Matthew 20:1-16
September 22, 2002—10:05 Worship
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church on San Francisco.
Sometimes when I am in San Rafael early in the morning, I see many Hispanic day laborers standing in the corners of the street and looking intensely as cars drive by. They are ready for work. If you have any heavy lifting and perhaps a dangerous job to do like cutting down a tree, these laborers are willing to do it for very little pay.
In everyday life we don’t see that there’s a direct relationship between the work we do and the pay we receive. We don’t always see that those who do the most work, or the most important work, receive the highest pay.
After all, we are used to multinational corporations laying off thousands of workers, while handling out million-dollar bonuses and stock options to the CEOs. For example, the ratio of average CEO pay to average pay of U.S. blue-collar workers is 531 to 1!
We are used to a young man barely out of college getting obscene amounts of money because he can toss a round ball through a hoop, while a third-grade elementary teacher is paid $30,000 a year. We live in a society where the lowest-paid people on the economic ladder are the ones to whom we entrust the care of our most valuable preschool children.
Although unfair at times, we all have to work. As Americans, we define our self-worth by the kinds of jobs we have and the amount of pay we receive. We take our work so seriously that the average U.S. worker, in fact, spends so much time at work that workers are putting in another week of work every year as compared to ten years ago. In 1990, the average American worked 1,942 hours a year, Today the total hours worked is around 1,978. That’s 36 more hours of work! No wonder we are tired!
For some reason, the trend in American labor hours is running contrary to other industrialized nations where the total number of hours worked has been declining. People in Australia, Canada, Japan, and Mexico work an average of 100 hours a year less than Americans work. Britons and Brazilians labor 250 fewer hours. And Germans put in 500 fewer hours on the job per year.
Researchers have found that when Europeans are asked who they are, it takes them longer to answer the question, because they go into details about their families and other aspects of their lives. But when Americans are asked to define themselves, almost immediately most of us tell what kind of job we have. We define ourselves by the jobs that we do.
And almost like bragging rights, we readily share how many long hours we worked last week or how much overtime we accumulated like we just won a prize!
Vineyard Laborers
The parable of the kingdom of God that Jesus told in Matthew 20 bothers us. This parable troubles us and challenges our understanding of fairness. Early in the morning, the landowner hires laborers for his vineyard. He rounds up a group, agrees to pay them the usual daily wage and then puts them into action.
The landowner then goes out at 9:00 and seeing that there were laborers hanging out in the marketplace, hires them for his vineyard. At noon, he recruits a third team, and then at three o’clock, a fourth team of laborers. Finally, at five o’clock, he finds still more laborers who are willing to work. He sends them into the vineyard to do what they can before sundown.
At the end of the day, the landowner instructs his manager to pay the workers, beginning with those who started at five in the afternoon. Their pay: one denarius each, the usual daily wage. Then the three o’clock team is paid—one denarius each. The noontime laborers—one denarius. The nine o’clock crowd—one denarius.
Finally, the laborers who were first hired early in the morning at the crack of dawn, the ones who worked a full day were looking from a short distance how everyone got one denarius. They came forward to be paid. And it was the same—one denarius each. This final group of workers was upset. They believed that they deserve more than the workers who began their work at the end of the day. “These last worked only one hour,” the sunrise crowd grumbles, “and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” (20:12)
The all-day workers felt they were worthier than the others because they worked longer. They saw themselves to be more deserving than the rest.
The landowner said, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?”
“Well, yes, in fact I did,” admits the laborer.
“Take what belongs to you and go,” advises the owner; “I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.” As unfair as it may seem to pay a one-hour worker the same wage as a 12-hour worker, we have to admit that the landowner is perfectly free to do what he chooses with what belongs to him. If he wants to be generous, he is certainly entitled to be generous.
But this kind of generosity contradicts our understanding of fairness and respect. A full day’s work deserves a full day’s pay! You can’t get as much as I’m getting for just working for one hour! By paying these one-hour workers the same that I got made them equal to me. I’m better because I worked all day! I deserve more!
Who is Deserving?
Five years ago around this time in September, millions of people around the world sat glued to the TV, watching the funerals of two famous women. The first funeral was for Diana, Princess of Wales, who met an untimely death at the age of 36, a fatal car crash in which two other people were also killed. No one who watched the outpouring of grief in London will ever forget it: the tons of fresh flowers left outside Kensington and Buckingham palaces, the makeshift shrines, the parade of celebrities at Westminster Abbey, and the arrangement of white roses on the coffin, accompanied by a card with the simple inscription: “Mummy.” Elton John sang, “Candle in the Wind” and Earl Spencer’s tribute to his sister contributed to the canonization of Diana. Most of the service suggested that Diana was a worthier candidate for heaven—if not sainthood—than the majority of the mourners.
The funeral for Mother Theresa, who died only a few days later, was a stark contrast to the spectacle at Westminster Abbey. Prior to the mass, the nun’s body lay in state on a block of ice to prevent decay, not in a royal chapel. While religious and political leaders from around the world praised Mother Theresa, the service followed the prescribed order for the mass rather than designed for a much-admired woman. There were prayers for her soul, and petitions made to God to have mercy on her and receive her as his own. Nothing said or sung in the service made special claim on divine favor. The funeral reminded viewers and participants of the need of all humanity for God’s grace.
Between Princess Diana and Mother Theresa, who is more deserving? Between the full-day workers and the 5:00 PM workers, who is more deserving? Here lies the paradox: the difference between our human ideas of what is deserving and God’s compassion offered to all; knowing that all are undeserving of God’s grace. There’s a human tendency to demand God’s justice when what is really needed is God’s mercy.
God’s Compassion and Grace
We see this in the story about Jonah. After he disobeyed God and set sail to Tarshish instead of Nineveh, Jonah was swallowed by the great fish. When he repented, he went to Nineveh to announce the impending destruction of the city, and then waited outside of the city limits so he could watch God’s judgment fall on it. But Nineveh repented, from the king to the poorest citizen, and in so doing the city received divine mercy.
Jonah resented that the Lord has as much compassion for a sinful city as he has shown toward a sinful prophet. After all, he had been God’s servant much longer than the people of Nineveh have repented.
In today’s Scripture lesson, we find another example of this paradox: wanting justice and begrudging mercy. While some of the laborers were in the vineyard through the heat of the day and others came only for the last hour or two to work, the treatment given them by the landlord was the same. All of the workers who stood in the marketplace seeking for work were in need of the same thing—the means to support themselves.
They were satisfied with their pay until they saw their employer’s generosity toward the latecomers to the vineyard. They resented that the landowner has as much generosity to the latecomers when they had worked many hours more under the scorching sun.
And finally, we can think about the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. The estate of the waiting father is shared equally between the two sons. The wayward one who returns receives as much as his elder brother who worked the farm and never strayed. The younger son receives grace unexpectedly and, we assume, gratefully, while his brother sees only injustice. The wastefulness of the prodigal son was canceled out by the compassion and love of the father; while this same love aroused anger and alienation from the other son.
Both sons would have nothing without the father’s kindness. Both were heirs because it was his will to make them such.
All in Need of Grace
The ending of the Jonah story, the parable of the workers in the vineyard, and the prodigal son are all good news to people like us. The truth of the matter is that no matter which of the characters we identify with, or how long we’ve labored in the vineyard, we are all in need of God’s pity and compassion.
But honestly, we pretend this is not so, of course. We empathize with the full-time workers in the vineyard and believe that they have a legitimate complaint. We secretly sympathize with the elder brother, wondering whether the cost of the fatted calf and the big party will come out of our share of the inheritance. And sad to say, many of us particularly in our “war on terrorism,” would rejoice with Jonah at the prospect of judgment falling upon those we despise.
But there’s nothing to be gained with this mindset. It leaves us huddled in the outskirts of Nineveh waiting for something that God won’t allow to happen. It focuses on putting down other people’s worth like those in San Rafael when God has claimed everyone to be his beloved children. It pushes us away from the father’s love that would include us in the celebration of our brother’s homecoming.
It turns us sour on God’s generous grace that God promised us at the end of the day. It blinds us to our own neediness, our own undeserving.
Mother Theresa
One of the little chapters that I return to time and time again is Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten on Mother Theresa. Fulghum has in his work studio a wash basin with a mirror above it. He stops there several times a day to tidy up and look at himself in the mirror. Alongside this mirror is a photograph of Mother Theresa. Each time he looks in the mirror at himself, he sees Mother Theresa. It troubles him.
Fulghum sees Mother Theresa, a little old lady in sari and sandals. The photograph is of a servant of the poor and dying who has just received the Nobel Peace Prize. In a great glittering hall of velvet and gold and crystal, she is surrounded by the noble and famous in formal black and in elegant gowns. The rich, the powerful, the brilliant, the talented of the world were there.
Although Fulghum is troubled every time he sees her photograph next to his mirror that he goes to see himself, he leaves it there because the power of Mother Theresa’s faith shames him.
We think that we need to do more than others but Mother Theresa said, “We can do no great things; only small things with great love.” We feel that we need to labor for a full day in order to receive approval. But when we think about Mother Theresa, like Fulghum has, we are challenged by this way of life. He writes,
“The contradictions of her life and faith are nothing compared to my own.
And while I wrestle with frustration about the impotence of the individual,
she goes right on changing the world. While I wish for more power and
resources, she uses her power and resources to do what she can do at the
moment. She upsets me, disturbs me, shames me. What does she have that
I do not?
What Mother Theresa has that Fulghum and we want in our lives is God’s generous grace. There’s nothing that we can do enough to adequately earn God’s grace and mercy. Whether it’s working for 12 hours under the scorching sun or just one hour when the evening breeze cools the earth, God chooses to be generous to all of us. We all receive one day of pay!
Apostle Paul
No one understood this better than the apostle Paul. In his letter to the Philippians, he wrote,
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.
More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all
things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be
found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,
but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based
on faith. (3:7-9)
Paul is saying that all the things that he has earned in this world, he is ready to give up because of Christ. It’s not how righteous we might see in ourselves that counts. Rather, it’s God’s righteousness that comes from faith in Christ. It doesn’t matter how many credits we have earned, how many hours we have clocked, how many degrees we have behind our names, how deserving we see ourselves to be.
God’s generous grace and mercy are given to all of us. Because God is faithful and just, his promises may be relied on. God still calls certain individuals to answer the call to go to Nineveh or to work in the vineyard. But because God is compassionate, the call is issued over and over, offering the kingdom to all who acknowledge their need of grace to have any share in it.
For some, the turning point doesn’t come until they’re in the belly of the whale, or struck down on the road to Damascus, unable to earn a living wage, or eating what pigs eat in a far away country. But thanks be to God, whose generous grace is there when we need it—always.
Let us pray.
Lord, it is by grace that we have been saved through faith. This faith was not our doing, but the gift from you. Our salvation is not the result of our works, but by faith in Christ’s word of truth, we have received your forgiving grace that has made us new and set us free. Amen.