it’s pre-paid, given even before the work has begun!
Here are some points that jump out for me from Jesus’ story.
In God’s sight, there is absolute equality in terms of the value of the workers and the work they do. Doesn’t matter when you showed up, how long you’ve been at work: everyone is equal in God’s sight — and must be in yours, too. New to the acolytes? the choir? (we have three new choristers who will be given white cottas today) the parish? the Church? Doesn’t matter, old or new, each one is valued and as valuable as the other.
In God’s invitation, as in the landowner’s, there are no hidden catches or conditions: no fine print. It’s plain, and simple: Everyone available is invited in, and given the full day’s pay and benefits.
What does all this say about God whom we know? Here comes that beautiful adjective once again: God is Generous. Inviting every
one into the vineyard. Forgiving debt. Paying everyone equally. Some may complain: “I deserve more!” In the ways of the world, perhaps yes. But this, brothers and sisters, is the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s God’s world.
As the landowner replied to one of them, 'Friend, did you not agree with me to the terms? I am doing you no wrong. Take what your are given and be thankful. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? I choose to give to these last the same as I give to you. Or are you upset because I am generous?’
I’ve been thinking of generosity a lot recently, because I have been immersed in the Roosevelts. For some months I’ve been working my way (very slowly) through Doris Kearns Goodwin’s monumental (monumentally long) biography of Teddy Roosevelt. And together Kate and I have been watching Ken Burns’s episodic film “The Roosevelts” on public television. I wake up dreaming ”Roosevelts” at night.
The public saga of Teddy Roosevelt began at the end of the nineteenth century when the “barons of industry and finance” as they became barons, J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and others, and fabulously rich, they led strangely bifurcated lives. On the one hand, they were generous to the Church* and various charities On the other hand they were absolutely ruthless, unethical and unlawful in their dealings with their employees and small competitive business owners. Other people were the means to their personal wealth, and not considered recipients of blanket generosity. Consolidation of power in mining, oil and the railroads into “trusts” was bought at the price of virtually enslaving, ruining and impoverishing the workers and competitors. Were they generous? In public, at small cost, they could appear to be. In reality, generosity was not a working concept in their real lives. To Teddy’s, Eleanor’s and Franklin’s credit, even though they were born in to that upper class, they saw the immorality, and consistently fought to bust and rein in that power
How different from being “captains of industry” it is to be in Jesus. Pure and simple, through and through: consistent generosity. So that we forgive as we have been forgiven, we are generous as our God has been and is generous to us.
Dave Wadsworth was a vestryman of Trinity Church, Waterbury and in church every Sunday morning. He owned a family business in the south end of Waterbury, a sign-making and truck-lettering business. I knew Dave for about five years before I learned that as a matter of principle, every time there was a job opening in the shop, he first sought to hire a recently released convict who wanted to make a new start in his life, and eventually move into his own business. That’s generosity.
For to live in the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant who has found a pearl of inestimable value, and goes and sells everything he has so he can obtain that pearl. It is, as Saint Paul wrote to the Philippians, everything:
Philippians 1:21 For to me, living is Christ, and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and (being in Christ) I do not know which I prefer, to be alive, or to die. I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith.
So too for us, invited into the vineyard by God, every one of us equals, full wages and benefits provided, called to live in the same generosity with which we have been blessed.
So, go. And let generosity be our hallmark. For that’s how it is to go with God.
* for full disclosure: J.P. Morgan was the prime mover in the establishment of the Clergy Pension Fund of The Episcopal Church.