God Is Generous to You and Gracious to You. Do You Believe This?

Text: Matthew 20:1-16

This parable is part of a series of teachings meant to show us aspects of who God is.  In the parables leading up to this one, we see God’s relational side when we see the shepherd leave the 99 sheep to go after the 1,  we see Gods forgiving nature when Jesus tell us that we are to forgive each other an infinite number of times, and we see Gods grace when Jesus explains to the the rich young ruler that no matter what we do on this earth we can’t earn our salvation because it is a gift from God. This parable that we just read about the laborers in the vineyard teaches us about God’s generosity.

In our text this morning it says this parable is what the kingdom of heaven is like which is Matthew’s way of saying the kingdom of God.  A picture of equality that is difficult for us to swallow. In the parable we see a master of a vineyard go out throughout the day hiring workers to work on his vineyard. The master has mercy on those who are trying to earn a living and so he goes out multiple times to hire workers who have not yet received work. At the end of the day, the workers who have been working all day -since 8 am expect to get paid more than those who have only been working one hour. But it turns out that they all receive the same payment even though the amount they worked differed greatly. And of course this causes some outrage among the workers because well, its just not fair. The workers start to argue with the master with what they feel is a convincing argument, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” It sounds a tad dramatic. Burden of the day? Scorching heat? I don’t doubt it was hard work but It reminds me of me as a child trying to plead my case to my parents about why I deserve more than my siblings, as if my hysterics and emphasis on the hardship I had to endure would somehow do the trick. We all had chores and one of my chores was cleaning the upstairs bathroom. No lie almost every week my mom would make me re-do cleaning the bathroom because it wasn’t up to her standards.  I would insist that I spent ample time cleaning it the first time (which was not true) and then I would complain that my sibling’s chores were so much easier to accomplish. Honestly though, I still don’t think I could make a mirror as smudge free as my mother would like. My parent’s response though was always the same- don’t worry about your brother and sister- worry about yourself. This is basically the response the master gives to the complaining workers.

It was always so annoying that my parents never engaged in my dramatic pleas. But they were right- why was I so concerned about what my siblings received or didn’t receive? It doesn’t effect me at all so why should I care. I should just worry about myself. My parents love all 3 of us equally- treat all of us equally but the way they treat us might not always be what I deemed to be “fair”.

This text is frustrating and difficult and challenging because it flips our ideas of what it means to be just and what it means to be equal on their head. We say we believe that we are all equal by the sheer fact that we are all human but a quick look at any news source and it’s obvious we don’t really believe this. We believe that we earn our equality and that we earn the right to be treated with justice.  This parable reminds us that these aren’t things we can earn but that they are made true by grace. We are made equal by grace. We are made just by grace. And it is not something that we can begin to comprehend and yet there it is. And God gives us this grace out of generosity.

Until we believe this to be true, I don’t think we will be able to achieve the task of truly loving one another.

Ruby Sales, an African American social activist and theologian suggests that we need a new theology of what it means to be human. Our current theology of what it means to be human is too contingent on what it means to be white. Once this starts to be challenged the fear of loss of control over who we are causes us to become dangerous to ourselves and others- as is evident by the violence in our current society. Ruby says it so well so I’m just going to read an excerpt of an interview she had on Krista Tibbet’s podcast, On Being. This episode was called Where Does it Hurt? and I would strongly urge everyone to listen to it.

She says, “ How did we develop a theology or theologies in this 21^st century capitalistic autocracy where only a few lives matters? How do we raise people up from disposability to essentiality? This goes beyond the issue of race. What is it that public theology can say to the white person in Massachusetts that is heroin addicted because they feel their lives have no meaning because of the trickled down impact of whiteness in the world today. What do you say to someone who has been told that their whole essence is whiteness and power and domination and when that no longer exists they feel like they are dying or they get caught up in the throws of death. There are no alternative theologies. Where is a theology that redefines what it means to be fully human? I want a liberating white theology. I want a theology that deepens peoples understanding about their capacity to live fully human lives and to touch the goodness inside of them instead of calling up on them the part of them that’s not relational.” Seriously- go listen to the podcast.

For me, in trying to think about what my role is as a pastor, as a Christian, as someone who believes in the dignity and humanity of others, in the midst of all of the political, environmental, and social turmoil- this is something I can help shape. This is something that as a community we can all help shape.

But how?

I don’t know much but I’d like to think that 7 years of theological training taught me something about God and humanity. And that is that we know who we are by knowing who God is. That’s really one of the only things I do know. But I think we start there -with God.

We need to re-imagine God. Before we can think about what it means to be human we need to have a theologically accurate image of God. Now, no one image can fully encompass God but I think we can all agree that some images are more helpful than others.

At the Kintsugi service a couple of weeks ago, Jeff talked about our images of God. About how there are four main images that people have of God and unfortunately for most of us it is not a Benevolent image of God. We do not see God as gentle, loving, forgiving, less likely to respond with wrath. Only 23% of people think this about God. I think that what we believe to be true about who God is, is what we believe to be true about ourselves and others.  If we can re-imagine God in a way that is true to who God is then we can begin to re-imagine what it means to be fully human and this new theology will not be so easily dismantled.

I think the text this morning gives us a pretty accurate image of what it means to be God. Generous and Gracious. To the extreme. To the point of embarrassment. To the point of uncomfortability and even unbelievability. Grace that can be calculated and expected is no longer grace.  And too often we reject this grace or resent this grace rather than receive it and allow it to change us. For those who have experienced grace you know that Grace is a dangerous thing because it will change you.

At the Table people are always asking me if they can help out in some way to compensate for their meal. This past week there was someone who followed me around all night asking for task after task because accepting a free meal and generosity from someone was too uncomfortable, too embarrassing. I think there is value in giving someone work, in allowing them to participate in the community because it causes them to recognize their worth but I wish I could show them they are valued just because they are human and not because they have to earn it. I tell people all the time that this meal is for them and that their presence is all that is needed but it is ingrained in us to feel the need to earn something and not accept a handout. In one way or another we are all this man at the Table- unable to freely accept the overwhelming grace and generosity that God wants to give us. And I think that is because it is so hard for us to actually believe that God truly is generous and gracious.

So I ask you, do you believe this? Do you believe that God is generous to you and gracious to you? I believe this and I believe this for you. Regardless of how crappy the world has treated you- God is generous and gracious towards you. Do you believe that God wants good things for you? Do you believe that you don’t have to do anything to earn this goodness?

It took me a long time to believe that God wants to be generous to me and gracious towards me. And sometimes I still have trouble believing this. I’ll go through these hard times where I am harsh with myself and unrelenting and strict in the hopes of bettering myself. But when I treat myself like this it is clear my former image of God is coming through. My image that God is harsh, controlling and stern and that that is how God compels his people to be better. But treating myself like this doesn’t compel me to be better like I intended. Rather it causes me to turn in on myself and dislike myself and I end up treating myself and others more poorly than I did before.

 

The other night my roommate and I hosted an event for the church plant Sanctuary. It was a talk on the intersection between politics and spirituality. John Alison, a graduate from Princeton Seminary came and spoke and he talked about how we cannot treat each other justly until we obtain a self love. He defines the means of justice in terms of the golden rule- to love your neighbor as yourself. If we learn to love our neighbors as ourselves than justice becomes possible. He says, “But what is implicitly included in the imperative love your neighbor as yourself is the presupposition that you already love yourself and that you do so well. True self love is the origin of abundance that frees the self to just relationship to neighbor. I emphasize the words well and true here because the love we have for ourselves in our contemporary moment is inept and dangerously false serving as but a coping mechanism to surviving the stresses of this world. When faced with reality- we are not living ourselves well and true. We repress these stresses by trying to put the lid back on Pandoras box.”

If I can learn how to love myself well and true, then and only then can I love my neighbor as myself. Then can justice become a possibility. If I can learn to treat myself with grace and generosity, then and only then can I be generous and gracious towards others.

Let us, let Gods example of grace and generosity be our example of what it means to love ourselves.  By resenting or refusing grace we are not being heroic in any way but we are hindering Gods work in the world.

So, I say it again. God is generous to you and gracious to you. This is hard for all of us to accept. But I would challenge you to go back to the biblical text and highlight everywhere God is generous and gracious. I’m not saying there aren’t hard parts of the biblical text to reconcile but I think if we put the weight of Jesus’ words above all else make no mistake that the image of God that Jesus puts forth is that of generosity and graciousness. I don’t say this because it makes me feel good, I say this because I believe it to be true. I believe it to be true from biblical and theological study and from my experience in the world.

Even though I believe this to be true I am well aware that we have not treated each other this way and we certainly have not treated the earth this way. We are clearly not doing a very good job of being human. Every week we see the effects of racism, sexism, homophobia, global warming, extreme hatred, acts of violence, and the list goes on and on. We need to do better. This challenge to be generous with yourself and others is not an excuse to not do anything about these injustices we see. Its just the opposite. I think as Christians we are called to do the hard work of acting in these oppressive situations and also simultaneously doing the hard work of correcting these systemic injustices which involve us figuring out what we believe about our fellow human beings and the world.

If we look closely at this parable, many of us would probably consider ourselves the workers who worked from sun up to sun down. We believe we are in a position of superiority or privilege compared to those who only worked the one hour. But the master doesn’t see privilege and he gives value, worth and equality to all the workers. The master of the vineyard recognized that those who hadn’t received work from the beginning of the day were the ones most in need, the ones most in need of resources, compassion and generosity. We are not so bothered with this story because someone else received grace but because our sense of privilege is not recognized. We don’t have the ability to earn more or be more deserving than someone else and that is terrifying to us.

It is grace that makes us equal and grace that creates justice. A theology of what it means to be fully human needs to begin with the foundation that we are made equal by grace and thus equally worthy rather than our current theology that we are made equal based on our ability to earn it and thus we are not equally worthy.

If we define what it means to be fully human through this lens of grace suddenly there is room for every human life to matter, not just a few. If we learn to love ourselves well and true then we can learn to love our neighbors and justice will be made possible.

I want to leave you with these 2 questions:

How might our narrative with God be different than our narrative with the world?

 How can we take that narrative with God and use it to recreate a narrative with one another.

One filled with grace and generosity and justice and love.

Amen.