Every time we
pray the Lord’s Prayer, we say to God: “Thy Kingdom come.” We invite God to take over the reins of the
earth – instead of letting us humans be in charge, we invite God to be in
charge. But, when Jesus talked about the
Kingdom of God, he described a place that was decidedly different than Earth as
we know it. Do we really mean it when we
invite God to make “thy kingdom come?”
In this morning’s
reading, Jesus uses a parable to teach about the difference between the way the
kingdom of God works and the current way our world works. Listen to Jesus’ words as they were recorded
in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 20, verses one through sixteen:
20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Here ends this reading of the word of God for the People of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Prayer for Understanding
Lord we thank you for the gift of your Word and as we think on these things open our hearts and minds to hear your word to us. Amen.
One of the things
I love about 5 year olds is that they want everything to be fair. This summer, when we visited my triplet
nieces, they felt it was important to share everything equally. If they had one cookie, they tried to split
it 4 ways with Lucia. If they had one
can of orange soda, we divided it equally between 3 cups for them to drink. If one played with the most favorite Barbie
of the day, the others each had to have a turn.
Part of the fun
of growing up is that we get to eat a whole cookie all by ourselves. But the
lessons we learn in preschool and Kindergarten still apply: In our work, in our
families, and in our friend groups, we work to share everything
equally….fairness is important.
When Jesus
describes the way the kingdom of God works, as we hear in this story today,
things don’t sound exactly fair. We
expect to be paid for our labor. If we
put in a 12 hour shift, we want to be paid for working 12 hours. If someone else puts in a two hour shift, we
want them to be paid for 2 hours. This
is what seems fair to us – you get paid based on the work you do.
But in Jesus’
day, a daily wage was a denarius. A
denarius was a living wage. If you had a
denarius in your pocket at the end of the day, you could afford your daily food
ration. You could afford your daily
water ration. You could pay your
rent. You could pay your taxes. The system was premised on the expectation
each laborer earned a denarius every day.
In our story, no
matter how many hours a worker worked, he made the daily wage. This didn’t feel very fair to the people who
had been working 12 hours, but it was wonderful for the people who had worked
less….everyone needed to earn a denarius in order to earn enough to cover their
expenses.
In the kingdom of
God, everyone has enough….everyone has what they need.
Some preachers
see this parable as an analogy for people becoming believers in
Christianity. Some people are cradle
Christians….there is never a time in their lives they can remember not
believing in God. Some of us recall
certain moments when we became Christians – moments of Clarity, moments of
calling, moments when we realized the truth in our faith. Some of us have brushes with the Holy as
young people and turn our lives over to Jesus then. Others of us struggle….we feel the pull of
the Christian faith, but we stop ourselves from jumping right in….we take
time….we may accept it and then reject it and then accept it again. This parable can be applied to the dance of
faith many of us experience – some of us started working at the crack of dawn,
others came to the fields at 9 am, others at noon, others at 3, and others at
5. But, whenever we came we were
accepted, loved, and redeemed by our God.
In the 1st
century, some of the people in Jesus’ audience may have felt very threatened by
this message. Many First Century Jewish
people were comfortable with the belief that they were the Chosen people of
God. They believed the Jewish people
were the inheritors of the Covenant God made with Abraham…a covenant that
established a special relationship between their ethnic group and God. But, when Jesus came to earth, he expanded
the Covenant. Instead of only the Jewish
people being God’s special chosen ones, all people were invited to have a
relationship with God. Jew and Gentile. Men and Women. Slaves and Free People. Prostitutes and Choir Members. Tax Collectors and Fishermen. Saints and sinners. All people were invited to seek a deeper
relationship with God.
And, when you are
used to the idea that you have a special privilege just because your ancestors
were the right kind of people, and then you find out that doesn’t matter
anymore, you may feel like you are being treated unfairly. Instead of being a special chosen one you are
just one of the crowd. Instead of being
offered a privileged place in front row of the theater, you have to sit with
everyone in the peanut gallery. For
those of us with Gentle backgrounds, this is good news.
And, for those of
us who haven’t been perfect Christians, this is good news. I don’t know about everyone in this room or
watching this stream, but I don’t think I have ever met a perfect Christian. We doubt.
We make mistakes. We sin. We hold
grudges. We have trouble forgiving each
other. Most of us don’t follow
Christianity perfectly…..we don’t live the teachings of Jesus perfectly. And, it is comforting to know that our God is
a god of Grace. God loves and forgives
us because of God’s unilateral grace. We
don’t do anything to earn God’s love. We
can’t do anything to earn God’s love. We
can’t do enough good deeds, and pray the right words enough, or sing the notes
to the hymn perfectly, and earn God’s love and forgiveness. God shares Grace with us because it is God’s
choice to do so. Whenever we show up,
whenever we turn our lives over to God, and accept we are not ultimately in
charge of ourselves, but God is the way, the truth, and the life, then we are
accepted and loved. God loves us with
our imperfections. God loves us even
though we aren’t perfect followers, and don’t have it within us to be perfect
Christians.
So, when I pray,
thy kingdom come, I am getting ready for God’s kingdom on earth. Where no matter when we believe in God, we
are accepted. Where no matter how well
we practice our faith, we are accepted.
Where no matter how much we mess up, we are accepted. All of us are inheritors of the Kingdom. This is Good news. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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