God’s abundant generosity
Readings: Matthew 20. 1-16
Our reading begins following on from Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler who walks away sorrowful after Jesus challenges him to give up his wealth and distribute it to the poor. And as he leaves, Jesus makes the observation that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the Kingdom of God. The disciples are amazed at this and ask who then can be saved. Jesus responds with those well known words ‘with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible’. Now, there’s a whole sermon in that encounter but I raise it because the words Jesus speaks at the opening of our passage are spoken in response to Peter who points out that, unlike this rich man, they have left everything to follow Jesus, what will there be for them?
Now perhaps Peter is looking for some reassurance that they have entered God’s Kingdom. But perhaps there’s a slight edge to his question too, we’ve left everything, that must mean we’ll be rewarded for doing so. Perhaps there’s also the subtext that Peter along with James and John and to an extent the rest of the 12 were the first to follow Jesus, that must make them important.
And Jesus answers with the reassurance that yes, they have become part of God’s Kingdom, and indeed that at the renewal of all things they will judge the 12 tribes of Israel. And he makes the wider reassurance that all who have left homes, family, friends for his sake will, at the end of the age, receive abundantly more in return and inherit eternal life. In other words your sacrifices will be worth it, you won’t be disappointed once you reach eternity.
Wonderful news! No matter the cost, everlasting life won’t be a let down, it will always have been worth it. But there’s a flip side to this statement isn’t there. We’re human, and if we’re being reassured that what we have to leave behind will be repaid 100 fold well then perhaps we’ll start doing the maths, calculating what we have earned in eternal life.
The question of status is also never far from the minds of the 12, they argue about it repeatedly in the Gospels and the question will resurface in just a few verses time.
Jesus likely aware of this tells them a parable. It starts out fairly ordinary, a landowner goes to the marketplace to hire workers for the day to work his vineyard, they agree upon the usual daily rate, a denarius, and off they go. But then the landowner returns three more times at intervals throughout the day hiring more workers and offering to pay whatever is right.
And then he comes a final time, at around 5 o’clock. Now the NIV, the translation we’re reading from, has very helpfully adjusted the times for us into something recognisable, it makes the passage much more readable. But in the original, the times are given counting from sunrise, the 3rd hour, the 6th hour, the 9th hour. And I raise this because this last trip to hire workers takes place at the 11th hour, it’s from this we get that phrase meaning the last moment, the last chance, the 11th hour. There’s only an hour’s work left, but he hires them anyway.
And then the end of the day comes and the manager is distributing pay. Starting with those who arrived last. And they get paid the full daily wage. Which means when those hired early in the morning arrive, they’re expecting more. And the manager pays each of them the usual daily wage.
And at this point in the parable we can perhaps feel the sense of injustice. It doesn’t seem fair to us. More work surely deserves more pay. Even though the agreement was for the daily wage, even though in that sense they haven’t been cheated out of anything, it still doesn’t feel right. And on top of that these workers point out that they’ve been toiling through the midday sun, they’ve been working through the hardest parts of the day whereas this last group worked for an hour in the cool of the evening.
And in response to their objections the landowner reminds them that he has done as they agreed. And that he is able order his affairs, pay his workers as seems right to him. Are they envious because he is generous? There’s a sting in that last line isn’t there. Because of course we want to say no, why would be envious of someone’s generosity, but in many ways they are, in many ways we are.
It’s easy to start following Jesus with the best intentions. Jesus invited these 12 to come and follow him, to join him in his work. But as time goes on they keep getting caught up in debates about who is greatest. The same is true of us, we hear God’s call, we come to him, but over time we can slip into a rather mercenary attitude. What God has offered us when her called us is all that we need; the forgiveness of sins, the healing for our guilt and shame, adoption into his family, everlasting life, his very self. That’s wonderful, that’s more than enough isn’t it.
But over time that very human desire to get what we feel we deserve creeps in, we’ve done more than this other person, we’ve served on more committees, attended more events, volunteered more. We’ve had to sacrifice more for our faith, we’ve faced bigger trials. We’ve been a Christian longer or attended this church longer, that should mean something. We slip into comparison and we start to feel that perhaps we deserve something more, some greater reward. And this can easily turn into a tit for tat mentality with God, I’ll do this Lord, and in return I’d like this. We start to think of our faith less as gaining God, gaining Jesus himself, and more about work and reward.
So how do we guard against this? How do we ensure we don’t slip into this?
The cure I’d argue is the Gospel. If we’re demanding of God what we feel we’ve earned, that we deserve something more for some reason we need to take a long hard look at ourselves and remind ourselves where we’ve come from. Because the Gospel reminds us that all our efforts, all our actions no matter how good pale into comparison with our sin, with our failings, with our rebellion against God’s ways. Want what you deserve? We’ll that’s condemnation.
But thanks be to God. Because he doesn’t give us what our deeds deserve, instead he sends his Son to pay the punishment for our deeds, Jesus comes and willingly bears all our sins on the cross and plunges them down into the death they deserve. Thanks be to God because, as Jonah reminds us this morning God is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, ready to relent from punishing. God longs that all should hear his call, come to him and be saved. Are we envious because God is generous? His generosity is to our benefit too.
This landowner is motivated by generosity. He is motivated out of concern for these workers. There’s no sense that he has underestimated the amount of work needing to be done and so over the course of the day goes to hire more people. No sense that he’s keen to get things done faster. His concern rather seems to be that workers are hired so that they can be paid, so that they are able to provide for themselves and their families. And in this way of thinking of course he pays them all the full wage for the day, his concern is that they are paid so they can look after themselves and their dependants. His concern is mercy and generosity, not calculating.
God’s concern isn’t giving us what we deserve, it’s giving us what we need. It’s pouring out upon us the riches of his grace and mercy. What he offered us when he called us; the forgiveness of sins, the healing for our guilt and shame, adoption into his family, everlasting life, his very self, that’s more than enough, far more than we ever deserved.
My brothers and sisters, let us not reduce our faith into a zero sum game, calculating out our sacrifices, our efforts into the reward we hope for. Be assured that God in his bounteous generosity will reward us, that what we will gain in him at the end of the age will be worth it. So let us not seek what we feel we deserve, but faithfully follow Jesus, faithfully work in his vineyard, not calculating what our reward would be, but doing all out of love for him, the master who calls us his friends.
Amen.