Sometimes Generosity...

 

Text: Matthew 20:1-16

Focus: Envy

Function: To help us be happy about grace

20:¹“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ²After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. ³When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, ⁴and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. ⁵When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. ⁶And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ ⁷They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ ⁸When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ ⁹When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received a denarius. ¹⁰Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. ¹¹And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ¹²saying, ‘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.’ ¹³But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? ¹⁴Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. ¹⁵Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

The goal I have for this sermon is to help us be happy about grace given to others, even if we don’t think they deserve it, or we deserve it more. I suppose, in a negative way, Jesus gives this story to help us overcome envy in our spirits. Sometimes generosity leads to envy.

But before I start that. I want to refer back to last week’s sermon on forgiveness because Kathy asked me to clarify something that I said.

This biblical, theological concept, was newer to me when I first heard it because I was raised with a god of retributive justice instead of the God whose justice is restorative and redemptive.

R. Scot Miller introduced me to the meaning of John 20:23 where Jesus gives us the authority to forgive sins.

Brother Miller emphasized the fact that in order for them to be forgiven, we have to forgive them.

So, I explained to Kathy, even if we think what they are doing is sin, forgive them and God will forgive them.

People may ask why that is necessary. Well, the Christian faith is all about reconciliation with God and people and God has given us the command and the power as the the Church to reconcile the world to God and others.

Reconciliation is biblical. The power and the command to do it comes from this passage, 2 Corinthians:5:17-19: ^17-19what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God (then) has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them.

Brother Paul explains his own missionary call and why he gave up the ease and comfort of his authoritative position as a Pharisee to travel the world, raising his own funds to start churches across the Mediterranean.

And we too as ambassadors of Christ are given the task of reconciling people to God and each other through the power of the forgiveness of sins.

I am calling for boldness with this passage. God wants us in community with each other and in order to do that we must be reconciled and we have the power to forgive the sin that we think the other person has. Forgive them because according to this text, God already has through Jesus.

The text says that God forgave their sins. There is a period there and we cannot add to grace our conditions. If we want relationship, then we have the power from God to forgive them.

And if we forgive them, God will also.

Anyway, back to the parable. It is about the generous nature of God’s grace and the people who grumble against it.

People who get saved on a deathbed after living a life in rebellion to God’s love are just as saved as a person who was born again at the very young age of 4. Well, we are constantly being born again as the Spirit of God moves us from level to level of faith.

Every Sunday I hope my preaching inspires you to grow deeper and deeper in your love for God and each other.

I don’t really need to sum the parable. But I notice a few things.

Those who worked all day received a living wage. The landowner was not stingy with his wages at the beginning. They were glad for the chance to work.

He was righteous. or just, because he paid a living wage.

And the landowner wasn’t afraid of being accused of rewarding laziness. When he returned several times and hired more workers the text says that he had mercy on them.

He was a righteous man because he paid everyone a living wage, and because he acted with mercy over profit.

Jesus, in this parable, exposes the human condition of envy and confronts it in the upside down kingdom way by being generous with everyone regardless of why.

The landowner saw their need.

Jesus sees our need and forgives us and welcomes us into his family.

And as we have been seeing about mercy, we were given mercy, we must extend it.

So, do we grumble against generosity?

Sometimes generosity doesn’t seem fair.

Almost every day, my first Uber ride is at the methadone clinic on Poe ave just down the road from where I get my VW serviced.

Anyway, I was meeting Kathy at the car dealership to get my warranty inspection done and accidentally gave her the address for the Meth clinic instead of the dealership!

I was having a laugh about it with the Service manager who then questioned how drug addicts can afford Uber.

And my response was not nice to the poor and I told him that our tax dollars were paying for the rides.

And, like many of us, he was offended at the generosity. And I was too, initially.

Sometimes Generosity leads us to envy. I left the last part of that our of the sermon title because I didn’t want it to be negative. But sometimes generosity leads us to think beyond ourselves into what others need, not to what we have.

Now, I didn’t say he was offended at the practice, I said he was offended at the generosity.

There really is two sides to the issue. Ubers are a lot cheaper than Medical Transport companies or taxis, so we are saving the taxpayer money.

But I wish I pointed out to him that they were paying my salary and I was paying his salary and the benefits given to the poor, this generosity given to the poor, was money that wasn’t being hoarded in an offshore tax dodge by some rich person, but money that goes right back into the economy, is taxed and then stimulates more growth.

I hope I didn’t get just political. As I tried to mention the validity of the issue from both sides. The Service Manager feels squeezed by his tax burden, I understand that.

That is why I love living in a democracy. People who disagree with the practice can exercise their right to vote for a candidate that they believe will vote their values on the issue.

I mentioned the difference between calling these social benefits “generosity” or “practices” is a way of biasing the hearer toward the direction they want them to choose.

If I imply that wanting to stop the practice means that you are not generous, then I have been manipulative. So, I give you the option.

So Jesus ends the parable with the conclusion: “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.”

That is why I said Jesus’ answer was an upside down kingdom kind of response to forgiveness and the rest of our Christian lives.

In the parable, the last, who got a very generous amount for a little bit of work, became the first ones to get paid.

That doesn’t seem fair.

The only conclusion I can make is that Jesus is telling us that envy robs us of our sense of blessing and contentment.

They were happy with the deal at the start of the day. Why knows? Maybe they did something unfair to beat our those others who didn’t get hired? Who knows why the first were made to be last and the last to be first except that it is God’s prerogative to be generous with grace and God calls us to be happy about it for others.

Lord have mercy on the times we are envious and forgive us.