"Beloved preacher and teacher Fred Craddock tells about being on a flight when they still had smoking sections on planes. He was seated on the aisle in a no smoking section. Across from him sat a man who lit up a long, black cigar. Soon the area was filled with foul-smelling smoke. Craddock stopped the flight attendant, a very attractive, young woman and said: 'Am I in the wrong section? I asked for no smoking.' She turned to the man across the aisle and said: 'Sir, this section is no smoking.' The man ignored her and kept puffing on his cigar. Craddock complained again. Again she reminded the man he was in the no smoking section. Again she was ignored. Later on the flight attendant was coming down the aisle with drinks when they hit an air pocket. The sudden turbulence caused her to dump the drinks right into the lap of the man with the big cigar. But that's not all. Seeking to correct her balance, this very attractive woman fell backward…right into Fred Craddock's lap. Says Craddock with a sly grin: 'Now don't tell me there's no God.'"
(Craddock Stories, St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2001)

We all wish that things would turn out as tidily as in this story. Good works get praised; sin receives retribution. The truth is that we waste a good portion of our lives comparing ourselves to others. From the time we are small, particularly those of us with siblings, chant 'It's not fair' whenever we don't feel properly rewarded or attended to. This lies at the heart of the parable from Matthew that we hear this morning.
It is important to look at the context of this parable. It is preceded by the story of the rich, young man who all of his life had kept the law. He went away sorrowing when Jesus pointed out to him the one impediment for his salvation…his wealth. To give it away was impossible for him. After that story Peter asks Jesus what would become of the disciples who had left everything to follow him. Jesus replied that they would be with him…but reminded them that the first would be last. Following the vineyard story the mother of the sons of Zebedee asks Jesus to place her sons at his right and left hands in paradise. All of this point out the nature of the Kingdom of God, and that it is antithetical to the values so treasured in the world.
We in the US find imbued in our culture the concept of equal pay for equal work. However, so often the privileged have access to the most lucrative and powerful jobs. It is easy to turn a blind eye to this until we experience the calamity of this past week on Wall Street and here in DC. In preaching on the parable of the workers in the vineyard, The Rev. Jeb Stuart Magruder took as his recurrent theme the question: "What is more important to you, your rights or your relationships?"(First Community Church, July 26, 1987)
There is evidence in this fiscal crisis, as in the hurricanes and 9/11 that Americans are able to move beyond rights and self-righteousness and reach out in relationship. Jesus would have this be the norm not the exception in our behavior.
In a nutshell, this parable has a vineyard owner hiring itinerant workers early in the day at a given price. They go to work at dawn. He finds that he needs more help, perhaps to get the grapes in before it rains. He goes back to the gathering three more times and hires more workers. In these cases he promises only to give them what is 'right.' At the end of the day he pays the last workers first giving them one denarius, the amount promised the earliest contract workers. The latter then assume that they will be paid more. When they are not they complain. The owner would have none of it, saying that they received what had been promised.
This, as we know, is an allegory for the Kingdom of God. It is a story not about fairness, hard work, or hours spent, but the abundance of God's generosity; God's limitless grace. The first workers begrudged the owner's generosity to those who had not been hired early in the day; those who, also, needed to feed themselves and their families. In each case, those who came first and those who came last had to rely upon the trustworthiness of the owner.
In this parable, as in that of the rich, young man, it is abundantly clear that we are saved by grace not a book-keeping tally of our accomplishments. Robert Capon has said that: "If the world could be saved by bookkeeping it would have been saved by Moses, not Jesus Christ." The law had not worked, so God gave up salvation by the books, cancelled everyone's record and rewarded all equally and fully with a new creation in Jesus Christ's resurrection." Capon goes on to say that "an eye for an eye" just doubles the number of eyeless people. (The Parables of Judgment, Robert Farrar Capon, pp 55-56, Eerdman's Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI, 1989.
We are no different from those early workers. How frequently we assume that, if we do the 'right' thing, we'll received recognition, reward, loving or even health. Somehow, that sense of what is fair or just becomes indelibly etched into our minds. We then become attuned to production, production often to the exclusion of the relationships in our lives. If our expected reward doesn't occur, we become angry and jealous – believing that we deserve better and asking 'why me?'
The parable makes it clear that God is not like us. When the Kingdom comes in all of its fullness we will experience a new reality. We are to expect the unexpected. Reward will not be the purpose for labor in the Kingdom. We will be rewarded not for our achievement or lack thereof, but according to God's generous grace. That grace is not dependent upon our length of service, achievements, or merit. I, for one, am delighted by this. I, too, get angry, grumble, feel jealousy and want what I think I deserve. Thank God I won't get my just desserts!
Because of this we are called to collaborate with God by extending the generosity and grace we have received to others, by loving without qualifications, by recognizing the good portion and the value of the other. We are to be open to God so that we can know that infinite capacity for forgiveness, acceptance, generosity and love—in one word, grace. Because of that grace we have hope. Because of the hope we can be open to give and receive love that is beyond imagining: a love that has no strings attached. AMEN