Listen to this sermon<\/font><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Matthew 20:1-16<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\nAnd Jesus told them this parable.<\/font><\/p>\nThe kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard\u2026.<\/font><\/p>\nIn this way, Jesus begins a story like so many of the stories that he told in order to create a worldview that we are invited to take residence inside.<\/font><\/p>\nI have heard that with his parables or stories, \u201cJesus creates a \u2018house\u2019 in which listeners\/readers are invited to take residence as they make the worldview of the parable their own.\u201d\u00a0i<\/sup><\/font><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\nOur theme for the fall is \u201cRoom for all.\u201d If Jesus is creating a \u2018house-like\u2019 worldview with his parables, maybe this week our theme could be rooms for all.<\/font><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\nLet\u2019s enter.<\/font><\/p>\nThe kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard.<\/font><\/p>\nAfter agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.<\/font><\/p>\nThroughout the day, at nine, noon and three o\u2019clock he returns to the market-place, hires labourers at each of these hours, and tells them that he will pay them whatever is right or just.<\/font><\/p>\nAt about five o\u2019clock, (the 11th<\/sup> hour) he goes out again to the marketplace and asks the labourers, \u201cwhy are you standing here idle?\u201d and they tell him, \u201cBecause no one has hired us.\u201d\u00a0 He tells them \u201cyou also go into the vineyard,\u201d this time with no promise of any wage.<\/font><\/p>\nAt this point we reach the middle of the story \u2013 which contains three surprises.\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\nFirst, the landowner calls his manager.\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\nWhat is the surprise in this?\u00a0 If he had a manager to take care of his affairs, why did he go to the market himself to look for labourers?<\/font><\/p>\nSecond, those hired about five o\u2019clock are paid first. \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\nThe surprise in this is of course the order in which the labourers were paid. The last were paid first.<\/font><\/p>\nAnd the third surprise; each of them received the usual daily wage.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 That\u2019s what the ones who were hired at the beginning of the day said.\u00a0 \u201cThese 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.\u201d\u00a0 But he replied to them, \u201cMister, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?\u00a0 Take what belongs to you and go;\u00a0 I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.\u00a0 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?\u00a0 Or are you envious because I am generous?\u201d\u00a0 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.\u2019<\/font><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/span>Among other things this parable is a remarkable example of a prophetic rhetorical template that by the time of Jesus had been in use in that culture for 1000 years.<\/font><\/p>\nThe template of the parable is a clue to the parts of it that are significant and this template is a clue to its interpretation when it was first heard and now. However, whether we know about this template or not which I\u2019ll explain a bit about in a moment, this particular parable tends to grate on our sense of fairness and justice.<\/font><\/p>\nIt wouldn\u2019t be hard to resonate with the folks who worked all day in the heat and dry wind who say, \u201cWhat?\u00a0 When we saw that you gave those you hired last, the daily wage you promised us, our hopes went up.\u00a0 We thought for sure, that if one hour of labour was worth a daily wage, our 12 hours of labour would be worth at least double if not 12 times more.\u00a0 We thought our stock had just gone up.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n\t<\/span>And this is where the parable takes a particularly harsh turn when the landowner says, \u201ctake what belongs to you and go.\u201d\u00a0 We might find ourselves asking, is this parable simply about bizarre justice or is something else important going on here?<\/font><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/span>The prophetic rhetorical template of this parable may give us a clue.\u00a0 This template divides the parable neatly into seven sections or stanzas.\u00a0 The themes of these stanzas also demonstrate what\u2019s called a ring composition.\u00a0 There are similarities between the first and last stanza, the second and sixth, the third and fifth until you reach the important fourth stanza which lies in the middle.<\/font><\/p>\nThe first and seventh stanzas are both about the landowner who makes an agreement<\/strong> in the first one and keeps his agreement<\/strong> in the last one,<\/font><\/p>\nThe main theme in the second and sixth stanzas \u2013 if we work our way from each end towards the middle \u2013 is about justice<\/strong>.\u00a0 In the second stanza the landowner says that he will give what is right or just.\u00a0 In the sixth stanza, the workers who were hired first call the landlord\u2019s justice into question.<\/font><\/p>\nIn the third and fifth stanza, again working our way towards the middle, we find the theme of the workers of the 11th hour.\u00a0 In the third stanza the 11th<\/sup> hour<\/strong> workers are hired and in the fifth stanza the 11th<\/sup> hour workers<\/strong> are given the daily wage.<\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/span>This brings us to the middle of the parable where the main point of the parable and the three surprises lie. First, there is a manager of the vineyard, so why is the landowner the one who goes to the marketplace himself? Second, all of the workers are paid a living wage and third, the ones who worked the least are paid first. \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/span>Kenneth Bailey, a New Testament scholar who has spent 40 years in the Middle East helps us understand the cultural context of this parable.\u00a0 In Palestine\/Israel then as now if a landowner has a manager, then at most the landowner would give the manager instructions in the morning and receive a report at night but it would be highly unusual for the landowner to go himself to the market to look for laborers.\u00a0 Even in recent history near the Damascus Gate of East Jerusalem each morning unemployed mostly Palestinian men would gather in hope of finding work for the day.\u00a0 As vans of prospective employers drive up (in recent history mostly Israelis) the men sprint into the street hoping that their eagerness will improve their chances of earning their daily bread.\u00a0 The men will stay alert and repeat this behaviour like runners at starting blocks throughout the morning. By noon if no employment has materialized the unemployed will go home disappointed and humiliated likely having to face families who had depended on them and who likewise would be deeply disappointed.<\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/span>It is hard to imagine that the landlord in this parable didn\u2019t know first thing in the morning how many workers he needed for the day, whether the vines needed pruning or it was the time of harvest.\u00a0 Bailey suggests that it is more likely he was hoping that the other workers would also be hired and his regular trips back to the market demonstrate his personal concern and compassion for those who were anxiously eager to work.\u00a0 And as the story unfolds the landowner\u2019s compassion compels him to return again and again to see if there are others who need work.\u00a0 By the middle of the afternoon and certainly at the end of the day he may have hired these men as a reward for the raw courage it takes to anxiously wait the entire day, beyond reasonable hope, before either receiving a bit of something to take home to their hungry families or going home humiliated in the dark.<\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/span>In the end the actions of the landowner reveal that he has taken it upon himself to demonstrate a costly compassion.\u00a0 He has not asked another to do it in his place.\u00a0 He incarnates his deep concern by going again and again to the marketplace \u2013 among the unemployed and hurting poor.\u00a0 In the culture of the Middle East this type of behaviour by the master\/landlord would have been unheard of. \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/span>And what do we make of the complaints of those hired first?\u00a0 They were simply operating under a universal sense of fairness that says one should receive \u201cequal pay for equal work.\u201d\u00a0 But the rules in this house, the house created by a kingdom of heaven worldview say something else.\u00a0 In this house, justice goes beyond an equal application of the law.\u00a0 In this worldview, \u201cjustice includes respect for the dignity of those in need and a concern for their welfare.\u201d ii<\/sup><\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/span>And the response of the landowner to those who would complain about his mercy, justice and extravagant compassion is very harsh,<\/font><\/p>\n\u201cYou have no real complaint, justice has been served, I have paid you what I said I would, now take what belongs to you and go! \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\nThen the parable stops with a question, \u201cAre you envious because I am generous?\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\nAnd with that the story stops rather than ends.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know what the workers who feel they have been unjustly treated chose to do next.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know how they respond.\u00a0 Stopping the story without ending it functions to invite the listeners\/readers onto the stage of the drama that the story created.<\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/span>Just like the story of the compassionate father who had two sons \u2013 often known as the prodigal son story, we don\u2019t know what the older brother decides to do at the end when he is angry about his father\u2019s compassionate embrace of the son who had been as good as dead to them.\u00a0 In the prodigal son story the question remains, \u201cWill the older brother choose to enter the house?\u201d<\/font><\/p>\nIn today\u2019s story, will the workers who perceive injustice allow their sense of what is right to be stretched and molded to include unmerited mercy, compassion and costly love by the landowner. The first listeners of this story would have known as they listened to this parable that Jesus was speaking of himself as a defense of his incarnated love for the least of these and he was speaking to his disciples who in these pages in Matthew argued among themselves about who was greatest.<\/font><\/p>\nAnd today, are we able to allow our own sense of justice to be stretched and molded to include unmerited mercy, compassion and costly love by the landowner and by doing so will we enter the worldview of the \u201chouse\u201d that Jesus creates with his stories where there is room for all?\u00a0 Jesus creates a \u201chouse\u201d where dignity, worth, love and compassion are available to all without merit. \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/span>If we choose to enter this house our first question might quite naturally be who will our roommates turn out to be?\u00a0 That\u2019s a common and important question in any new living arrangement. But I think this question may change if we look very briefly at the other texts that were read this morning.<\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/span>If we look briefly before I conclude at the other scripture readings for today, Exodus and Jonah, we see that the common thread among them is complaint and provision.\u00a0 The children of Israel complain about life and probably justly about their fear of death in the wilderness.\u00a0 God hears their complaint and responds by providing them with manna and quail and water \u2013 all that they need for daily sustenance.\u00a0 In the Jonah story, Jonah complains about God\u2019s mercy for the Ninevites, persons who lived in the largest city of his enemies.\u00a0 Jonah is asking how could God have mercy for people in the heart of the Assyrian empire; a people and nation that threatened to and eventually did overthrow his own country.\u00a0 In some sense this complaint too seems justified. In Jonah\u2019s distress about God\u2019s seemingly unfair kindness, Jonah finds himself wishing he were dead.\u00a0 Despite Jonah\u2019s direct disobedience and complaints, God preserves him, although having him be swallowed by a whale might also seem like a strange kind of mercy. And so, just as God preserved the complaining Israelites, and God preserves the complaining Jonah, might God also preserve the complaining workers?<\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/span>These other passages shed light on the parable in question.\u00a0 A compassionate God is generous to whom God will be generous.\u00a0 In all these stories, the most consistent theme is simply God\u2019s provision for everyone<\/strong> in the story.\u00a0 Was there anyone in any of these stories who deserved God\u2019s compassionate provision more than anyone else in the end?<\/font><\/p>\nSo if we choose to enter the house that our incarnated compassionate God creates maybe the question is not who might our roommates be but rather what kind of roommate are we? \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n\t<\/span>And finally the most important question of all,<\/font><\/p>\n\u00a0\u201cWho is this God represented to us mostly clearly by Jesus who comes to all of us again and again with costly self-giving love and mercy.<\/font><\/p>\nThis is a God of love and provision.\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n
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<\/font><\/p>\n\u00a0i<\/sup> \u00a0Kenneth E. Bailey.\u00a0 Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes:\u00a0 Cultural Studies in the Gospels.\u00a0 <\/em>p. 364.<\/font><\/p>\n\u00a0ii<\/sup> \u00a0Bailey p. 364<\/font><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 View archived sermons Listen to this sermon \u00a0 Matthew 20:1-16 \u00a0 And Jesus told them this parable. The kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard\u2026. In this way, Jesus begins a story like so many of the stories that he told in order to create a worldview that we are invited to take residence inside. I have heard that with his parables or stories, \u201cJesus creates…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3963,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions\/3963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}