Season of Creation 3

I wish I had better news for you today, but I don’t.  The truth is this: the Gospel is not fair.  Jesus tells this parable where the hardest workers don’t get paid more according to their hard work.  It feels like people are getting good things that they don’t deserve.  And we live in a world where people also get bad things they don’t deserve.  What kind of justice is this? 

I suppose this is to be expected from the God who sustained the people of Israel through the wilderness on a diet of daily manna.  You remember that story, right?  Fresh out of Egypt, newly released from slavery, the people of God are about to starve in the wilderness when God saves the day with manna, the Hebrew word for “what is it?”  Everyone had to painstakingly gather the manna, this bread-like substance, every morning. 

They couldn’t spend more time gathering manna on one day and store it until the next day because it would rot overnight.  The only exception was on the day before the Sabbath—then, they could gather two days’ worth of manna, so that on the Sabbath everyone could have a rest.  God provided daily bread for the people, and it was still a struggle to have faith that God would provide.  Read Exodus if you want more of that story. 

But this is the origin story of God’s people: God calls people out of enslavement and into freedom, which can mean new and difficult circumstances, and God provides what is needed at every step along the way.  There’s no storing up more so that you don’t have to work later.  There’s only receiving what is needed for today. 

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is frequently referring back to Israel’s origins, reflecting on the laws of Moses by giving the Beatitudes—blessings instead of rules.  Instead of “you shall” or “you shall not,” Jesus says “blessed are the people.” 

And when Jesus’s disciples ask him how they should pray, Jesus gives them words, which we still say today, in much the same way.  And among those words, Jesus tells his disciples to pray “Give us this day our daily bread.”  Think about that a minute.  Daily bread. 

We’re not praying “Give us this day our daily dividend for the work we did before.”  We’re not praying “Give us this day our earned compensation.”  We’re not praying “Give us this day our confident future.”  We’re praying “Give us today what we need for today.” 

And suddenly, as annoying as it is to hear about people working all day for the same amount of money as the people who worked for the least amount of time, we have to grudgingly admit that everyone got what was needed for that day.  That’s the value of a denarius in Jesus’s time: pay for a day’s work, enough to live. 

The clue in the parable about where things went wrong is in the words of the ones who worked the longest hours: “You have made them equal to us.”  That’s the hard part, isn’t it?  The expectation that your hard work or your ability should afford you more, more privileges, more wealth of choices.  And in this parable, we’re left with the haunting words of the vineyard owner: “Are you envious because I am generous?” 

I kinda want to respond: YEAH, yeah I AM envious!  It isn’t fair to work hard and not be rewarded!  Lots of things aren’t fair, and my ability to work and bear the heat of the day isn’t fair to the person who was born with physical disabilities, isn’t fair to the person who has been injured and is no longer able to work even though they want to.  And does God stop caring for the ones who can’t work?  Nope.  God does call us to reckon with our own expectations, to call us once more to put ourselves last so that someone else can go first.  This is the kin-dom of God. 

Father Charles Strobel was a Catholic priest who lived in Nashville, Tennessee, serving people in poverty and advocating for the unhoused and even providing shelter and support.  In his memoir, The Kingdom of the Poor, he writes this:

“I was raised in North Nashville, where the poor worked for the poor.  That’s how we got by.  We took care of each other.  And so everyone was basically content and happy.  Our shared poverty drove us toward one another, not away. 

“What do I mean by shared poverty?  More than an economic condition, it’s the awareness that we cannot be happy all by ourselves.  This is our poverty, and all the riches in the world won’t erase it.

“I have always believed our real enemy is denying our shared poverty, which leads to a lack of understanding of and empathy for one another.  That’s what’s driving this country and this world apart today.

“What can bring us together?

“I believe we come together when we embrace the poor, when we accept that we all start in the exact same place—the day of our birth.  Each of us comes into the world blood-red, naked, weak, vulnerable, and dependent on others for survival.  Everything else—from pigmentation to possessions to power to prestige—is irrelevant in the face of this shared poverty.

“When we forget this basic truth, we end up fighting for our own survival rather than helping each other survive.  We forget to be decent and kind.

“Blessed are those who know abundance and share it freely.  They will have no regrets.[1]

Strobel also tells about a family in his neighborhood that impacted him greatly even though he didn’t know them well.  He writes,

“They lived behind the house next door to us in a horse barn that had been converted into a two-room tarpaper shack.  I remember seeing the father get up at dawn every morning to work his day job delivering coal.  He’d come home around six and after supper, he’d leave again to work as a janitor until midnight.  He did this six days a week but was never able to make enough money to get his family out of that horse barn and buy or rent a real house. 

“So as I was growing up and heard people say poor people were lazy and didn’t want to work, that was not my experience, my frame of reference, at all.

“Blessed are those we call poor.  Their life is of the highest value.”[2]

In another chapter, he revisits this concept of what it means to experience poverty of self:

“For as soon as we become honest and aware of what it means to live and breathe and embrace the gift of a new day dawning that comes as a total gift, not as our entitlement, we have to come to grips with poverty—not as something to avoid, but as something essential to living a life of love. Spiritual writings over the centuries say there is no possible conversion unless one experiences a poverty of self…

“As we gather possessions, power, and prestige, we begin to separate, creating all kinds of differences of class and status.  Although almost everyone believes in the necessity of possessions, the differences they create inspire extreme competition, rivalry, and war.  From the cultural existence of nations, states, tribes, clans, castes, and social classes to the more informal groupings in congregations, clubs, associations, businesses, and teams, our separation can diminish our realization of this divine truth proclaimed from the beginning: We share a common humanity.  We share a common poverty.

“But understanding ourselves as the [poor] establishes an equality among us that can lead to the greatest blessing imaginable—human kindness.  Rather that allowing our riches to divide us, we can discipline ourselves to recognize how each of us is the same.  We can be united in a poverty that yields a generosity of spirit.”[3]

There are enough resources on this planet to support every person who is alive today, and probably even more people.  God provides what is needed for every day.  Can you believe this?  Are you grateful because God is generous? 

Amen. 

Pastor Cheryl

[1] Charles Strobel, The Kingdom of the Poor: My Journey Home, Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 2024, page 25.

[2] Ibid page 26. 

[3] Ibid pages 50-51.