Year A

Matthew 20:1-16

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

Outrageous Generosity

While I was living in Chillicothe, Missouri, IKEA was opening a new store in Kansas City which was about 100 miles from me. IKEA, headquartered in the Netherlands, offers affordable furniture and home accessories. You would have had to have been on another planet to not hear about the opening of this new store. Every day for several months the news would begin with the story of the grand opening and the number of days and hours until that would happen. As usual, whenever a new IKEA store opens the first so many people into the store receive a gift. This IKEA was going to give couches to the first 40 people who stated lining up, setting up their tents to stake their place, days and weeks before the opening. Just before the grand opening, the news people interviewed those who were first in line. There was much excitement and anticipation. But what do you think would have happened if the manager, after unlocking the doors that opening morning, walked to the back of the line and said to the last 40 people, you are the ones who will come in first and receive a couch? We can just imagine how upset and angry those first 40 individuals or families would be and not to speak of the unfair treatment.

Most of us have an innate sense of what is fair and what is not. We know that life is often not fair. Yet, when we read the gospel parable today of the Laborers in the Vineyard we can’t help but think how unfairly the landowner treated his employees. How unjust of the landowner not to give those who labored all day in the hot sun their just reward. How unfair of the landowner to treat each of the laborers equally despite the amount of hours they worked. We may all agree that the owner has the right to run his business as he sees fit, yet still feel very uncomfortable with his unjust payroll policy which seems to reward those who have done the least while it sends those who have worked the longest and hardest to the end of the line.

At the end of his story when Jesus confirms this by saying, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last,” he completely challenges the assumptions by which most of us live our lives. We believe that the front of the line is the best place to be, we will get the new couch. This is exactly what the disciples believed for if we looked at the paragraph just before Jesus tells this parable, we find that Peter has asked Jesus what he and the other disciples can expect in the way of reward for their loyalty to him. Peter points out that they have given up everything to follow him. What will he give them in return? Jesus promises them twelve thrones in the world to come. Then says, “But many that are first will be last and the last first.” He then tells this parable that focuses on questions of grace and justice, not on rank and sequence.

As usual, it seems they still don’t get the message because right after Jesus tells this story the mother of James and John goes to Jesus and asks him to give her sons the best thrones in the kingdom, one on his left and one on his right. Jesus says to her, “You don’t know what you are asking.” “Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.” My throne will not be made of gold and silver but of wood and nails, in the shape of a cross, for “I did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many.” The disciples were each trying to be first in line when the doors opened and Jesus clearly said by his words, his life, death, and resurrection, being first is not at all what God is about.  You see the servant God is about outrageous generosity.

We hear the owner of the vineyard ask, “Are you envious because I am generous?” Yes, we are because it rubs us the wrong way. We carry around the notions of what is fair and what is not, and this story offends what we think of generosity. Yet, this is exactly the sort of fairness we might expect from a God who thinks that it is a good idea to get crucified as the answer to human sin. God loves to reverse the systems we set up to explain why God should love some of us more than others. God lets us know that his ways are not our ways, by starting at the end of the line with the least and the last, and if we want to understand God’s ways, then we might have to question our own notions of what is fair and why we get so upset when we are not first.

In our consumer society, there is considerable confusion about what exactly God has promised us. Some would argue that God promises health and prosperity. Others might say that God promises that those who are faithful will be rewarded for their work. The God whose promise is our salvation is a God for whom being first in God’s kingdom, involves entering into or sharing Christ’s suffering and struggle, rather than avoiding the suffering.

A good example is the Philippians, who were faithful followers. They had kept their unity and held steadfast against false teaching. They might have expected their faithfulness to carry them beyond suffering. Not so, says Paul. In fact, God has generously granted them not only faith but also the privilege of sharing in Christ’s suffering. Gospel living is not about finding an easy way out or earning rewards. It is an invitation to focus on hope, to find joy in the midst of all of life’s circumstances, so that God may be glorified. It is a willingness to trust when God must remind us, “for my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.”

Gospel living has to do with welcoming God’s outrageous generosity on those who come later than we did, have not followed as long and hard as we have. God gives to us the promise of salvation, not because we have worked hard enough but because Jesus has done it for us on the cross. We have all been given salvation and receive God’s grace regardless of the sins we’ve committed and God continues to send us out as laborers to plant and harvest. When we see God goodness to the people we love, to friends, to colleagues, but especially to those we do not think deserve such generosity, then we will see the goodness and love of God for the wonderful miracle that it is.

God is not fair; God is generous and because of this there is a chance that we will get paid more than we are worth, that we will get more than we deserve, that we will make it through the doors even when we are last in line, not because of who we are but because of who God is. If we look at this world through the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, we will discover that all of us are beloved by God, those at the front of the line and those at the back of the line, we all are offered God’s amazing grace. So, what if the manger opened the doors of the new IKEA store and reversed the order, asking the last in line to be the first in the doors and those at the beginning of the line began to cheer. That is God’s outrageous generosity! May we strive to live the same.