“Forgiveness”

(Matthew 20:1-16)

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.  After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.  When he went out about 9:00 he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’  So they went.  When he went out again about noon and about 3:00, he did the same.  And about 5:00 he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’  They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’  He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’  When 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.’  When those hired about 5:00 came, each of them received a denarius.  Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius.  And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘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.’  But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius?  Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.  Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?  Or are you envious because I am generous?  So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

            You’ve heard me talk about parables before, but let me remind you, that, as they probably came from Jesus’ mouth, they were simple stories, not something that he interpreted for the people.  He did not intend them to be immediately broken down and explained.  I think we’re supposed to let the parable speak for itself, not immediately make judgements about who this character refers to or what this or that really means. 

The genius of the parables is that they are left up to us, the hearers, to allow them to sit in our minds and hearts and sprout and grow.  So, in this case, I encourage us all to resist the temptation to say, “Oh, the landowner is God or us, and the laborers are some whining folks or those who are trying to take money out of others’ pockets.”  Please take just a moment and sit with the story and see how it hits you.

            …What you may find is that you identify with the laborers who were hired at the beginning of the workday. They are the ones who witnessed the landowner handing out the same amount of money that was agreed for their pay to the ones who only worked an hour.  The landowner gave everyone the same pay no matter what time they began.  Now the ones who worked the whole day, as they watched the other workers receive that denarius were maybe hoping that that would mean that they were gonna get a big bonus check!  But they didn’t.  At this point you may want to shout, “No fair!” 

But what really happens here is that the “normal” order of things has been called into question.  Everything has been turned upside down in this story.  What we expect to happen does not. 

            Then, what we hear at the end is the ultimate way that Jesus turns things on their head.  He says, “So the last will be first and the first will be last.”

            Now this statement is all well and good when we are the ones who consider ourselves last.  HEY! This is great!  We’re gonna be first!  But when we’re the ones who have worked the whole day through while the latecomers receive the same pay as us, we don’t want to be the first who are, then, considered the last.  Really, what’s the sense in all this….?  It doesn’t make sense.  It upends our world.  And that is what I see in this parable. 

            Something that happened this week has gotten me thinking about things we take for granted—things that get turned upside down, kind of like this parable.  I heard that the co-founder of the magazine, Rolling Stone, Jann Wenner is his name, has made some pretty terrible comments to the press. 

If you haven’t heard about it, Wenner has written a book that he has titled The Masters, Conversations with seven Rock ‘n Roll figures: Bono, Dylan, Garcia, Jagger, Lennon, Springsteen and Townshend. 

When confronted with the fact that there were no people of color or women included in the group that he called the masters, Wenner replied that he found those folks not articulate enough or not able to communicate on the level of the ones he did include.  This comment has been the talk of the media, and we have been shown the shocking reality of this man’s true character, what’s really going on in his head.  Even though he has since refuted his statement after all the uproar, it IS a peek into what goes on in an institution that has, supposedly been founded upon counter-culturalism, upon peace, love and Rock ‘n Roll and a new way of doing business.  Riiight….

            The thing that shook my foundation about this, other than the racist, misogynistic nature of his comments, was that Rolling Stone magazine has been the touchstone for Rock and Roll and those of us who grew up in the ‘60s.  For the reasons I mentioned, we were supposed to have a new vision for America, one in which all colors and genders were treated equally. 

Even though Wenner has not been involved in the magazine for a few years, he still is widely known in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Foundation.  So, what we assumed about these well-known institutions has been proven to be wrong.  They are just as corrupt and self-serving as any other outfit out there, just as racist and misogynistic as the rest of our world.  It kind of turned my world on its head for a bit.

Here’s another example of a world-upending happening.  It comes at it from a little different perspective.  You may not have heard of one of this church’s matriarchs.  Her name was Martha Mayer.  She is Nancy James’ aunt, by the way.  …Now, Martha was born in 1910, one of the eight children of her parents who were part of our church.  She graduated from Boston High School and, then, attended a business college in Akron.  This was a big undertaking for a young woman in the late 20s.  Everyday she had to find rides to go back and forth from Peninsula to the city.  Eventually she graduated with a business degree just in time to witness the bottom falling out as the Great Depression hit.  

So, what did a smart young woman with a business degree do at that point?  Well, she got a job at the Jaite Bag Company down the valley.  That’s the area on the corner of Riverview and Vaughn Roads where these days you see the park buildings.  I can imagine back in the 30’s it was a bit rougher place where they would have used the river for power.  Now, the young women who were working there were paid for piece work.  That means they were supposed to show up, but if there was no work, there was no pay. 

Martha and a friend of hers at the mill thought that was unfair.  They had heard about unions, so they decided to try to organize one at the Jaite Paper Mill.  Amazingly, they were successful.  This was a real David and Goliath scenario. 

The rest of the story is good too.  Martha, at the end of the depression, got a job in the accounting department at the VA in Cleveland.  She made her way up the ladder, working in Brecksville and, then, was sent to Washington, DC where she was in charge of creating the budget for the whole Veterans’ Administration.  Small town girl makes good, huh?  She retired in 1980, came back to Peninsula and served as our church’s treasurer for a number of years. 

I think this story turns our understanding of the way the world works on its head, in a different way than the Rolling Stone story, of course, but world upending nonetheless.  Two young women in the 1930s exert their God-given power and change the way a company works. 

   …So, back to our scripture text.  This parable does not have a simple, easy answer.  It is open-ended, for sure.  Now, Matthew attempts to simplify it for his community, but there is no simplifying here.  It’s complicated.  The story is intended to turn our way of understanding the world upside down; the way the workers were paid disturbs our perception of work and its rewards.  The parable just refuses to have a simple solution.  It is a reading for adults who must sit down and do the prayer work that gives us the opportunity to let the Spirit guide us through it.

            Now, the Church often leaves this parable alone because, frankly, it’s a little uncomfortable.  Either that or we come up with a glib explanation like God treats us all equally, regardless.  That’s kind of how I’ve been reading it over these past 40 years.  This time, though, I’ve allowed it to challenge me. 

The truth is that our Christian faith does challenge us to see things in a different way.  It does turn our usual manner of seeing upside down.  The Gospel way is different than the world’s way.  Our Savior was a suffering servant who, himself, washed his followers’ feet rather than letting them take care of him.  He gave himself up for the cause, for us, rather than fighting back, rather than playing the game the world’s way. 

            So, I see the action, the rhetoric, of the Rolling Stone’s co-founder as just another way that the people Jesus stood up for are overlooked, disparaged and unrecognized, kept in the place of second-class citizens.  It’s another way that the underdogs are made invisible, even those who are the underpinning of the Rock world.  The white men who Wenner idolizes are only standing on the shoulders of the African-American blues geniuses.  And, then, to add insult to injury, he insinuates that they are not worth his time to recognize.  Ridiculous!

             And to my other point.  The formation of the union at the Jaite Bag Company was a way to give the ordinary person a voice. 

            Jesus always stood up for the underdogs, and that was world shaking enough at that time.  He called to accountability the religious leaders who held the world’s power.  He called out the ones with all the money and compared them unfavorably to someone like the widow in the synagogue who gave her last penny to God’s work. 

            You see, the parable turns our thinking upside down so that the scales will fall off our own eyes, and we can be given the opportunity to see clearly where the power is out of balance.  We can see how Jann Wenner has been creating a reality for all of us in which his disparaging people of color and women has become, somehow, believable….

            The parable turns our world view upside down so that we can begin to see how the little people have lost their power in the way our world often works.

            …So, how can we take home a lesson here today?  Well, for starters, let Jesus turn your life upside down.  I mean it, don’t always let the world’s values determine who you are and how you act.  Look at the world from the vantage point of Jesus.  Ask what would Jesus do in any situation?  Allow yourself to think outside the sensible, logical box sometimes.  Have some fun with that, even when someone mentions that your common sense may have gone out the window!  And let’s continue this conversation.  I don’t purport to have the last word on this text.  Let me hear what you think.  Let’s keep this conversation going. 

Now let’s pray:  God be with us as we take on the challenges in our world, the challenges that Jesus gives us so that we can make a difference, not only in the lives of people, but also in our institutions.  Thank you for staying beside us in this journey and for guiding us, in Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen.     

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