Jonah 3:10-4:11
Psalm 145:1-8
Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16
I once heard a story about a pastor who assigned a huge project for his confirmation students. It was based on the Small Catechism and the Bible, and it was the year-end project, and if the students didn’t get a passing grade on it, they wouldn’t be confirmed. So students, and their parents, drove themselves nuts trying to get it done, parents driving around town to get the appropriate materials and staying up until midnight with their kids just trying to get it finished. You know how it is when your kids have a huge school project. So the day came when they all had to hand in their projects, and they all gathered in the church confirmation room, and without even looking at the projects, the pastor said to the students, and to their listening parents, "That’s fine. You all get an A."
Can you imagine?!? Now this actually happened - this is a true story - but can you imagine? Some of the parents were actually quite angry - they were the ones who had driven their kids around town and stayed up half the night. Some of the students were quite relieved - the ones who hadn’t put much effort into it and didn’t care much about confirmation anyway.
But, really, can you blame the pastor? Was there any better way for him to convey the whole concept of justification and grace than by doing this? Was there any more concrete way of explaining the parable that we heard today than this?
Now, I have to be honest - as wonderful and gracious and oh-yay-isn’t-it-nice as today’s parable is, I’m not sure how much I would like it in real life. After all, I was one of those kids who used to hate group projects - it drove me nuts that everybody in the group got the same mark, but not everybody did the same amount of work. I was always the keener - the one who wanted the A, and so I was always the one who put in the most work, and picked up for people when they dropped the ball, and it just ticked me off that other people in the group, who did pretty much nothing, would get the same mark as me.
So really, when it comes down to it, I can identify with the grumbling workers who had slaved away all day only to be upstaged by the johnny-come-latelies. I know why they were upset that the others got paid the same amount as them when they had gotten up early to get ready for work and stayed out all day in the sun.
I can identify with Jonah, from our Old Testament reading, who was resentful that the violent, morally-challenged, atheist residents of Nineveh were about to be saved by God. I can understand why he took off in the opposite direction from Nineveh, boarded a boat, and then tried to drown himself rather than bring God’s mercy to such an undeserving bunch.
And I’m pretty darn sure that I’m not alone. Who of you hasn’t been annoyed, however much you might try to suppress it, when someone who put in fewer hours than you got the same Christmas bonus? Who hasn’t been annoyed when you’ve slaved away at some particular responsibility, cleaning the church on Arbour Day, for example, and someone who showed up at the last minute and barely lifted a finger ends up getting thanked in the same group as you? Who hasn’t been annoyed when your hand-crafted, thoughtfully made birthday present gets the same "aw, gee, thanks" as the predictable gift certificate? We’ve all been there, right next to Jonah and the grumbling vineyard workers, annoyed that those who didn’t deserve it got the same reward as us.
But my suspicion is that we’ve all also been at the other end of things. That is, we’ve also been in the place of the workers who weren’t hired until the end of the day and were extraordinarily grateful to get paid for a full day. We’ve had those times when we’ve made a huge mistake at work, one that deserves to get us fired, and the boss turns around and says, "That’s okay, I’m not going to dock your salary. And you’ll still get your bonus." And we’re so overwhelmed by her generosity because we need that bonus to pay off the bills so the interest doesn’t build up. And of course, who doesn’t remember a time when they were a kid, and they did something bad right before Christmas, but then, under the Christmas tree, lo and behold, there’s a present from Santa - and not the coal kind. Who hasn’t been in a situation where you’ve been so thankful for undeserved generosity?
Of course, we’ve also been in the place of the Ninevites who really didn’t deserve mercy, whom Jonah was right to try and avoid. We’ve had those times when we’ve hurt someone we love, and when we know we don’t deserve forgiveness from them, but they turn around and offer it anyway. We’ve been in those situations where we’ve shirked some responsibility that we know we’re supposed to do, and the person in charge said, "Oh, well, that’s okay," and everything went on as it was before. We know what it’s like to be desperately in need of mercy and understanding, and hopefully we know what it’s like to receive it.
It’s interesting - how we react to the story of the vineyard workers, or the story of Jonah and the Ninevites is directly influenced by who we see ourselves as in those stories. But here’s the thing. In God’s eyes, we are all like the labourers who showed up at the end of the day. You see, not one of us is an all-day worker in God’s vineyard, so to speak. Not one of us works flat-out, from morning to evening, at being good Christians - at loving our neighbour, welcoming strangers, practicing unconditional forgiveness. We may start out our day with the best of intentions, but along the way, we slip, we get tired, and by the end of the day we know that, if we’re lucky, we’ve only put in a couple of hours at being a good Christian, never mind a whole day. And so we don’t deserve the same pay, the same reward that those who’ve worked all day do. We don’t deserve God’s forgiveness. And yet, there you go - it’s yours. It doesn’t make sense. After all in God’s eyes, we’re all like the corrupt Ninevites who Jonah turned his back on. We sin, we hurt others, we turn our back on God. We don’t deserve mercy. And yet, there you go - it’s yours.
And that’s because God is, as Jonah says, "a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing." God is, according to Jesus’ description, generous to all, regardless of how hard you’ve worked for it. God did, after all, send Jesus to die for us, even though we could never be thankful enough for it. God does, after all, send the Holy Spirit to us in baptism, even though we could never hope to live up to what that means. And God will welcome us all into the presence of God when we die, even though none of us will come even close to deserving it.
So it turns out that I do like that pastor’s idea of giving an A to all the students no matter what. It turns out that I do like the idea of group projects where everybody gets the same mark. Now I don’t know what the world would look if we actually operated on the same principles as the landowner of the vineyard. I don’t know how things would work if we went out and practiced the same kind of overly generous mercy that God does. For one thing, it would probably be dreadfully chaotic. Some people might take advantage of the system. Certain things might not get done the way they should, that’s true. People would get more credit than they deserve, and other people might have to pick up the slack. But I know one thing for sure - it would look like the kingdom of heaven. And I can’t say that that’s something that would upset me. After all, when it come to God’s classroom, and God’s group project that we’re all a part of, we all deserve a failing grade. Thanks be to God, then, that we all get an A. Amen.
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