Garrett Vickrey Pentecost 16+ | Keeping Up, Part 4 Woodland Baptist Church 9.24.17 San Antonio, TX Keeping Up” Matthew 20:1-16

Have you ever been over to Keiran Shinkins, a Woodland someone’s house and you notice member, grew up in Ireland in a immediately things are different? good Irish Catholic family. Keiran’s Different customs. Different food. mother would make sure that You look around comparing how everyone was blessed with Holy things are different between this water coming and leaving the household and your own. house. Splash your fingers in the Everybody does things a little water by the door and do the sign differently in their own household. of the cross — coming and going. Maybe your house is one where And in cast you try to sneak out you ask everyone to take off their the back door— there was holy shoes at the door. Maybe you water back there too. Every greet with a kiss. I have friends household has it’s own traditions. who sing prayers before dinner. Some treat guests better than Every household has it’s own family— reserving for guests the traditions. best seats and the big piece of chicken. Others are more My best friend’s house growing up concerned with treating everyone was just down the street. There equally— making sure that the was a certain custom in the chicken is justly shared or shared Sinclair house— whenever I would more generously with those who go hangout with my friend Kevin. have done the work to get it to the His grandmother lived with them. table. She was always in the living room, one light on doing the crossword. Our reading today tells us what The unwritten rule of the house is: things are like in the household of you have to greet grandma. The God. Gracious generosity and door would be unlocked most of justice are held in tension in this the time, and so I’d come in and go parable. This isn’t a parable about upstairs. And Kevin would even salvation. It’s a story of ask, “Did you say hi to grandma?” stewardship in the household of God. I say it’s not about salvation because of it’s placement. It might 1 have good secondary implications for thinking about salvation— This parable should challenge us. those who are saved on their We might find ourselves relating to deathbed perhaps reap the same different characters at different eternal reward. But, that times in our lives— maybe even at interpretation makes two major the same time. The parable mistakes— 1) it over individualizes doesn’t sort out grace and justice. the message of Jesus; making this It doesn’t make sense of radical parable about me and my faith in generosity. It doesn’t mock justice. God; my salvation. 90% of the It just is. Generous grace and “you’s” in the New Testament are justice are characteristics of God. plural— they’re actually “ya’lls”. Most of the time the lessons we The kingdom of heaven is like a need to learn are lessons of how to landowner who went out early in live together in the way of the the morning to hire workers for his Kingdom of God. If we over vineyard. The landowner is, in the individualize the message we Greek text, an oikodespotes. This actually miss the message. 2) word is formed from two words: reading this as a salvation parable oikos, meaning “house” (related to rips the story from its context. This the term “ecumenical,” which has parable is set in the context of the connotation of being in the sacrifice and economics. It’s told same house or under the same after the eye of the needle roof; it is also related to the term statement— “It’s easier for a camel “economy”), and despotes, which to squeeze through the eye of a means “master” (the origin of our needle than for a rich person to term “despot”). Although the NIV’s enter God’s kingdom.” Just before translation, “landowner,” is viable, Jesus tells this story Peter reminds the term has a connotation closer Jesus (as if he had forgotten) how to “householder.” In the New much the disciples had given up to Testament when the word appear it follow him. Peter says, we’ve left most often has a connection with a everything and followed you. Who home, not a swath of property.1 can be saved? And Jesus replies everything is possible with God. Just in this first verse you have The parable is bracketed by (the allusions that first century Jews last words in ch. 19,) “The last will would have recognized. The be first, and the first will be last.” master is God. And in the Old 2 Testament a vineyard was their wages, beginning with the last sometimes a metaphor for Israel or ones hired and going on to the something that belongs to God. first.’ The workers brought on last What’s being said here in the first (at 5 p.m.) were given a denarius. line of the parable is, “We are in You can imagine the surprise of all. God’s household.” We are Everyone is in line, itching to get stepping into God’s household and paid and get gone. The guys there things are going to be different. early in the morning are peaking Like stepping into someone else’s over shoulders watching as these house, things will be different here. latecomers walk off with a full day’s pay. And they are getting The householder agreed to a fair excited. They know what’s fair. wage with the workers and sent They’re excited about what might them into the vineyard. Later that come to them. But, as the line morning, at 9 o’clock, he saw more dwindles, those who were there workers standing in the first come to the front of the line at marketplace doing nothing. So he long last only to receive… the called them to go work in his agreed upon wage. vineyard, promising to pay them what is right. He went out again They began to grumble to each about noon and about three in the other. This isn’t fair. That guy only afternoon and did the same thing. worked for an hour and got paid What is he doing? About five in the the same as me. He’s acting as if afternoon he went out and found we are all the same. As if we are more standing around. He asked all equal. And the lord replied, them, ‘Why have you been “This is what we agreed upon. standing here all day long doing Take your pay and go. Can’t I do nothing?’ When they replied simply what I want with my money? Are that no one had hired them, the you jealous because I am householder told them to get to generous? work in his vineyard. Finally, evening came and shadows began But, we were told there would be to fall across the vineyard. The justice? What about what’s fair? breeze picked up and the heat of Sometimes life just isn't fair. Will the day slowly faded. The Carl says sometimes we try to deal householder said to his foreman, with the unfairness, like the little ‘Call the workers and pay them truck driver, just a little guy, who 3 had parked his semi at the What is the kingdom of heaven highway cafe and had gone in for like? It’s like God’s household. lunch. While he was sitting there There are different rules in this perched on a stool, three burly place. There are different motorcyclists came in and began expectations. Grace and justice picking on him, grabbed his food are there— they may not match up away and laughed in his face. The how we expect. truck driver said nothing, got up, paid for his food and walked out. Brandon Dennison volunteered One of the cyclists laughed to the with his church to repair homes in waitress, "Boy, he sure wasn't West Virginia’s coal country when much of a man, was he?" The he was in college. Meeting people waitress replied, "No, I guess not. his age who were desperate for He's not much of a truck driver, work but had no opportunities had either," she said pointing out the a profound effect upon him. Last window. "He just ran over three year West Virginia was the only motorcycles.”2 state in the country where more than half of all adults were No, this isn’t fair at all. Who knows, unemployed. He never forgot these people who were hired at the these people. end of the day maybe they slept in that morning. Maybe they weren’t After Dennison graduated from the hired to go out and work because social entrepreneurship program at they were binge watching a Netflix Indiana University’s business series that morning. Maybe it was school, he began exploring a their own fault. Or maybe they’re business model that would provide actually bad people who were out more than just jobs. In 2010 he scamming, thieving most of the founded the Coalfield day while everyone else was at Development Corporation. The work. And now they have received signature program of this agency is the same wage as the honest, Reclaim Appalachia. This program good workers. The parable is trains young people to deconstruct unconcerned with the ethic of the old buildings and use the laborers, only the generosity of the reclaimed materials to make householder. furniture or build new houses on old coalfield land. Crew members get more than a job; for two years 4 they get $12 an hour to work 33 are being replaced— the rapid hours a week, enroll in community change in technology will touch college for six hours a week and every sector of our society. spend three hours a week learning Consider how self-driving cars will life skills. The non-profit has soon replace our favorite uber created over 40 on-the-job training drivers and the millions of truck positions and more than 200 drivers on the road (maybe even professional certification that little truck driver from the opportunities for unemployed cafe). There’s no going back to the people, many of whom were laid- way things used to be. off coalminers. Half the income to the non-profit comes from sales Whatever lies ahead, we must the other from public and private remember that we are not our jobs. funders. Dennison says the We are not of value because of biggest hurdle to overcome in what we do. We are of value transforming generational poverty because of whose we are— is creating trust. So he has created because of what household we are a program that is based on trust. a part of. We are in God’s Creating trust among the local household. A household that has workers, among the local leaders, its own set of rules. among the customers. Trust is just another word for faith. Community Perhaps, what’s so transformative development is based on trust… about this parable is the way the it’s based on faith in each other. household is opened up. The It’s based on generous grace that householder is out in the streets sees every person as worth the looking for people to bring into his effort. Life isn’t fair. Sometimes we vineyard. He gives equally to all. need a hand up. Sometimes we Because he knows what the need a denarius for an hour’s laborers have not yet discovered. work. That the household is only as healthy as its weakest member. The truth is the acceleration of The household is only as wealthy technology and the changing as its poorest member. The economy is going to leave more flourishing of all is dependent on and more people waiting in the the flourishing of each one. I can marketplace everyday. It’s not just hear the complaint rising in us. coal miners or manufacturers who We’re thinking it, maybe not 5 saying. But, Lord— the vineyard is there we didn’t recognize the so large! Your household— surely, house anymore. Still, the more we you don’t mean it. There must be look around at the concrete jungle another way. There must be around us… here and there we someway that is… fair. We can’t might begin to see a garden or afford that kind of generosity. Or was is it a vineyard? This parable maybe generosity is our only isn’t about a vineyard off chance— because the world is too somewhere else. It isn’t about dangerous for anything but love. being taken from this market off elsewhere. It’s about the When we think back to Genesis household of God coming here. It’s and God creating the man and the about what happens when God’s woman from the dust… giving household rules collide with the them everything they needed and rules of this world. Which is exactly walking with them in the garden… what happens at the cross of or was it a vineyard? Then we Jesus. remember God’s promise to Abraham to make a household of No, this isn’t fair. The kingdom of him with members more numerous God isn’t fair. The household rules than the stars. We remember God aren’t fair. But, then again— isn’t making a household of the slaves that a good thing? in Egypt, freeing them and generously giving them land. They never could get used to the idea of living in God’s household. They never could figure out how to follow all the rules. They forgot to take off their shoes. They forgot to bless themselves with holy water. They forgot to greet grandma.

And then the householder’s son came to us as a laborer— so that we would know our true identity as daughters and sons of the One true Lord. We had forgotten whose we were. Though we still lived 6 1 Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus, “The Laborers in the Vineyard,” (Harper Collins, New York, NY: 2014).

2 William J. Carl III, Church People Beware!, CSS Publishing Company

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