Proper
19 :: Exodus 16: 2–15 ; Psalm 105: 1–6, 37–45 ; Philippians 1: 21–30 ; Matthew
20: 1–16
This is the homily by Fr.
Gene Tucker that was given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday,
September 24, 2017.
“GRUMBLING AND GRACE”
(Homily texts: Exodus 16:
2–15 & Matthew 20: 1-16)
Isn’t
it a wonder that God continues to show His grace and mercy to us human beings,
even when we are consumed with self-centered grumbling?
In
essence, that is the gist of both our Old Testament lesson from Exodus, and
Jesus’ Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard.[1]
In
the Exodus situation, God’s people grumble because they find themselves in the wilderness,
wishing to return to the (supposedly) good things they had in Egypt, because –
in the wilderness – they are wondering how they are going to eat.
In
the parable, Jesus paints a picture of workers who have been hired to go into a
vineyard to work. But when it came time to pay all of the laborers at the end
of the workday, the landowner paid those who’d been hired near the end of the
day the same wage as those who’d worked the entire day.
Each
case presents us with common, everyday encounters: For God’s people in the
wilderness, it is natural and even necessary to wonder how they are going to
survive in that harsh environment….for us, we wonder how we will have those
things that we need in order to survive. In the parable, it is normal to expect
that workers will be fairly treated, for hiring someone and having those hired
agree to work involves a contract of sorts, whether that contract is spelling
out in writing, or if it is an oral agreement (as in Jesus’ parable).
Generally, our expectations are that those who work harder or longer will be
compensated according to their efforts or their time spent. This last point is
true especially if the conditions of hiring are based on an hourly wage.
It’s
worth looking at some of the details of both situations:
Apparently,
God’s people in the wilderness are suffering from amnesia, for – though they
long for the “flesh pots” in Egypt – their memories are a bit selective: They
are forgetting that things weren’t so good in Egypt, for they endured hard
labor at the hands of the Egyptians….they were slaves, in other words.
Now,
Jesus – who is a master storyteller – lays out a scenario in which the workers
are hired first agree to work for the “usual daily wage”, which, in Jesus’ day,
was one denarius per day[2]. Those
hired later on agree to work for “whatever is right”. (Notice this fine point
in Jesus’ tale.)
In
both cases, a test is involved.
In
the wilderness experience, God tells Moses that He intends to test the people
by giving them food to eat (which is manna), and then, quail. The instructions
about the manna are explicit: The manna will appear in the morning each day for
six days, but on the sixth day, there will be a double portion, which God’s
people are to gather up and keep for use on the seventh day, that is, the
Sabbath day. The manna which falls on the six days is not to be kept overnight,
but the manna which falls on the sixth day will provide a double portion, and
will last until the seventh day. Therein lies the test.
Of
course, we know how this test plays out: The people gathered a measure (an omer) of manna, but were told not to
leave it until the next morning. The reason for this stipulation was to test
whether or not the people would trust God to provide more manna for them the
next morning. When some tried to keep the manna overnight, it spoiled and
became filled with worms.
Likewise,
in the parable, the test involves the agreement between the landowner and the
workers, those who were hired after the beginning of the day, who the landowner
hired at a wage that was “whatever is right”. The test is greater for those who
were hired last, for, if they relied on their normal life’s experience, would
not have expected that it would be worthwhile to work for an hour or so.
Nevertheless, they went out to work anyway.
The
Church to whom Matthew may have been writing was composed (many biblical
scholars today agree) of both Jews and Gentiles. Those who were not born as
children of Abraham, but who had come to faith in Jesus later on, may have felt
that they were latecomers to being a Christian believer. Today’s parable may
have been the source of great comfort to them, for the latecomers in the
parable are rewarded just the same way as those who had worked earlier on.
Holy
Scripture presents us with challenges. One of those challenges involves the
question, “What is God trying to tell us in these stories and accounts?” Put
another way, we could ask ourselves, “What in the experience of these ancient
peoples can we learn from and apply to our own walk with God?”
Perhaps
the lesson to be gained, and the truth to be applied to our own lives from
today’s appointed readings is this: God’s grace and goodness are God’s alone to
give. Given the lack of faith that God’s people had shown in their trek out of
Egypt and into the wilderness, God didn’t owe them a thing. Yet God preserved
His people by giving them food to eat, just as He had already preserved His
people by making it possible for them to cross the Red Sea. In the same way,
Jesus’ parable points out the goodness and generosity of God, who gives His
blessing and His gifts not because He has to, but because He wants to, and not
in direct measure to our efforts.
One
final point is in order: In Jesus’ day, Judaism was caught up in measuring how well
people were keeping the Law of Moses. And part of that score-keeping involved
relying on God to reward people in relation to their faithfulness. One example
of this sort game of “If I do this for
you, you owe me _____” can be found in the expectation in those days was that
if a person was healthy and/or wealthy, then that person’s condition must be
due to that person’s faithful living. Some of Jesus’ parables deal directly
with this mistaken notion.
We
can’t keep score with God, for to do so raises the possibility that we will be
trying to earn God’s favor by what we do. We can only earn God’s favor in one
way, and that way involves giving up ourselves to God, in order for God to
remold and remake us, so that we can be effective witnesses to God’s goodness
in the world about us. God will reward us for that faithful work, but according
to God’s reckoning, not ours. What we can be sure of, and what our readings
today tell us, is that God is a generous God, showering His people will
blessings which cannot be numbered.
We
have a wonderful prayer (collect) in our Book of Common Prayer which captures
the sense of all this. It can be found on page 394, and is one of the collects
which can be used after the Prayers of the People. It reads:
“Heavenly Father, you have promised to
hear what we ask in the Name of our son: Accept and fulfill our petitions, we
pray, not as we ask in our ignorance, nor as we deserve in our sinfulness, but
as you know and love us in your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
[1] Matthew alone records this parable for us.
[2] The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of
the Bible substitutes the word “denarius” which is found in the Greek text for
the phrase “usual daily wage”, probably because most contemporary readers will
not know that the denarius was the daily wage 2,000 years ago.
