"When the evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his supervisor, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.' "

 

            I used to listen to a sportscaster named Wayne Cody, who would talk about taking trips to Las Vegas, which he called "Lost Wages." I thought that worked well as a title today. The workers in the vineyard were not gambling away their wages, but they were concerned about them, and some felt they had lost some wages when those who worked just one hour, or a few hours, received the same as those who worked the full twelve hours.

            Jesus is bold to tell a story about people who work for wages. Such a story would immediately raise anxiety in the crowd of listeners. I think life has always been hard for those who work for an hourly wage. Klyne Snodgrass explains that in Jesus' day laborers were overworked and abused. For a twelve hour day in the hot Palestinian sun they were paid one denarius. If a laborer could get 200 such days of work in a year he could stay just above the poverty line. Because landowners tended to exploit these workers, the Old Testament records a number of laws intended to bring some minimum justice to their lives.

Deuteronomy 24:14-15: "Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy . . . Pay him his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and counting on it."

            Today we are aware of great numbers of people in the world trying to survive on $1 a day. In our own community we are aware of many people who work for hourly wages in service businesses who must add a second or third job in the evening or on weekends in order to pay the rent. It has always been hard for people who work for wages, whether the agricultural workers who come from Mexico and Central America and follow the crops each year, or in past years the people from China brought in to build railroads, or the Irish and other immigrant groups who went to work in the factories of New England at wages well below the cost of living. So Jesus tells a parable about people who work for wages, and you can feel the emotion in his audience, among those who understand the stress of that life.

            Last year when I preached on this parable, I focused on the figure of the landowner, and said that God is like a righteous landowner, who at great personal cost and trouble, employs all the idle workers and pays them a full days wage, so that the whole community is fed, and no children in that village go to bed hungry on that night. Klyne Snodgrass points out that indeed this landowner is giving his possessions to the poor, just as Jesus asked the rich young man to do.

            Today I would like to look at the story again, but this time with the focus on the workers. This is an economy in crisis. People are standing around idle. There is no work, and so no wages. To still have people standing idle at the 11^th hour means the workers are getting desperate. If they had any reserves at all, surely they would have gone home and tried for a full day of work the next day. But they stay, which means they are willing to work an hour for 1/12^th of a denarius. So they are feeling the pressure of idleness, which is a greater burden than bearing the heat of the day in the fields.

            At the end of the day, all the workers get paid an equal amount. That is hard for some to accept. Those who worked all day feel stressed because their work was not rewarded at a higher level. They become envious of the one-hour workers, they grumble and complain. Their complaint comes from comparing themselves with the ones who worked less. They no longer trust the landowner.

            Snodgrass summarizes, "The parable focuses on the goodness of the owner and the envy of those who thought they should get more."

            There are two words here for us as we apply this to life in the kingdom of God. First we notice in the parable that the idle are sent into service, and all of them go. None choose to be idle, or uninvolved in the harvest. Jesus sees those who are idle in the Kingdom, those who seem to have nothing to do. He calls them into discipleship and places them in service. Jesus is the good shepherd who seeks the lost sheep, he is the one who announces Jubilee to those in debt, he is the one who sends the idle into service and pays their wage.

            So we must ask ourselves, "am I one of the idle ones in the kingdom? If so, do I want to be sent into the field with the same sense of urgency that the lost sheep has who wants to be found? Do I want to serve Christ with the same whole hearted cry of the one who needed to have his debt forgiven?"

Thursday I attended a forum put on by Lake County Catalyst. One of the speakers was Kevin Ford. He spoke on some of the things that hold us back in the church. The main one was a culture of consumerism. He defined consumerism as "when my consumption outweighs my contribution." The parable teaches us that the provision of God is found in the service of God. It is unthinkable that any laborers in the marketplace would ignore the landowner's invitation to work in his field.

            The second point that comes to us from the workers in the vineyard, is that there is no place for envy, competition or comparing one with another among the followers of Jesus. The first workers begin to complain and feel envious towards the last ones. This envy is not based on being unfairly treated by the owner. It is solely because they began to compare themselves with others. Envy is displeasure because of someone else's success. It has no place in the Kingdom of God. Jealousy is based on a system of ranking who is most important. As the disciples found out, Jesus would have no part in such schemes.

            So, as we focus on stewardship these weeks, we think about how we give, how we serve, how we pray, how we lead.

• If you could remove all comparing of yourself to others, how would your life change in this church?
• Would you pray more if you did not worry that someone else knows how to pray better than you?
• Would you give at a different level if you did not compare yourself to one who is able to give a larger amount?
• Would you get involved in a ministry if you were not afraid that someone would criticize you or look down on you?
• Could we humbly and persistently ask the Holy Spirit to remove all envy, jealousy, criticism and comparing one with another from our fellowship?

            Then we think about our place as a church in a community of churches. We live in a region that is filled with really good churches. Some are large and some are small. Some are contemporary and some are traditional. God has truly blessed this region with very effective churches. Now there is a significant movement among the churches to work together, and especially to serve the larger community together. This is not an attempt to become like each other. The concept that is used is to become a mosaic that shows a picture of Christ to the community.

            Can we enter into this time of cooperation without a spirit of competition, without feeling envious of what others have or do, without feeling we have to keep up with all the others?

            Could we be a voice in a larger choir, for the glory of God?

            Could we be one light in a community of lights without feeling diminished?

            Can we trust the goodness of God, and look to him to provide for our needs?

            Amen.