Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
Michael Hendricks
Sunday, March 17, 2019
When Alison asked if I could offer a reflection this morning while she was away at the Women’s Retreat, I quickly and gratefully agreed. You see, when I write it helps me to work out questions I have about issues in our tradition. It’s a discipline thing that I enjoy. Moreover, I already had something that I’d been thinking about – about how our creation story actually has God creating language before anything else – and what that might tell us about who we are and what creation calls us to be. So, yes, this would definitely come at a very opportune time.
Only, as it turns out, I actually hadn’t read the email all the way through when I said yes. Does that ever happen to you? When you get so caught up in whatever it is you want something to say that you never actually absorb what’s really being asked of you? And guess what? Alison had not only asked me to offer a reflection. She had also requested that I reflect on a specific text from the lectionary for this morning. And you’ll never guess. But out of the thousands and thousands of verses that make up the Bible, you’ll never believe this, they had absolutely nothing to do with the five verses at the beginning of John’s Gospel that I had planned on speaking about.
What they did have to do with, though, was a parable in keeping with this lectionary season’s focus on parables. So, I’m like, okay. We can switch gears. Go with the flow. Because as it happens, I like a good parable every now and then. Parables have been very good over the years to our Story Tent plays. They are stories after all. And where there are stories, there are different characters and different points of view, both of which are ideal for dramatization. So, I say sure. We can save the language thing for another time. If you’d like me to reflect on the assigned parable for today, I’d be happy to.
It was after I said yes, though, that I got around to actually read the parable. Are you sensing a theme here? And I think I understand now why Alison scheduled the Women’s Retreat for this particular weekend.
Please pray with me. Holy One, you have offered us your kingdom. And all we have to do to live in it … is to live in it. Help us to do just that. Amen.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been in school. The kids in youth group would probably say a long, long time. And I wouldn’t argue. Back when I was in high school, I took the usual assortment of classes that included literature, history, science, a language. Oh, and math.
I wasn’t exactly bad at math. At least until 11th grade when we started doing Analytic Geometry and one day, I realized I’d just sat through a class and not understood one word the teacher said. Somehow, I persevered and figured out ways to get through, but after that I did my best to de-emphasize math in my course of studies. I even went to a kind of hippie college that had no distribution requirements and – surprise, surprise – did my best to avoid any more math in my formal education.
But even with those inclinations, it’s hard for me to read this parable without instantly doing the math. And when I do, something funny happens to the parable.
With most parables, you listen and you get it. There’s a small mustard seed, but it grows into a big mustard plant. Sort of like a little faith also grows. Get it? Or like the good Samaritan helps the beaten and robbed Israelite, even though the Samaritan and Israelites were kind of enemies, even though other Israelites had left the man lying in the road. We have to leave our tribal inclinations behind us. Get it?
But on this one, Jesus seems to be cheating a little.
Am I allowed to say that up here?
But I’m kind of serious. The thing is when Jesus gets to the end of the parable, the part where we’re ready to say, oh, yeah, I see what you’re saying, I think there’s a part of us that has a tough time getting there. And I’m pretty sure Jesus knew that would happen. And I’m pretty sure he knew why. And I’m pretty sure he did it on purpose. And it all had to do with one word. Denarius. Money.
Basically, the standard daily wage in the ancient world for an unskilled laborer. Like these vineyard workers.
Oh, yes. And one other thing. The thing this whole parable is about. The Kingdom of Heaven. The way things are supposed to be. The way we are supposed to live. The way we could live now if we wanted to. The Kingdom that could be here. The Kingdom that could be now. The Kingdom that feels so far away, only because we constantly choose not to live God’s love into this world, into the vineyard that we actually live in.
But first the math – and another way to look at the problem.
My Dad used to tell me a story about an incident that occurred during World War II. He told me it was a true story. If you know how to do the research and it turns out not to be true, please don’t tell me. This is one of those stories I want to be true no matter what the actual history.
As I heard it, at the beginning of the U.S. involvement in the war, the American Armed Forces were building up their presence in North Africa. Ships would be coming over regularly filled with troops and equipment. The Army made use of the local population, probably Bedouin tribes people, to help off-load the ships.
It seems there was this young American lieutenant who looked into the arrangements. What he found was that the Army was paying the Bedouins only $1 a day for their labor. This shocked and appalled the lieutenant. They were working hard and deserved better. He made his case and forced the issue and eventually prevailed. The Army raised the pay to $2 a day.
At which point the Bedouins began to show up to work every other day.
I tell this story partly just because I like it. But it came back to me because I think it sort of relates to the parable of the Vineyard. As I mentioned earlier, the denarius was the going rate for an unskilled laborer back in Jesus’s day. Maybe it wasn’t enough. And, if not, there might be a true social justice theme being offered here. Why are you worrying about who’s getting more than whom? None of you are getting your daily bread, the minimum you need to live and you need to begin to look out for each other.
Or maybe it was enough. If so, just barely. In that way, maybe it was a little like the manna from Heaven that God provided the Israelites when they wandered in the wilderness. One day’s food. You can’t take it with you. Live and work in the Kingdom and you will get what you need. You may not get any more, but you will get enough.
But whether the wage is just or unjust, whether it’s enough or not enough, the math in this parable doesn’t change. The laborer who works for an entire day gets the same pay as the laborer who works for half a day and the same pay as the laborer who ends up working for just one hour. When you look at it that way, it hardly seems fair. And it’s hard to understand.
It’s in situations like this that I always ask, so where is the love in this parable?
Well, first, who is this parable for? The easy answer is the disciples. The first people to follow Jesus. The ones who would be most parallel to the laborers in the vineyard who were there first. And the ones who could have possibly been reacting negatively as new people came along and maybe stepped on some toes. And, if that’s the case, this parable is not about handing out rewards for getting to the party early.
But we haven’t had one of those original twelve disciples around in quite a long time. And if they were the only people this parable was about, there wouldn’t be much of a point in looking to it for guidance after a while. So, who else could it be about?
Maybe it’s about us. About who we have to become to make the vineyard a place for all, about who we have to be if we want to make all people truly welcome.
Or maybe it’s about the vineyard itself.
Why don’t we change the parable a little.
What? Re-write Jesus? Can we do that?
Well, that’s pretty much what we’ve been doing in Story Tent for the last 20 years. And by now, we’re definitely already in for a denarius. We might as well be in for a pound.
So, let’s change the reward. What if the wage for working in the vineyard, for living in the Kingdom is no longer a denarius? What if the reward is now love? What if the reward for living in the Kingdom is simply living in Kingdom? We don’t have to compare ourselves to each other or anyone. The Kingdom is here and now and it grows and strengthens the more people who live in it. The more people, the more love. Seriously, you’re new here? Welcome to the vineyard.
If you come in the morning, you will have enough. If you come at noon, you will have enough. If you come at the end of the day, you will have enough.
Just do the work. Tend the vineyard. Work to spread justice and hope and peace and joy, each to their calling and their abilities. Open yourself to receive God’s love, extend yourself to spread God’s love – you will experience all the love you can imagine and more.
Now, that’s what I would call a great parable.
Unfortunately, that’s not what Jesus says, is it?
Jesus does talk about money. And he talks about comparing. And he talks about jealousy. And, worse, when he’s talking about all this tough stuff, he’s not talking about the way people in general are. He’s talking about the way the people who spend the most time with him are, the people who listen most closely to him, the people who think he matters, the people we would like to think we are.
And that makes me feel bad,
Because if anyone’s going to be living in the Kingdom, who’s going to be doing it better than the disciples? And look at them. They’re still flawed. Still competing against each other. Still trying to one-up each other. Still very unfortunately human. And they’re the disciples.
Like I said, that feels pretty discouraging. Because what that means is that the Kingdom really isn’t what I’d like it to be. And even worse, me in the Kingdom, me at my best, still likely won’t ever be the person I would really, really like to believe I could someday become.
But, you know maybe that’s not the right way to look at it.
Maybe, in a funny way, that deeply flawed humanity that can never get beyond always needing to be reminded to love and to welcome presents us with the greatest hope for the Kingdom. Because what that means is that the Kingdom isn’t some exclusive walled-in place reserved only for the perfect people who won’t ever exist. Maybe living in the Kingdom really is for everyone. Issues and all. Flaws and all. Needing to be reminded to put love first, over and over and over again. And probably way more overs even than that.
And I guess the hope then is that if we stick with it, if we work in the vineyard long enough, we will eventually see, even if only more of the time, that denarius for what it should be: enough. And enough then, is what we want for everyone.
And if we stay at it in the vineyard, we might even see that denarius as God’s love, the love we are promised – the love that is already ours – and everybody else’s as soon as we start living in the Kingdom.
It’s all right there.
The time for us to get into the vineyard and get to work is now. It always has been and always will be. But it’s not just about showing up for work and punching in your time card. It’s just as much about making sure there’s a place in the vineyard for everyone.
Amen.