Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost 20th September 2020

Matthew 20: 1–16 ‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “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.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’ 

Reflection: 

There is so much in this parable that I could go on for ages, but I will contain myself especially after a long reflection on the value of forgiveness last week! So perhaps just two things that stand out to me this week. The first is about God: God is unfailingly, surprisingly, and persistently generous. His mercy is unfailing and ever ending. You may remember the song- ‘The Steadfast Love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end- they are new every morning, new every morning, Great is Thy faithfulness O Lord, Great is Thy faithfulness’.

Our God is a generous giver, giving abundant life in overflowing measure to those who say yes to him. God continues to seek the lost and like the landowner in this story keeps going out, keeps looking for more people, keeps engaging them for a full day’s compensation no matter what part of the day they work. This landowner is unbelievably generous. In this parable, Jesus is making an important spiritual truth: God is a generous giver, a kingly giver. For this he came. So that we can know forgiveness, love, joy, peace, strength… Our lives are one with God and so all that is in his nature must pass onto us when the contact is so close as one. Jesus said ‘I am the vine, you are the branches’. The life flow of the vine is on the branches, not by the doing of the branch but by the very nature of the vine…..

not by the doing of the branch but by the very nature of the vine.

And so, as we consider the generosity of God to those who love him, perhaps, we might even say that this landowner is overly generous. At least that’s the way it seems to those who worked all day. Which leads me to the second point of this parable: we can get so easily trapped by our own patterns of counting and assessing and evaluating that we can altogether miss God’s generosity. I confess I’ve been in this bracket of seeing this landowner as acting unjustly to his initial workers, who have toiled all the day long. Yes, perhaps the initial workers – those who laboured all day – are disappointed because they, having just seen that those who worked just an hour received a full day’s wage, assumed they would receive so much more. Or perhaps, given what the parable reports they actually said, they are just angry that the playing field has been levelled, that there is now no way to distinguish their efforts from those who worked so much less, and that everyone is suddenly treated the same. How, after all, do you know who you are if you are not compared – favourably or unfavourably – with others?

And that, it seems to me, is the plight of being human. We desperately want and need to be in relationships with each other, relationships that are equal, healthful, and guided by love and respect. And yet often we can seem to make no sense of our own lives and have no standard by which to measure our own worth apart from comparing ourselves to others. Especially I suggest that many value ourselves and validate our existence by looking at our achievements, abilities or possessions in light of what we see others have or can do. How often in the past have you been asked- and what do you do for work? In other words, what’s your qualification, what quantifies who you are? I think this unfortunately is very much a part of the worlds teaching for us living in the western world now days. Power is seen to be good and Bigger is better (But of cause we know that is not necessarily so).

Too often the world we live in seeks equality and yet justifies value on profession or talent. 

In response, God sends God’s own Son to demonstrate once and for all that we need no measure, that God has established us as beloved by divine affirmation, and that God’s mercy and goodness – God’s generosity – extends to all, including us. Not by the doing of ourselves but by the very nature of the God Divine.

And so in our humanness, caught by the need to compare, and surprised and perhaps suspicious (nothing else in life is like this!) by God’s profound embrace, people are all too often taken back by God’s invitation, refuse to give up the false security of thinking that we control our own destinies. By doing this, people not only reject God’s offer but condemns the one through whom God offers it to death. This parable isn’t just a story, it’s a window into the human soul. Thank goodness it’s also a window in the life and mystery of God, who will finally not surrender to our self-destructive ways but raises Jesus, God’s Son to life and grants mercy and generosity to all.

I read somewhere recently that Jesus is love and joy and peace and strength and power and healing and humility and patience and all else that we see in him as our Lord. Therefore, as a natural metamorphosis  these too we must have when we accept Jesus as our Lord and his life flows through us by the power of the Holy Spirit. We do not make ourselves loving and strong and patient and humble, but by living with Jesus, his life accomplishes this miracle change. As God is generous to us, may we be generous to others. And so no matter how we see others, and what they do and what we deem they deserve, it is by God’s grace alone that these values and things are apportioned. We are simply a part of God’s divine plan. And so, I suggest that as we surrender to him we find the richest reward that we could ever hope for and we are called to extend this generosity to all others no matter where they come from or who they are. Mother Theresa calls it the fragrance of God- that would flow from us to all we meet each and every day. And so may we use this rich gift that God gives us to bless even those who come to accept God’s invitation at the 11th hour, for who are we to say they don’t deserve the same reward.

There is a beautiful Prayer by Mother Theresa that I feel compliments our message of generosity today 

(This is an adapted version and renamed ‘The Fragrance Prayer’.)

 so let us pray:

Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.
Flood our souls with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly,
that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.

Shine through us, and be so in us,
that every person we should come in contact with
may feel your presence in our soul.
Let them look up and see no longer us, but only Jesus.

Stay with us, and then we shall begin to shine as you shine;
so to shine as to be a light to others;
the light, Jesus, will be all from you.
None of it will be ours.
It will be you shining on others through us.

Let us thus praise you in the way you love best,
by shining on those around us.
Let us preach you without preaching:
not by words, but by our example,
by the catching force,
the sympathetic influence of what we do,
the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear for you. Amen.