Pentecost 15

Pentecost 15 (Matthew 20:1-16)

“The first will be last and the last will be first.”

Divine principles frequently contradict human values.

Certainly, the Old Testament records this aspect of life for us. God called Jonah to preach repentance to the city of Nineveh The Bible describes Nineveh as a wicked city. The people of Nineveh had conquered many of the surrounding nations. They were militaristic and brutal.

The prophet Jonah, like most people in Israel, feared and hated Nineveh. Jonah did not want to preach repentance to the enemies of his nation. He wanted them to die in their sin under God’s judgment. He even complains to God that God is merciful and forgiving. Jonah wants the wrath. He demands the condemnation.

Jonah is the reluctant prophet and the rebellious prophet who insists on defining God as condemnation even as God insists on revealing himself as merciful and compassionate. Jonah valued power- the power to destroy the enemies of his people. God values relationships. God wants to restore and rebuild relationships through a process of repentance and transformation.

Jesus’ parable about the workers confronts human value about rewards and punishments. Jesus told the parable in such a way that most people, both rich and poor, powerful and powerless, would react with protest. As the workers in the parable state: it isn’t fair. Those who came early should be paid more. Those who came late should be paid less.

Of course, Jesus is using this parable in the same way God used the events in Jonah’s life. Jesus used the parable as a mirror for the human soul. Where God is generous, merciful and compassionate people tend to be penurious, judgmental and condemning. Where God declares that a bruised reed he will not break and a dimly burning wick he will not quench, people tend to see any sign of weakness as an opportunity to subvert and discredit.

The underlying principle of the parable is the underlying principle of the Plan of Salvation. That principle is grace. That grace is universal and it is abundant. As the landowner chose to pay all of the workers the same amount so God offers the same level of grace to all.

A day’s wage in Jesus’ day is the sum of money that can buy enough food for that day. The landowner makes sure that all who responded to his call to labor in his fields will have enough to buy food for the day.

Divine grace is similar. Divine grace is God’s outpouring of blessing for that day.  The character of the Landowner is the very character of God. God is love. God is more willing to bless that we are to receive the blessing or to share the blessing.

The principle of grace is frequently scandalous to human beings who are lost in separation from God. Jonah displays how he is scandalized by Divine grace when he complains that God heard the prayers of repentance from Nineveh and spared the city from destruction.

The people in the parable, speaking on behalf of the people hearing the parable, are likewise scandalized by the generosity of God. They are not looking for grace. They are looking for rewards.

Grace is God’s unmerited favor towards us. No one deserves God’s favor. All have separated from God and live from the place of self-will and pride. God loves us anyway.  Grace is not reward. Grace is mercy and compassion. Grace initiates a process of transformation. What blocks grace is pride and self-will. What liberates the soul to be immersed in grace is gratitude.

The Holy Spirit shows us where we are still lost in separation by the attitude we bring to the principles of the Kingdom and by the actions we bring forth in how we treat other people. If you are lost in the religious categories of rewards and punishments you will experience the generosity of God as unfair. If you seek to be first within the religious categories of rewards and punishments you will experience divine grace as a personal affront to your demand for God to reward you as God punishes or with holds blessings from people you perceive as lesser than you.

Jesus commends to us the way of kindness and compassion grounded in the infinite love of the infinite God who is love. If you make a real choice to accept Jesus as Lord, Jesus will send the Holy Spirit to help you discern where you are still lost in judgment, condemnation and separation. Jesus will show you where you are withholding a blessing from others and how that withholding only diminishes your own soul. In that awareness, Jesus will invite you to receive grace sufficient for the day to make a change.

God saved the people of Nineveh despite Jonah. God invites us to participate in the Plan of Salvation so that we can experience transforming grace. We experience that transforming grace as we yield self-will to divine will. We become living channels of that transforming grace as we say yes to the invitation of the Holy Spirit to live and move and have our being in the inexhaustible abundance of divine love. The grace creates the expansion of our souls as we say yes to God to become the living fountains of grace in our families, the parish and the community.

Jonah wasn’t there yet. He wanted wrath. He was lost in spite. He missed the joy of salvation the angels experience when even one soul repents and returns to the Lord. The people in the parable and who heard the parable weren’t there yet either. They, too, were lost in spite. They wanted a reward commensurate with their self-image as the self-righteous who deserved more and demanded more. In the demand to be first in line for a reward they made themselves last to receive the blessing as a gift.

 Jesus offers us something very different than wrath and much better than a reward. Jesus offers the generosity and abundance of grace- of unconditional love.