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"Salem.....Where a Warm Welcome Awaits You"
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WORKERS IN THE VINEYARD
(The following sermon was preached by Pastor Barbara Melosh on September 18th, 2005.)
This is a parable about what it’s like to live in this world, and what it’s like to live in the kingdom of God. It’s a story for anyone who works for a living, and worries about getting what’s yours. It’s a story for anyone who has waited in line and had someone else cut in front of them. It’s a story about getting what you need, not what you deserve. This is one of Jesus’ kingdom parables, and when we listen to those we know we’re not in the world as we know it. It’s like a parallel universe, this kingdom of God in the parables, or like a dream—this mixture of what is very familiar and what is very strange. It starts out like something from the world we do know—a vineyard and a landowner who needs help, so he goes out “early in the morning” to hire laborers. It reminded me of a scene I used to see early in the morning when I drove to my job in northern Virginia. At a big chain drugstore near the highway, there was always a long line of day laborers waiting in the parking lot. They stood against the wall, talked, and smoked as they waited. Every few minutes, trucks would drive up and a few of them would go off to work. And though I didn’t hear it, I’m sure there was some discussion about what they would be paid—just as there is here in the parable, which says that the landowner agrees to pay them the usual daily wage. This landowner apparently doesn’t get all the workers he needs the first time around, since he goes back around 9 o’clock and finds others waiting—“standing idle,” it says, which sounds like a hint of judgment, or maybe it’s a note of compassion, or just an observation. He hires them too, promising “I will pay you whatever is right.” Twice more he comes back, looking for more workers. And then at five o’clock he returns again. “Why are you standing here idle all day?” he asks, which sounds now more like a judgment or an accusation—he’s calling them to account. They answer simply, “Because no one has hired us.” That’s good enough for the landowner, because without asking them for any references or requiring a drug test, he sends them into the vineyard with the others. An hour later—“when evening comes”—it’s the end of the work day and time for them to get paid. He has the manager line up all the workers, with the last hired workers at the head of the line, with the ones who were hired first bringing up the rear. Well, you can imagine that might lead to some complaining—the ones who have been working all day long have to stand at the end of the line to wait for their pay. Meanwhile, the ones who were last hired are probably surprised and relieved. After all, they’ve been standing on line longer, when you think about the whole day—they were standing on line for hours, waiting for work in the marketplace. Then, the manager starts paying them, and what they’re getting is obvious to all. Now this doesn’t sound like workplaces I’ve known. I remember the first real job I had, doing typing for the editorial office of a travel guide. In my first pay envelope there was a typed note on brightly colored paper, so I wouldn’t miss it, and the note said: “Please remember that it is not appropriate for you to discuss your salary with anyone else.” Maybe you’ve gotten this kind of notice and you know why some employers do this—they don’t want their workers comparing salaries. This employer, though, wants the workers at the end of the line to see what the others are getting. Back in the vineyard, the workers who came at five o’clock are getting the usual daily wage. Likely, they were surprised and happy—a whole day’s pay for a few hours of work! The manager goes down the line giving everyone the same pay. When the manager got to the end of the line, the ones who had worked all day were upset. We know what they had to say—“These 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.” Fair enough, right? But the landowner replies to one of them with this maddening logic: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?” well, they did agree to that, and they worked for it, and they got it. So what’s it to them that he pays the others the same? Well, you heard it in their complaint. Notice that they didn’t grumble to the landowner that he should have paid them MORE. No, they’re mad because others didn’t get less. “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us…” It makes them look pretty small, doesn’t it? But I’m guessing many of you have been there—I know I have. If you’re a kid with brothers and sisters, or someone who grew up with brothers and sisters, you probably developed that same assessing eye and easily outraged sense of justice, ever alert to make sure that you got what you thought you deserved—whether it was a good seat in the car or a fair serving of dessert or an equal share of your parents’ attention. I was the oldest kid in my family, and so that meant sometimes I had to go to the head of the line when it wasn’t a good place to be. My dad was a doctor, and he used to give us our vaccinations at home. I can remember the sense of dread I felt when I came home and smelled the rubbing alcohol that was open on the table in preparation, and then saw that my mother was boiling up the syringes and needles on the stove. Since I was the oldest, I had to go first, and I was supposed to set an example by taking my shot fearlessly and unflinchingly. Since I was the oldest, I had more responsibilities than my brothers—but I also had more privileges. I could stay up later, for one thing. But then my parents began to relax bedtimes for my two younger brothers, and they got to stay up as late as me. I felt bitterly wronged. It wasn’t that I wanted to stay up later myself—but it seemed terribly unjust that they could stay up as late as I did. If you’ve ever been in a workplace that has merit pay, you might have experienced something like this as an adult. In my own former workplace, a university, we had the worst battles over salary in the years when the raises were very small. Sometimes in those years, the department decided to give everyone the same raise. Some of us had the same response as the workers in the vineyard. It wasn’t just that the raise was small—it was the insult of handing out the same amount to everyone. Distributing it equally made people who thought of themselves as “first” equal to those who they considered “last.” As Christians, we too sometimes act like the workers in the vineyard. We go to church, we give, we help our neighbors, we pray—so shouldn’t we be at the head of the line? Surely we deserve to be in line ahead of those C and E members of our own church, and all those people who never go to church belong at the end of the line. The last will be first? Where’s the good news in this parable? Sure, it’s good news for anyone who thinks they might be at the back of the line…But what about people who figure they deserve to be at the head of the line? The good news is, that there’s enough love and grace for all of us. The good news is, we can stop worrying about who’s ahead of us and who’s behind us. Because I have a feeling that in the kingdom of God, there aren’t any lines. Here’s some kingdom geometry to think about. Imagine a line. Imagine taking the hand of the person next to you in line. Then imagine the first in line and the last in line moving around to take hands. A circle. In a circle, no one is first and no one is last. We’re joined together. And when we look to the left and look to the right, we don’t see how many people are behind us and how many are ahead of us. We look across the circle and see our neighbors. We feel their hands holding ours, one on each side. And shoulder to shoulder we begin to know and share God’s extravagant love—enough for all of us. Thanks be to God.
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