Our collect today starts out, “Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things…” That’s not always easy to do – to not be anxious about the things that swirl around us – especially when those things include things like hurricanes and flooded houses or wildfires or earthquakes or diving economies – and we tend to fear for our futures and for our very lives.
I have seen a number of people this week who have been negatively affected by Harvey. People who lost a week of work and can’t meet their bills, people who are being housed at motels in Galveston and have to bring their kids to school here in Alvin and then spend the day working on their house; people who have had to drop out of school to try to deal with everything that goes along with losing everything.
And I want to thank all of you who have donated so generously to my discretionary account. I have had more than the usual number of people needing extra help. It is very hard for those people who live from paycheck to paycheck, who have to fight for every penny they get. When something like this happens, it is very hard for them to recover. If they lose a week of work, that is a large chunk of their rent, or food for the table that week.
Not unlike those I have been helping this week, in our Old Testament lesson from Exodus, the people are grumbling against Moses and Aaron because they don’t have enough to eat or drink. Seems like every time these lessons come around there has been some major event that effects people. I remember when these lessons came up a week after Ike. Now here we are with Harvey and I know there are people around here who could commiserate with the Israelites. In Texas and Florida, and the Caribbean Islands, in the rubbles in Mexico following the earthquakes, (there was another one this morning), in the fire torn areas of the west coast, people are hurting, and they understand the pain of the Israelites.
For the people of Israel, they were without jobs, without homes and without resources, but the Lord heard their cry and provided for them food enough – water from the rock, quail (meat) in the evening and manna (bread) in the morning. I love the story about the manna – the people go out and see the residue on the ground after the dew lifted and they said, “What is it?” Well, it’s the bread that God gave you – so they called it “manna” which means “what is it.”
You know that the tendency has been to explain away the miracles – well the quail were migrating and were blown off course into the camp and the manna is a residue from insects that was collected and used sort of like flour to make bread.
Well, those things may be, but the miracle is that they happened when the people needed them – and that the amount of residue was enough to make bread for all the people. And everyone had enough. It is important that people have enough to eat – it makes a difference in their attitude if their belly is full.
Our gospel lesson talks about day laborers. These are the people who live day to day - not knowing if they will work that day. They hang out at a convenient spot where people can find them. In Alvin, day laborers hang out at the convenience store on the corner of 2nd and Sealy streets. Those men who are waiting for work, hoping to get hired so that they can feed their families, are no different from the ones in our gospel lesson. In fact they are not much different from the ones in our Exodus lesson – they just want to survive.
Whether it’s fire or flood or running from a tyrant, many people – especially day laborers, hourly wage people, find themselves, not only without a home, but also without a job, or food, or resources. Before getting into the meat of the lesson for today, I just want to make sure that you understand that people in Jesus’ day and in Moses’ day are not so much different from people today.
For some people it’s a matter of having enough food to feed their families. That’s actually the same thing that’s going on in our gospel lesson. The day laborers just want to provide for their families – the denarius – a day’s wage to buy a day’s worth of food. And those who get picked early in the morning are the fortunate ones because they are going to be able to go home with food – enough for their families. And the ones who get picked later in the day, or not at all, will go home short or with nothing at all.
So our landowner goes out and hires people to work in his vineyard. And they agree on a reasonable wage – the daily standard (let’s say $50). And as the day goes on he hires more and more people – each time telling them that he will pay them what is fair – until you get to the last group.
The last group, he goes out and asks, ‘why are you standing here idle – why are you not working?” And their answer is because no one has hired them. And he tells them to go into the vineyard and work. He does not even say that he is going to pay them – just “go work.”
And when it’s time to pay the workers – they all get the same amount. Now if that were to happen today…. One of the mantras that has appeared in recent years is ‘equal pay for equal work.’ That’s mostly about women’s issues - but how does that line up with this story? This story makes no kind of economic sense – not now, not then. The parables of Jesus – especially the kingdom parables – although they are all drawn from nature, or family, or other familiar circumstances, make no sense.
If you are the person that worked all day, you expect to make more than the person who only worked an hour. And if you are the owner of the company – you are going to pay for the worth of the work – you don’t pay the person who worked one hour the same as the one who worked 8 hours, and you don’t pay the ditch digger the same wage you paid the engineer who designed the system. (Can you imagine a business owner getting people to work all day when he’s going to pay a day’s wage for only one hour’s work?) From a worldly point of view – this story makes absolutely no sense.
William Willimon, a Methodist Minister – dean of the Duke seminary chapel preached on this lesson one day. One of the ushers came up after and asked, “Where do you get these stories you tell?” Confused he replied, “Stories? I guess from South Carolina.” She went on to say, “well, I’m really bothered by the one you told today. I just don’t think that’s anyway to treat people. I mean, if you work longer, you should get paid more.” Willimon replied that that story was not his, it was from Matthew, and she didn’t have a clue who or what Matthew was. She was the girlfriend of one of the ushers that day, and they were short handed so he asked her to fill in. Willimon told her that she was probably the only person there that actually got that story – the outrageousness of it.
And the point is that the kingdom of heaven is not like earth – and Jesus’ parables are intended to make that abundantly clear. In heaven everyone gets treated the same – Everyone who accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior gets into the heaven, regardless of who they are, or how long they were a Christian, or how intense their faith might be. When we join that heavenly chorus – in that heavenly realm – there is no hierarchy – we all enjoy the same benefit - life eternal.
Amen
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