Saturday, September 26, 2020

Payoff or Ripoff*


25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Matthew 20:1-16a 


The more familiar a parable is

The more difficult it is to have it speak a fresh word

 

I can call to mind 2 familiar interpretations

…2 ways I have heard this parable preached

 

One way 

Is to hear it as a parable about Salvation

Maybe the parable is telling us that God doesn’t care if you’ve been working hard at your Christian vocation 

for years and years and years

Or… if you’ve ignored God all your life until the very end

And then after a good deathbed confession 

“WELCOME! we have been waiting for you!”

In fact…as the last line says…The last shall be first!

This makes it a parable about how ridiculously gracious God is.

That’s one way to hear the parable

 

 

Another way, is to understand this parable through a social justice lens

The landowner keeps going out to do more hiring

…throughout the day the landowner goes to the places where day laborers gather in the hope of finding a days work.

 

The landowner asks “Why do you stand here idle all day?”

 They answer

“Because no one has hired us”

It doesn’t say they were lazy, or that they took a long lunch to go home and          play video games

All we know is that they are still there

…still hoping for even a few hours work.

 

There is no judgment on why…at least not that I can see

…they simply weren’t picked

So we need to keep going…why weren’t they picked?

For some reason, those doing the hiring looked passed them.

Was it disability, skin color, did they look like they just got released from prison, was it the way they were dressed, or the language they were speaking? Whatever the reason, they were looked over.

 

This makes it a parable about the dignity of the worker
Perhaps it is about how the many (those chosen) 

sometimes have to contribute to the needs of the few

those who sometimes

Just don’t get hired

 

A gifted preacher could make either of these interpretations into a decent sermon

 

My problem with these interpretations

Is that they keep the text at a bit of a distance.

 

While I agree that it is important to keep the end in mind
because having the end in mind has a way

Of giving ultimate meaning to TODAY

…To my life and my choices TODAY

But there is nothing surprising in this.

 

And, while I absolutely agree 

that we need to work toward a more just society

A society where the dignity of work is available to all

And where roadblocks to hire-ability can be removed

 

This is also big and out there somewhere
it is a grand societal problem
But this is not to say that it isn’t super important…it is.

And we have ways to participate…we can vote, and advocate, and volunteer locally

I can name a laundry list of “shoulds” 
things I certainly need to be reminded of and challenged to take part in…

But there is nothing surprising

Nothing that catches me flat-footed and demands a change in me…in the way I think and see. 

 

The thing is 

This is a parable

And parables are supposed to do something

 

What is it that parables are supposed to do?

What is a parable, anyway?

One thing is that they are NOT complete theologies of God or the Kingdom

If that were the case 

We wouldn’t need so many

Each is concerned with just one aspect at a time

They aren’t meant to be once and for all answers

Rather they reveal glimpses of ‘kingdom logic’

Glimpses…surprising glimpses

 

Parables are supposed to ruffle feathers

MY feathers

 

One way to think about parables is as invitations

 

‘Parabole’

Means to ‘lay along side’

To lay something new alongside what and how I think I know 

This laying alongside functions 

To pull away the curtain…to unveil 

And to reveal something about me…the hearer.

 

So what is the parable laying alongside?

What is this parable revealing about the way I think?

What it the parable inviting me to see?

And what is it offering as an alternative?

 

I am not particularly surprised that God is generous

No…I’m not surprised…In fact…I’m absolutely counting on it!

            

I am not particularly surprised that God is concerned for laborers 

Especially day laborers, who stand in the hot sun all day waiting to be hired so that they can support their families for another day or week…

I am comforted by this too…

And I know, that by virtue of believing in such a God, I can’t just stop there,

I am called to participate in actions that display the same concern…

God-like concern for my neighbors…especially the most vulnerable

This is challenging for sure

It is hard…but not surprising or new

 

Where in the parable is there something that is just 

Phew…uncomfortable surprising?

 

What I am surprised by is WHY the householder was so clear about 

How the laborers were to LINE UP to receive their day’s wages:

 

The landowner says

“Summon the laborers and give them their pay, 

beginning with the last and ending with the first.”

 

I mean why was that direction, to pay the last hired…first

            given so clearly??

 

It was so deliberate that it has to be important

And it isn’t just deliberate…it doesn’t make sense…who would do that!

 

Why not pay the first…first?

They were surely the most tired and sweaty and ready to be done!

 

If the first had been paid first…they would have been on their merry way…

            none the wisergrumbling averted!

 

The result was absolutely predictable!

The choice to pay the last first simply made it certain 

that there would be grumbling!


All the householder had to do was pay the early hires first

 

Ah…but then this wouldn’t be a parable

 

By reversing the order

The curtain is pulled away to reveal…grumbling

 

Allowing myself to get closer to the text 

Might bring out a more honest response:

 

“Okay, I admit ---- sometimes --- 

when Jesus speaks about God and the Kingdom 

---and he’s throwing around blessing and 

---in this instance, hard earned wages

throwing them around so carelessly…

well sometimes I just feel a bit

well…

RIPPED OFF!”

 

My propensity for grumbling is what is being exposed to the light

I suggest that…in today’s language…the grumbling in this parable

Means resentment

 

“Are you envious because I am generous?”

That is…a very good question!

 

At this point 

It is helpful to glance back a few verses in the Gospel of Matthew

Peter has just asked Jesus a question

It is a question so near to the human heart

Just a few verses ago, Peter asks:

‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.

What then will we have?’

 

It is a reasonable enough question.

Peter just wants to know what kind of Payoff is eventually coming

 

Peter is familiar with the human tendency to put things in such terms:

Inquiring minds want to know: 

Are we talking PAYOFF or RIPOFF?

 

Beneath the surface of Peters question

Jesus hears an attitude that needs re-direction.

In his compassion, Jesus reassures Peter

 

Laboring in the LORD’S vineyard will demand a different way of seeing

Our parable today seems to offer Peter a corrective

 

 

 

I remember counting the presents under the Christmas tree 

when I was a child

I could say that I learned it from my sister

But it came naturally enough

Was I getting a fair PAY-OFF

For being a darling daughter?

Or

Was I getting RIPPED-OFF 

That is…compared to my sisters and brother

 

My guess is that we are hard-wired from the womb

To think in terms of PAYOFF or RIPOFF 

 

They might be little things 

But I tap into this kind of careful accounting several times a day

My guess is that you know what I mean

In the line at the grocery store

Or a friend who bought the same tv I did but got it at half the price

Or how about when someone gets credit for an idea that was mine!?!?

Or when I am not thanked quite loud enough for my obvious generosity!?!?

 

Whenever my internal voice says “Not Fair”

That is a signal of my Payoff-Ripoff mentality kicking in!

 

 

In bigger or smaller ways 

Everyday

My mind sets up the scale 

so that I can measure my world in terms of PAYOFF and RIPOFF

 

I confess all this…knowing that I am not alone;)

It is, I think, in the drinking water!

 

To be fair though

It isn’t that I don’t experience graciousness

I do

Plenty of times…everyday

 

But here is what I do when I am on the receiving end
…the payoff end

Lightening fast…I construct some reason for why I deserved it after all!

I take the giftedness away…and replace it with my ‘deserving’

I keep going with this because I am 99% sure that I am not alone in this???

 

The reason, I think this comes so easily 

Is that Utterly unconditional, unearned, pure, no strings attached…generosity 

is very hard for us to get our heads around.

 

Hard but not impossible!

Therein lies the Good News!  

 

The Good News is NOT simply the domesticated sweetness of a parable that comforts us with the generosity of God

 

As the parable pulls back the curtain on a world---our world--- 

of scales and balanced accounts

it pulls back the curtain

and exposes our propensity for grumbling

It exposes it and It offers something new

 

The Good News is that 

Beyond the stiff world of strictly balanced accounts

 

There is something light and un-burdensome

And we don’t have to wait until we are dead!

 

The householder keeps going to the marketplace

He goes often

from sunup and sundown…punctuating the day with visits  

For the householder…it seems…

It is getting workers into the vineyard that matters!

 

We are all co-workers in the vineyard of the Lord

Morning hires or 11th hour hires

 

Here…to worship…is where we come

Week after week 

we come here to remember who we are

…to remember that we are a body

And that body is Christ’s

And that we are in this together

Chosen first or last or somewhere in between

Here we remember that even though we might suffer daily from creeping resentment…from grumbling

We are not alone

We are granted a fresh start!

 

Even a quick glance at how we worship we can see and understand this

Didn’t we confess…right off the bat?

“we have not loved…we have rebelled…we have refused to hear”

We mean our confession

And we are assured of God’s forgiveness

And when we are sent from here 

We are sent having heard the Good News

And having been invited to let it change and mold us

We are sent with the blessing of everyone gathered here

Sent to participate in the healing of the world

Beginning with the patch most near to us.

 

My friends, where else does this happen?

 

There is an implicit…or maybe it is quite explicit

There is a humility in “Coming to Church”

By the very practice of it 

We admit

We need changing

And We admit that changing takes practice…weekly at least!

 

This week the change called for 

Is to step a little further away from 

The logic of Payoff and Ripoff

To step away from the logic of deserving and undeserving

And to step toward a new alternative

One of graciousness

One of beatitude

 

“Are you envious because I am generous?”

YES…probably a hundred times a day.

 

But…my friends

being here

Admits that we are working on it

And we are working on it…together!

 

 

 

 

 

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