Over 120 years ago, a fictional Irish character, Mr. Dooley, was written by Finely Peter Dunne, and he penned one of the best summaries of the preacher’s job as he went into a rant about the state of newspapers these days. Christian leaders back in 1902, were quick to lift the phrase, “afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted,”[1] and apply it the role of the preacher in churches. And to take an even broader stance than that, it seems it may be the best way to describe Jesus’ parables, which inevitably both comfort and afflict. And I think the parable from today’s gospel is perhaps the best example Jesus afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted.
In this parable, the landowner comes to the marketplace to hire people to work in his vineyard; “go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right” is the instruction given to those who agree to labor in his vineyard. At the end of the day, he has his manager pay those who worked only hour receive their pay first; likely to their surprise, they received a full day’s wage for their short hour of work. When those who had worked from 9 till 6 came to receive their wage, they, after seeing how the landowner paid those who worked only part of the day, it seems, were expecting a wage more than the agreed upon daily wage. They were upset, and understandably so, because the landowner’s elaborate generosity is not how we expect landowners to act, but the kingdom of heaven is not a space in which our expectations are met.
When we pray the words of the Lord’s prayer, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” the sort of radical justice and generosity that we see in our gospel reading today is what we are praying that God bring about. When we pray for God’s kingdom to come upon this earth, our prayer is that the whole world, that all people, be treated with this sort of elaborate, abundant generosity. And when we take a moment to reflect on the reality of what we are asking God to do in this world, it hits us just how hard of a prayer this is to pray. It is easy, of course, for us to ask God’s generosity to be bestowed to us or to those whom we love. It might even be a little easy to ask that the abundance of God’s love and grace be known to those people we hardly know, but with whom we don’t quite get along. But to pray for this kind of grace for those with whom we struggle to be in relationship, or those who we feel may not value the same things we do, or to pray for those who only worked one hour, when we have worked nine, this is much more difficult. It is much harder to desire abundance for others when we perceive the distribution to be unfair.
I’m convinced that one of the great diseases in our society today is that of scarcity; it’s one of the biggest lies that we believe without questioning. Driving most marketing campaigns, scarcity tells us that there is not enough for everyone, so we must be better than others to earn love, or contentment, or to secure our place in society. Scarcity says that I must have more than you to feel like I have enough. Scarcity fuels the fear that if there is room for them, then there won’t be room for us (whoever them and us are in the moment). And this is as true in politics as it is a high school cafeteria; as true when aiding those in poverty as it is on social media; as true when welcoming refugees as it is driving down Scottsville Road. Scarcity tells us that we must care for ourselves first, and others second, because otherwise we will be left out, that we won’t have enough to survive or to be loved or to grow, but this is not the kingdom of God.
God’s grace and generosity cannot be calculated at an hourly rate, and just as the landowner’s offer for workers to come and work in the vineyard remained opened throughout the day, so also God’s grace remains open for us. It is something we receive, not a contract into which we enter with God. We cannot negotiate our way into God’s grace and love because it is abundantly given, and it is given with abandon to all who come and follow Christ. This is what the kingdom of heaven is like, and this is that for which we pray, that God’s grace and love will be known on earth, as it is in heaven.
A sermon delivered to the people of Christ Episcopal Church on Matthew 20:1-16 for Proper 20A on September 24, 2023.
[1] https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2014/today-in-media-history-mr-dooley-the-job-of-the-newspaper-is-to-comfort-the-afflicted-and-afflict-the-comfortable/#:~:text=Dooley’s%20famous%20journalism%20quote%20is,and%20critical%20of%20the%20press.
Becca Kello 