Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
September 18, 2005

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

I don’t know about you, but I really like getting presents. Recently I’ve had to ask my family not to give me things as presents because Jane and I are downsizing, and there really isn’t anything we need; but still, I really like getting presents. You probably do too. Partly that’s because we get something; and if it’s a good something, we feel good. It’s fun. We get a new toy, and admit it: Even we adults like toys. Businesses, whose success depends in large part on understanding the public psyche, know that we like presents. They’re forever offering us "free gifts" if we will buy something from them. Many years ago it was open a bank account and get a toaster. Or buy our gas and collect the entire set of glassware free. More recently I heard a local car dealership offering a free flat screen TV with the purchase of a car. We know those things aren’t really free. Their cost is included in the price of the product or service we’re buying. Still, they feel free; and we feel like we’re getting something for nothing.

We like giving presents too. Giving a gift is one way of expressing our love for or appreciation of someone. I had a birthday recently, and I told my daughter Mary once again not to give me any things as a gift. At first she agreed; but later, before she and her brother were to meet me for a birthday dinner, she called back. She said that she and her brother really wanted to give me something for my birthday. So I said I’ve got laundry to do and the dryer sheets haven’t made it from the Monroe house to the new place in Sultan yet. So my kids gave me a box of Bounce for my birthday. We like giving gifts to the people we love, and that’s a good thing.

Yet for all that, there’s one free gift that someone wants to give us because that someone loves us; and while might want to receive it, we don’t want it to be free. That’s what Matthew’s parable of the laborers in the vineyard is about. It’s one of those parables of Jesus that leaves us scratching our heads. Recall that in the parable a landowner pays the same full day’s wage to workers who worked only one hour as he paid to workers who toiled in his fields all day. After all, who do we most likely see ourselves as being in the parable? We probably see ourselves as the workers who worked all day and who resent the landowner paying the same full day’s wage to the workers who worked only an hour as he pays to us. Or even if we don’t put ourselves in the parable, we still probably react to this parable the way Matthew wanted us to react. That’s not fair!, we think. Why should the latecomers get as much as those who worked long hours through the heat of the day? They earned less than those who worked more, and they should receive less. That’s how it works.

Well, with the world that’s how it works; but this parable isn’t about the world. It’s about the Kingdom of God, not about the world the way it is. In other words, it’s about the economy of grace not the economy of labor and wages. The parable is telling us that the economy of grace isn’t about earnings. Rather, it is about the generosity of God. In the parable the landowner, of course, corresponds to God; and the landowner responds to the laborers’ claim that he is unfair by saying: "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?" Mt. 20:15 The point is clear: Grace belongs to God, and God chooses to give it freely without regard to how much of it we or others have earned.

And we can’t deal with it. At least, we can’t deal with God dispensing grace freely to people who we think have earned less of it than we have. The authors of the book we’re studying in our Sunday morning forum say that their attitude used to be: Grace for me and justice for everyone else. That’s a pretty good statement of the way most Christians historically have looked at the matter, I think. Historically, Christians have never really come to terms with God’s free, universal grace for all people. Our inability to deal with God’s free, universal grace has been expressed most clearly in the church’s insistence that there are people who haven’t earned God’s grace, who don’t deserve it, and who therefore stand outside it. Matthew’s parable tells us we’re wrong. Merit has nothing to do with it. Grace isn’t about our merit or anyone else’s; it’s about God’s generosity. God wants to give us-and everyone-a free gift of God’s love.

And that is very good news indeed. The great insight of the Protestant Reformation was that if we have to earn God’s grace we’re lost. We can’t do it. I’m reminded of a scene in Clint Eastwood’s movie Unforgiven. A young would-be gunslinger wants to kill a man because of some outrage that man had committed against some innocent people. It turns out, however, that the young man’s eyesight is so bad that he can’t shoot the man himself; so Clint Eastwood’s character, a cynical, burned out old gunfighter, shoots the man for him. After he does Eastwood says: It’s a terrible thing to kill a man. The nearsighted kid says: Well I guess he had it comin’. Eastwood replies in a tone of cynical resignation: We’ve all got it comin’, kid. That’s my point, and Luther’s. I’m nowhere near as misanthropic as he was, but if you hold any of us up to the standard of the absolute perfection of God, we’ve all got it comin’.

But God doesn’t give us what we’ve got comin’. God gives us a full portion of grace even if we’ve earned none at all. If Matthew had drawn out his parable to its necessary limit, the landlord would have given a day’s wage even to those who didn’t come to work in the vineyard at all. That’s the necessary limit of the parable because it’s the only way grace can be truly unearned; that is, it is the only way grace can truly be grace and not earnings. God is truly generous with what belongs to God, that is, with grace. God wants to give us and everyone the best free present there ever was or ever could be.

And even though most of the time we love getting presents, we can’t deal with this one. It doesn’t seem fair to us. I mean: If Jesus Christ is the way, how can God give grace to non-Christians? If God wants us to live peaceful, honest, decent, caring lives, how can God give grace to those who don’t, or who do so less than we do? It isn’t right! It isn’t fair! Everyone should get what he or she earns and not a cent more! Well get over it! Who are we to say that God can’t do what God wants with what belongs to God? Or are we envious because God is generous? If we are, let’s get over it. Grace is God’s free gift to all people. It is that simply because God has determined to be generous. We like giving presents to the people we love. God loves us, so let’s let God give us and everyone this gift freely and without conditions. We like getting presents, so let’s accept this one; and let’s let everyone accept this one, whether we or they have earned it or not. God wants to give grace generously and without keeping accounts to us and to all people. That’s the best news there ever was or ever could be. And if you think it’s unfair, get over it. Amen.