18^th Sunday after Pentecost at Epiphany on September 14, 2008

Matthew 20:1-16 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3 "About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' 5 So they went. "He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6 About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?' 7 "'Because no one has hired us,' they answered. "He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.' 8 "When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.' 9 "The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.' 13 "But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?' 16 "So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

God isn’t fair!

The news was bad – an apple grower in western North Carolina had heard that a huge hurricane was coming inland along the Atlantic coast. He turned on the Weather Channel (that’s MTV for older folks). The report worried him. His apples were ready to be picked. The branches were heavy with apples … bending over on the trees. He knew that winds from the hurricane would destroy his orchards. His apple harvest would be lost – apples would be torn from the trees; the branches, so heavy with apples, would split and break from tree trunks. He knew that the only hope for his orchard was to hire plenty of men to pick his apples in a single day, before the hurricane hit!

So he went to the unemployment office early in morning. Young men were already there, looking for work. He told them, "I’ll give you $100 to work today in my orchards." The men gladly accepted and he put them all to work. Soon, he realized he’d need even more workers if his apples were to be picked before sundown … before the hurricane arrived to destroy everything! So, at 9 a.m., he went back to the unemployment office. Then again at Noon, at 3, at 5 and even an hour before sunset, to hire more men. Each time, he told them, "Come work for me and I’ll pay you a fair wage." By sunset, the apples were all picked. The farmer’s crop was safe in the warehouse. He told his wife to pay the men, starting first with the one’s who’d worked the least hours.

His wife gave the ones who started at 5:00 p.m. each a crisp, new $100 bill! Then, the ones who started work at 3 p.m., she also gave a $100 bill. And on it went, with the wife paying the 12 noon crew and then the 9 a.m. crew. The men who started work at 6 a.m. were excited! They said, "If those guys who just worked an hour got $100, we’re gonna make a killin!"

When it came time to pay them, the owner’s wife gave them each a crisp, new $100 bill! They were angry! They got downright mad. They milled around complaining to each other. They even talked about hurting the old orchard owner and his wife. The county Sheriff’s office was called, and a cruiser dispatched to make sure that the men didn’t start a riot.

The old orchard owner came out to talk to the men. He said, "Men, I was honest with you! Didn’t you all agree to work for me today for $100?" "Yeah", they shouted, "But you paid the guys who worked just one hour the same thing you paid to us. That’s not fair!" The old apple grower replied, "What business is it of yours if I want to pay them extra? It’s my orchard … They’re my apples …It’s my money …Why are you angry because I’m generous?

Does anyone in here think that the apple grower was fair? NO! Paying men who work an hour the same salary as men who work 12 hours! Some of those men worked hard, and some of those men hardly worked! But they all got paid the same. It’s not fair!

This story seems blatantly unfair. But, when we look at this story through the lens of grace, instead of the unbending scales of justice, we begin to understand the difference between our thinking and God’s thinking.

Did you know God is just like that apple grower? He is the owner of the vineyard in Jesus’ story. I am going to say something this morning that many of you may find shocking. The God we serve and worship – Jehovah, the Lord, the One True God, all powerful, who knows everything, who sees everything, Creator of the heavens and earth … is absolutely, positively, totally unfair in the way that he deals with us, with all of mankind!

Wait a minute, Pastor! How can you say that? God is fair with each and every one of us. No, he’s not fair! God isn’t fair with me. And he isn’t fair with you. 

In some third world nations the people gather daily in the town square looking for work in the hope that they will earn enough to feed their family for that day. To not find work is to go hungry. It is the strongest and the young who are chosen first. They get the full day’s pay. But the others, the old and the lame, remain hoping that someone will still choose them for work. If more workers are required, the employers will return. To not be chosen is to not eat. For all of these people who gather, work is not a luxury or something to avoid, it is essential for survival. To hire a person at the end of the day, possibly the old or lame, is to provide the food needed to survive that day.

To be hired at the end of the day was to insure that these people also, received what they needed to survive. Jesus’ story is not a story about fairness, it is a story about sustenance. We want to read this parable as one about fairness, but is that what we want or need? An old proverb says: “When we get what we deserve, that is justice. When we don’t get what we deserve, that is mercy. When we get what we don’t deserve, that is grace.”

Clinging to our sense of fairness reveals how we misunderstand God’s ways. God’s kingdom is not based on what is fair but on what we need. We don’t need justice, we need grace. Grace that overlooks all we are and all we have done and said. Grace that allows us to stand in line hoping that God will smile upon us. Grace that allows us to be chosen for kingdom work not because we are such good workers, but simply because God desires workers. We aren’t good workers. We are lazy, rebellious, and self-righteous. We don’t deserve the kingdom. Yet this parable illustrates the broad theme of Scripture: God’s grace. Just like the idle workers in the marketplace, we were all in a position of need. They were looking for a job, but we are looking for mercy.

The master of the vineyard wasn’t concerned with how long the workers were unemployed — He only knew they needed a job. Similarly, God doesn’t see the amount of sin we carry. In His eyes, we are all sinners in need of salvation. We are all in need of grace.

Thank God that he isn’t a fair God! If God was a fair God, we’d all be bound for hell right now! The Bible says that the one who sins is the one who shall die. It says that the wages of sin is death – physical and eternal death. It says that we are to be holy, without sin, just like God. That’s not me, and I’m positive that’s not you, either.

We all sin, every one of us! We put on nice clothes and do nice things, but to God, all our nice deeds are like "filthy rags." We hide our evil thoughts behind innocent smiles, but God notices. We do our sinning in the dark, hoping no one else will see it, but God sees it. We try to remove the splinter from another person, while ignoring the plank in our own eye. We all sin! As a pastor, I just wish folks would quit pretending that they’ve got it so together and are so good, and just fall on the mercy of God. That’s what we need – God’s amazing grace.

God’s justice and fairness demands that somebody has to pay the cost for that sin. In God’s world, sin can never go unpunished! Someone had to die. Someone had to be punished. Someone had to suffer hell. But God didn’t want that someone to be us. God sent his own Son, Jesus, to die on the cross to pay for our sins, yours and mine. He’s the one who died. He’s the one who was punished. He’s the one who suffered hell.

It’s not fair that Jesus suffered for our sins, including the sins that we’ve committed since we woke up this morning. It’s not fair that God has shown us mercy. It’s not fair that God gives us chance after chance to repent. It’s not fair that all we have to do is ask his forgiveness and accept his mercy and our sins are forgiven. It’s not fair that he sends his Holy Spirit to live inside our sin-filled bodies to guide and direct us every minute of every day. It’s not fair that Jesus has said that, no matter what, he will never leave us nor forsake us. It’s not fair that God promises that everything will work out for our eternal good. It’s not fair that God bends His ear from the throne of God every time we want to say a word to him. It’s not fair that we’re going to live forever, in a place called heaven. It’s not fair that God has promised that the day will come when we feel no sadness, no pain, no death, no sorrow. God just isn’t fair!

An atheist said, 'If there is a God, he should prove himself by striking me dead right now." Nothing happened. 'You see, there is not God." Another responded, 'You've only proved that He is a gracious God."

Are you glad that you live with a graciously unfair God? I am! If God was fair the wages we deserve for our daily lives of sin would be an eternity in the fiery furnace of hell. Instead, we get to live in the paradise of heaven. We deserve to have God strike us down and start over. Instead, he walks with us daily, giving us strength. He extends his hand of forgiveness when we fail. We deserve lives of misery and pain. Instead, we are blessed with lives of joy, love, peace, and hope. We deserve to be squashed like little bugs by our almighty God. Instead, our heavenly Father makes us his children through faith in his Son, our Savior.

Jesus is telling us in this parable that it doesn’t matter if you come to faith in him as an infant in baptism, as a child in Sunday School, as an adult through a miraculous conversion, or on your deathbed after a life of sin. It is all the same to God. He is the one inviting us into his kingdom, he’s the generous master. It is his blessings and salvation to give out when and to whom he pleases. We have no right to grumble or complain about how generous or unfair our God is. Long-term Christians and veterans of the cross – those who have labored long for their Lord – and latecomers like the thief on the cross will enjoy the same heaven. The every-Sunday life-long Christians receive the same grace as the Christmas and Easter irregulars. The baptized infants will share the same paradise with the converted murders. The former do not begrudge God’s generosity to last-minute converts, for they too are saved by grace. How gloriously unfair is our great God.

Where do you see the amazing grace of God? In church? Where a baby is drowned to sin and delivered through God’s water of life? Where hungry and thirsty sinners eat and drink God’s forgiveness in the Lord’s Supper? Yes, of course the grace of God is in church. But not only here. God’s amazing grace is seen in a cattle feeding trough. Forgiving Eden’s sinners who in one greedy moment of pleasure ruined God’s eternal plans for a perfect earth. Helping out a prostitute with a dirty reputation. Giving life to a thief who deserves death. Descending as far as anyone can get from heaven and as far as anyone can get into hell.

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world.” (1 John 4:9) That’s where you’d least expect to find God’s grace – impaled on a Roman implement of execution. We are glad to see God’s grace anytime and anywhere, but we are extremely glad to see God’s grace in places we’d least expect to find it. A housewife who is lonely and depressed and drinks too much, is invited to pray with her Christian neighbor. A teacher who has taught evolution for years in the public school, whose thinking is challenged by the simple, strong, outspoken faith of one of the children in his classroom. The scared teenager who has learned she is pregnant and is considering getting an abortion, who is loved, comforted and consoled with Christ’s forgiveness by her old Sunday School teacher.

Jesus calls the last to be first. He selects sinners to be his saints. He chooses the workers for his kingdom.

Though we don’t deserve forgiveness or salvation or love or grace or any of the blessings God showers upon us, he wants to give them to us because he is so generous. Praise God today for being so graciously, generously, gloriously unfair. Amen.