Because I am Good

A Sermon for the 14^th Sunday after the Pentecost (RCL A) 9-18-2011

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Exodus 16:2-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45; Matthew 20:1-16
Themes:         manna, complaining, equality, justice vs. generosity
Title:               Because I am Good

Today, my friends, I invite you to think for a while about two very different attitudes toward life that we human beings can take. In both of our stories this morning, you may have noticed that we encountered people who are grumbling and complaining, even though both groups received a wonderful blessing. Unfortunately, however, this blessing did not seem to be enough for them.  

Let us look especially at our parable from the mouth of Christ: “The kingdom of the heavens is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.”

It seems that it was harvest time, and the vineyard required picking urgently or else the grapes would be lost. At the same time, the day laborers had gathered as usual in the marketplace with one solitary hope and prayer for the day: that they might be able to find work, so that when the day is done they could return home – not with empty hands – but with their daily bread.

Notice please one crucial characteristic of these laborers, which they in fact share in common with the wandering Israelites in Exodus. The laborers had no control over the work. They could not manufacture a day of paying work for themselves. The work had to come to them. It came as a gift.

The Israelites in the wilderness had no control over the food supply. They could not manufacture food to feed their whole wandering mass of humanity, any more than they were able to flee their slavery in Egypt by themselves. Both their freedom and their daily food came to them as a gift. A free gift of grace from the hand of God.  

And this is where the fork is stuck in the proverbial road, where we have to choose which direction we will take in our attitude toward the gifts of grace that we have received beyond our control.

Let’s look briefly at the first two questions given in our Catechism. They are found on Page 845 in the Book of Common Prayer. Please turn there now. I will ask you these first two questions under the section titled “Human Nature” and you will please respond in unison with the answers.

Q.	What are we by nature?
A.	We are part of God's creation, made in the image of God.
Q.	What does it mean to be created in the image of God?
A.	It means that we are free to make choices: to love, to create, to reason, and to live in harmony with creation and with God.

Here, my friends, is the most fundamental truth of who we are: made in the image of God, free to make choices, free to live in harmony with creation and with God.

Would you like to live your life in harmony with creation and with God?

Well, here is one sure-fire way of NOT doing this. Try complaining about your sorry lot in life. Try grumbling about how unfair life has been to you. Try being angry at God for not giving you the things that you think you have deserved.

The late John Claypool, a wonderful priest and amazing preacher, called this way of life “the side-long glance”: that is, always looking SIDEWAYS at what other people have, how other people look, what success others are experiencing, and then always finding your own life to be lacking by comparison.

But, if in fact you would like to live in harmony with creation and with God, then try a different approach. You, my friend, are made in the image of God! You exist! You are alive! And you are free! The cold hard fact is that God did not have to make you at all. You had no control over your birth whatsoever. But you were made, you were created, you were born and you were given an amazing gift: the chance to live!

When we choose not to look sideways in comparison, but rather to look straight at the gracious face of God, we find that we are able to receive everything as a gift, even the challenges are struggles that come our way and which brings gifts of their own.

Look once again at what vision of life we are given in this parable of the landowner. The kingdom of the heavens is like a landowner who distributes the means of living generously and equally to everyone who comes to work! Some work more than others, but each one receives the same precious gift. 

So it is with us. God gives to each one of us the same gift of life. And through Christ, God gives to each one of us the same gift of new and abundant life. No matter what our strengths and weaknesses, no matter the particular circumstances of our life, we all receive these same gifts of grace.  

There is an old Jewish parable about a farmer who had two sons. As soon as they were old enough to walk, the father took them out to the fields and he taught them everything that he knew about growing crops and raising animals. When he got too old to work, the two boys took over the chores of the farm and when the father died, they had found their working together so meaningful that they decided to keep their partnership. So each brother contributed what he could and during every harvest season, they would divide equally what their father’s farm had produced. As the years passed, the elder brother never married; he remained an old bachelor. The younger brother did marry and was blessed with eight wonderful children.

Some years later, when they were having a wonderful harvest, the old bachelor brother thought to himself one night: "My brother has ten mouths to feed. I only have one. He really needs more of his harvest than I do, but I know he is much too fair to renegotiate our agreement. I know what I'll do. In the dead of the night, when he is asleep, I'll take some of what I have put in my barn and I'll slip it over into his barn to help him feed his children.”

Just as he was thinking along these lines, the younger brother was also thinking to himself and he thought: "God has given me these wonderful children. My brother has not been so fortunate. He really needs more of this harvest than I do so that he can prepare for his old age. But I know him. He's much too fair to renegotiate our agreement. I know what I'll do. In the dead of the night when he's asleep, I'll take some of what I've put in my barn and slip it over into his barn."

And so one night when the moon was full  - as you have probably already imagined – those two brothers met in the moonlight face to face, each on a mission of generosity.

The rabbis said that even though there was not a cloud in that full-moon sky, a gentle rain began to fall. You know what it was? It was God weeping for joy, because these two children of God had gotten the point!

We can choose to live our lives with “the side-long glance of comparing” (see Claypool’s wonderful sermon here at http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/claypool_4317.htm), always checking to see how much more others have than we do, choosing to complain about our lot in life.

Or we can choose to live our lives with a simple and straightforward gratitude for the gifts of life and salvation, recognizing that each day is a gift, and allowing that gratitude to become joyful generosity toward those around us.  

At the end of this parable, the landowner asks this question: “Are you envious because I am generous?” In the original Greek, he asks very concretely: “Is you eye evil because I am good?”

God is good, and God is generous, and you have been blessed by that generosity.

Make the choice today, my friends, to not look sideways and compare your life with others, but to look straight ahead with your chin held high and to live a grateful life in harmony with creation and with God. Amen.