17 Pentecost
September 24, 2023
Jonah 3.10-4.11; Matthew 20. 1-16
+ I’ve been pretty open about this inmy own life, but, as some of you know, I struggle with anxiety.
Sometimes my anxiety is a verydifficult thing in my life.
For years, I thought I had depression.
But only a few years ago, I found outthat it was anxiety I had.
Anxiety is an insidious thing!
For me, it often manifests itself witha real sense of dread, that settles into my chest or in my gut, and no matterhow hard I try, I just cannot shake it.
Or it sometimes manifests as a sense thatevery one dislikes me.
Essentially, anxiety feels like a darkpall covers everything, and everything has a razor-sharp edge.
And I know I am not alone here at St.Stephen’s.
I know others also suffer from this.
And for any of us who have anxiety, weno doubt found ourselves relating to poor Jonah in our reading from the Hebrewscriptures today.
Poor Jonah!
One moment it seems like God isblessing him.
The next minute it seems like God hascursed him.
Jonah is mad that God changed God’s mind,that the people Jonah thought should be punished were not.
And then what happens, the tree thatGod gave him with shade was killed by the worm God sent to kill the tree.
The sun scalded him and the heat burnedhim.
And Jonah, stuck in this anxious,stubborn ways, is forced to live with a world in which everything seems to turnagainst him.
The gist of this story is that anxiousJonah, stuck in his anxious way, is upset over the fact that God is beingunfair.
The people who Jonah feels should bepunished are not, while Jonah is being punished.
And he’s so angry about it, he is so caughtup in his anxiety, that he simply wants to die.
I hate to admit this, but I’ve beenthere.
I’ve been Jonah in my life.
I have raged at God many times overwhat I perceive to be an unfairness in this world.
And I know: that’s not a very adultthing to say.
Any of us who have made it to adulthoodhave learned, by now, that none of it is fair.
One of the biggest things we learn asadults is that life is not fair.
And no one promised us that it wouldbe.
Still, we do still cling to thatbelief.
Things should be fair.
A perfect world would be a fair world.
And when it comes to our relationshipwith God, fairness takes on even more of a meaning.
God should be fair, we think.
And it seems that when God is not fair,what do we do?
We rage.
We get angry.
God should be on our side on this one.
Right?
But, it seems, not always is God on ourside on some things.
The scale of fairness is not alwaystipped in our favor.
To put it in the context of our Gospelreading today, I often feel like one of the workers who has been working fromthe beginning of the work day.
The parable Jesus tells us this morningis, of course, not just a story about vineyard workers.
The story really, for us anyway, is allabout that sense of unfairness.
If you’re anything like me, when you heartoday’s Gospel—and you’re honest with yourself—you probably think: “I agreewith the workers who have been working all day: It just isn’t fair that theseworkers hired later should get the same wages.”
It’s not fair that the worker who onlyworks a few hours makes the same wages as one who has worked all day.
Few of us, in our own jobs, would standfor it.
We too would whine and complain.
We would strike out.
But the fact is: life is not fair.
Each of here this morning has beendealt raw deals in our lives at one point or another.
We have all known what it’s like to notget the fair deal.
We all have felt a sense of unfairnessover the raw deals of this life.
But, as much as we complain about it,as much as make a big deal of it, we are going to find unfairness in this life.
The story of the parable is thateveryone—no matter how long they’ve been laboring—gets an equal share.
And in Jesus’ ministry, that’s exactlywhat happens as well.
As one of my personal theologicalheroes, the great Reginald Fuller, once said of this parable: “[This] is whatGod is doing in Jesus’ ministry—giving the tax collectors and prostitutes anequal share with the righteous in the kingdom.”
The marginalized, the maligned, thesocial outcast—the least of these—all of them are granted an equal share.
To me, that sounds like the ministry weare all called to do as followers of Jesus.
To be a follower of Jesus is to striveto make sure that everyone gets a fair deal, even when we ourselves might notbe getting the fair deal.
And there’s the rub.
There’s the key.
Being a follower of Jesus meansstriving to make sure that all of us on this side of the “veil” get an equalshare of the Kingdom of God, even if we ourselves might not sometimes.
That is what we do as followers ofJesus and that is what we need to strive to continue to do.
But…it’s more than just striving for anequal share for others.
It also means not doing some things aswell.
What do we feel when we are treatedunfairly?
Jealousy?
Bitterness?
Anger?
Being a follower of Jesus means notletting jealousy and bitterness win out.
Because let me tell you: there is a LOTof anger and bitterness out there right now.
And that’s probably what we’re going tofeel when others get a good deal and we don’t.
Jealousy and envy are horriblycorrosive emotions.
They eat and eat away at us until theymakes us bitter and angry.
And jealousy is simply not somethingfollowers of Jesus should be harboring in their hearts.
Because jealousy can also lead us intoa place in which we are not striving for the Kingdom.
Those of us who are followers of Jesusare striving, always, again and again, to do the “right thing.”
But when we do, and when we realizethat others are not and yet they are still reaping the rewards, we no doubt aregoing to feel a bit jealous.
We, although few of us would admit it,are often, let’s face it, the “righteous” ones.
We the ones following the rules, we arethe ones striving to live our lives as “good” Christians.
We fast, we say our prayers faithfully,we tithe, we follow the rules, we do what we are supposed to do as goodChristians.
Striving for the equal share forpeople, means not allowing ourselves to get frustrated over the fact that thosepeople who do not do those things—especially those people whom we think don’tfollow the rules at all, those people who aren’t “righteous” by ourstandards—also receive an equal share.
It means not obsessing over the factthat, “It’s not fair.”
Even when it is unfair.
Because when we do those things, wemust ask ourselves a very important question (a question I ask a lot):
Why do we do what we do as Christians?
Do we do what we do so we can callourselves “righteous?”
So we can feel morally superior toothers?
Do we do what we do as Christiansbecause we believe we’re going to get some reward in the next life?
Do we do what do because we think Godis in heaven keeping track of all our good deeds like some celestial SantaClaus?
Do we do what do simply because wethink we will get something in return?
Do we do what we do so we can feel goodabout ourselves at the end of the day?
Or do we do what we do because doing somakes this world a better place?
This is the real key to Jesus’ messageto us.
Constantly, Jesus is pushing us andchallenging us to be a conduit.
He is trying to convince us that beinga Christian means being a conduit for the Kingdom of God and all the very goodthings that Kingdom represents.
In us, the Kingdom breaks through.
Without us, it simply will not.
We do what we do as Christians becausewhatever we do is a way in which the barriers that separate us here from Godand God’s world is lifted for a brief moment when we do what Jesus tells us todo.
When we live out the Law of loving Godand loving our neighbor as ourselves, the “veil” is lifted and when it islifted, the Kingdom comes flooding into our lives.
It does not matter in the least howlong we labor in allowing this divine flood to happen.
The amount of time we put into itdoesn’t matter in the least to God, because God’s time is not our time.
Rather, we simply must do what we arecalled to do when we are called to do it.
Jesus came to bring an equal share to aworld that is often a horribly unfair place.
And his command to us is that we alsomust strive to bring an equal share to this unequal world.
And that is what we’re doing asfollowers of Jesus.
As we follow Jesus, we do so knowingthat we are striving to bring about an equal share in a world that is oftenunfair.
We do so, knowing that we are sometimesswimming against the tide.
We do so, feeling at times, as thoughwe’re set up to fail.
We do so feeling, at times, overwhelmedwith the unfairness of it all.
And just when we think the unfairnessof this world has won out—in that moment—that holy moment—the Kingdom of Godalways breaks through to us.
And in that moment, we are the ones whoare able to be the conduit through which the God comes.
So, let us continue to do what we aredoing as followers of Jesus.
Let us strive to do even better.
In everything we do, let us attempt tolift that veil in our lives and by doing so, let us be the conduit throughwhich the Kingdom of God will flood into this unfair world.
And let us do together what Jesus iscalling us to do in this world
Let us love—fully and completely.
Let us love our God, let us love ourselves and let us neighbors as ourselves.
As we all know, it’s important to “come”here and share the Word and the Eucharist on Sundays.
But we also know that what we sharehere motivates us to go out into the world and actually “do” our faith.
As followers of Jesus, we are full ofhope—a hope given to us by a God who knows our future and who wants only goodfor us—God who really is a fair God!
Let us go forth with that hope and witha true sense of joy that we are doing what we can to make that future glorious.
Let us pray.
Holy God, you call us in our followingof your son to do the right thing and strive for fairness and equality in thisworld; help us to do just that, so that by doing so, we may be the conduitsthrough which your love comes forth into this world; we ask this in Jesus’Name. Amen.
