September 19, 1999
25th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Year A
I don’t know if you have ever had this experience—and I suspect you
have—but I wonder if you’ve ever been in a line, a long line, and you’ve
been waiting patiently or perhaps not so patiently, and in the midst of
your waiting you see someone walk up and cut in front of the line,
because they seem to think they have the right to have their needs met
at that very moment, and they shouldn’t have to wait because their
needs are more pressing than yours. OK, I admit it—there are very
things that make me angrier than that. You and I—and even that person
who cut in line—we know the rules when it comes to waiting in lines, even
in lines that seem endless. Everyone has to wait their turn so that they
can get their ticket stamped or to pay their car tag fee or whatever the
reason we happen to be standing in the line for. We know the rules, and
it really angers me when I see someone who has decided that the rules
don’t apply to them. The complete arrogance—I can’t even begin to tell
you my frustration with people like that! And, of course, just to tick me
off me some more, I have to preach on this parable from the Gospel of
Matthew. What’s so aggravating—and the wonder, at the same time--
about this parable is the truth that is found in the story—the truth that
the God of the universe, the God who created us, the God who made the
rules, DOES NOT FOLLOW THE RULES. This God is not fair. This God
doesn’t follow the rules—even the rules that God has set in place about
what it means to be fair. This God is unfair. This is the kind of God cuts
in the line I am waiting in—which is totally unfair!
You heard the story from Matthew—the story about the landowner who
hires some laborers in the early morning, and then hires more and more
people throughout the day, as he finds them hanging about, presumably
unemployed at the moment. At the end of the story, the landowner starts
handing out the day’s pay to each person, starting with those he hired
late in the day. He hands out the usual amount of money for a day’s
worth of work to the ones he hired just, literally, at five o’clock that
evening, and so the workers who were hired much earlier in the day think
they are obviously going to get more because they worked longer. But it
doesn’t happen that way—they get the same amount—and to be honest,
I think I can understand their frustration. You work hard all day and you
get the same pay that someone who has worked for maybe 2 hours?—it
doesn’t seem fair to me. But listen to what the landowners says to those
who are grumbling about what has just happened: “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 am doing you no wrong; I choose to give to
you 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?” Wow. Now, that’s an answer! “I’ve done you no wrong,” the
landowner says to the grumbling workers. “I kept my word with you—I am
allowed to do what I want with what I own—don’t presume to tell me how
to run my business.” Now, obviously in this parable, the landowner is
God and we are the persons working in the fields and what is being
given out is something breaks all the rules, even the rules that the God
has set in place about what it means to be fair and just. What God is
giving out is grace, that gift that is radical and offensive and
overwhelming and unfair all at same time. This is not the grace that
sends chill bumps up our arms whenever we sing the beautiful hymn,
Amazing Grace—no, this is the grace that makes us grumble because of
its unfairness, its offensiveness, its “breaking of the rules”.
We all know the rules, you and I. We know that good people, people
who work hard and stay in line until its their turn should go before the
people who think they have the right to break into the line because they
feel their need is more pressing than yours. People who work long and
hard should get more than those who have barely begun to work. It
makes sense, doesn’t it? That’s the fair thing, isn’t it? And you know
what? IT IS the fair thing and the just thing that someone who works long
and hard in the field should get more than someone who just started a
few hours before the shift ends. The rule is right, the rule is just, but you
know what? The reality is that grace doesn’t follow the rules. The reality
is that God doesn’t follow the rules. This is a God who throws out the
rulebook. This is a God who says that the rulebook doesn’t matter
anymore—this is a God who says to us, “What I give you is not based on
what you’ve done but what I give you is based on what I have done.
What I’ve done is welcomed you because I love you, not because you
were good enough or because you stayed in your place in line, just like
the rules say.” At the end of this parable, Jesus says something that he
says many times throughout his ministry—“So the last will be first, and
first will be last.” There is a constant warning that this is an unfair God—
this is a God who doesn’t play by the rules, who doesn’t judge us on
what we’ve done, but says that those people cutting in line will always be
in front of us and those of us who think that the rules will save us, that
the rules are the point, after all, we will find ourselves at the back of the
line, always being cut in front of, by people who God puts in front of us.
You know, one of the things we need to learn from this story is that grace
is not something that is sentimental or something that makes us feel
good—actually, grace, truly, truly, is one of those things that stuns us
and offends us because it breaks the rules that we think of us as fair and
just. Grace takes that person who breaks into my line and always put
them in front of me. Grace is radical, grace is offensive, grace doesn’t
follow the rules. Isn’t it odd how God works in this world?!?! What an
awesome God we worship! We worship a God who doesn’t follow the
rules—and thank goodness, God doesn’t! Or we would all be in trouble!
This is a God who throws out the rule-book and says to us “Welcome.”
And then God puts us in the front of the line, not because we deserve to
be at the front of the line, but just “because”…. And as much as it
offends us, as much as it challenges our idea that God is interested in
rule-books, we need to live into the mystery of that moment, of that grace
that stuns us with its arrogance, with its presumption. The first shall be
last and last shall be first, says the God who doesn’t follow the rules.
What wonder meets us here, what wonder meet us as laborers in the
field, where the rules are broken, and grace meets us, even as we
grumble. God is good, God is full of wonder, God stuns and shocks us
with what God does in this world. Amen and amen.
