Life . . . Who Said It Was Fair? Jonah 3:10-4:11, Psalm 145, Philippians 1:21-27, Matthew 20:1-16 September 18, 2005, Year A, Proper 20 The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi I propose that one of the recent great literary losses probably came when Gary Larsen announced his retirement and that no more would our days be enlightened by his irreverent perspective on life expressed in his daily Far Side comic strip. My attraction to the Far Side comics was not only that my warped sense of humor drew me to his but that he offered, in his sacrilegious way, a reversal of how we normally see the world operating. My favorite Far Side strip showed the Devil giving a tour of Hell. As he made his way down a corridor, there were a series of rooms of various types of torture. The first rooms were for liars, with minimum levels of torture and a low amount of heat. Then there were thieves, who were subjected to more torture and more singeing fire, then murderers and more excessive torture, and then mass murderers and persons of evil such as Hitler, and again, increased forms of torture. Finally, at the end of the corridor, with the most severe fires of punishment and means of torture was the room reserved for "People who drive slowly in the left lanes of interstate highways." I love this particular Far Side strip because I am one who has a heavy foot on the highway. I am one who is always cutting it close getting somewhere. I think real un-Christian thoughts when someone is not only blocking the left lane, but going under the speed limit and at the same speed as the car next to them. Yet, at the same time, in this ironic humor, Gary Larsen offers a reversal of how we normally see the world. I hate to admit it, but today's Matthean reading is one of my favorite Scriptures. I hate to admit it not because it is necessarily so profound, but because I think it means we are going to find some really T'd-off Christians in Heaven. I think some folks may be so surprised by who's in Heaven that they may not be sure they want to be there - muttering to themselves "Surely as good as I was, as well as I kept all the rules, I deserve something better than this no-good so-and-so." Whether we'll admit it or not, each of us, myself included, have a list of certain folks or types of folks who, well you know, they just aren't as deserving of Heaven as we are, and I think all of us will be in for a rude awakening. I love this text because I think it reveals in Jesus (and in Matthew because this parable is found only in Matthew) a similar sacrilegious portrayal of how the kingdom of heaven operates - an accurate portrayal but one very different than how his hearers (or Matthew's community) perceived the world as operating. Jesus knew this ironic portrayal would provoke his audience. The landowners would see such lavishness as ludicrous, and laborers would decry its unfairness. To fully grasp this parable, we must put it in the context of the whole scene. This scene began with the rich young man asking Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life - the implication being that he could earn it. Jesus answered, "Be a good boy." "No problem here," responds the man, "a good boy, that's me!" "O yea, adds Jesus, sell all you have, give it away, and follow me," and the rich man went away grieving. What we have to first understand, is that the young man asks this as a rhetorical question assuming he has already inherited eternal life because the first century Jewish culture assumed if one was wealthy, that was an outward and visible sign of having already been blessed by God. Peter, observing this exchange, notes that the disciples have already given up everything and followed Jesus. What will their reward be? Jesus' answer is quite generous - the Twelve will sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. But rewards will not be limited to the Twelve. "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life." Then, we encounter today's parable. However, this parable is not about Jesus' hearers, nor about us. It is about God. It is, once again, as we continually find in Matthew a contrast of how God's kingdom operates versus how the world operates. It is (if you'll forgive the digression) not about the God we find repeatedly portrayed on the religious page each Saturday of the Starkville Daily News, a God of punishment, a God who can't wait to get those who come up short. No, this parable is about the God who is abundant in love and generosity. It will not be the better rule followers who get the biggest reward. After hearing my preaching for 3 years now, you should know that I believe as we stand in judgment in the Resurrection, we will be held far more accountable about how well we used our abundance to serve our brothers and sisters in need than in how we followed rules. However, it will not be the most generous who get the biggest reward. No, all who respond to God's invitation will receive all there is to receive! God does not work by worldly business practices. This practice of the landowner dropping by the town square to find laborers seems foreign to us. However, if we lived in an area with a large number of illegal immigrants, this scene would be clear to us. In such areas, these immigrants start gathering at first sunlight hoping to have someone pick them up and take them to a field for harvesting, a construction site or to do yard work. If one job ends while there is still light, they return to the pickup location. So, the landowner goes out at each of the major periods of the day. He picks up the eager (those first to arrive), the not so eager (those who overslept), the desperate (those who got picked up for less than a full day's work, or maybe those whose sick wife or child or whose addiction resulted in their being the last to arrive). The landowner picks up each of them and at the end of the day pays each of them a full day's wages. Then we come to the part I love, where I think Jesus had to chuckle. "That's not fair," whine those who had worked the longest. In The Good Book: Reading The Bible With Mind And Heart, Peter Gomes writes that what makes the Bible so compelling is the company of characters who, like ourselves, are so often both confused and confusing and yet play their part in the drama of human relationship to God. The stories of such characters, he adds, are not true because they are "in the Bible;" rather, the stories are in the Bible because they are true to the experience of men and women with this God. Yes, with Jonah, we, too, find our bushes to sit under while we lament God's failing to destroy modern day Nineveh as we had said God would do. Yes, we, too, cry, "Life's not fair." You may have noticed I have a needle-point plaque on my office wall that says, "Life . . . who said it was fair?"given to me as a going away gift by my staff because it was my standard response when they complained the about unfairness of situations. You see, we have to be ever so careful when we whine about life's unfairness because what Jesus puts before us is: Am I more angered that someone earns the same I me or that someone goes hungry? What if my belief in "what's fair" to me leads to someone else's family being hungry? Am I more concerned about my fairness or the world's injustice? Which breaks God's heart more; my sense of fairness or a man who works but cannot feed his family? Since my parents have died, my brother and I have acknowledged to one another that each of us grew up thinking the other was the "favorite son." That is how the world thinks and operates. Yet even in our whining, the Owner stands right by us, calling us "friend," even when we do not deserve that relationship. In God's kingdom, God whispers to all, "You are my favorite!" Generosity is the deepest characteristic of the holy and because we are made in God's image, our being generous is the secret to our joy as well. Life is not fair, thank God! It's not fair because it's rooted in grace. Now, I just hope there are no interstates in heaven.