Rooted in Abundance | Exodus 16:2-15, Matthew 20:1-16 | 9.20.26

Our first reading for today is from Exodus.

The Hebrew people have been freed from slavery, escaped Pharaoh and his army, but now they found themselves in the desert, wondering how they leave.

Let's listen together for God's word to us today from the book of Exodus, chapter 16, verses 2 through 18.

Exodus 16:2–18

Then the whole Israelite community complained against Moses and Aaron in the desert.

The Israelites said to them, Oh, how we wish that the Lord had just put us to den while we were still in the land of Egypt.

There we could sit one of the pumps cooking meat and eat our fill of brim.

And instead you bring us and went into this desert to storm this whole assembly to dinner.

Then the Lord sent it to Moses.

I'm gonna make remote rain in one from this coming for you.

The people will go in each day and gather just enough for them at dinner.

In this way, we'll test them to see whether or not they fill in my instruction.

On the sixth day, when they measure what they have collected, it will be twice as much as they collected on the other days.

So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, this evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

And in the morning, you will see the Lord's glorious presence, because your complaints against the Lord have been heard.

Who are we?

Why blame us?

Moses continued, The Lord will give you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the Lord heard the complaints you made against him.

Who are we?

Your complaints aren't against us, but against the Lord.

Then Moses said to Aaron, Say to the whole Israelite community, Come near to the Lord, because he's heard your complaints.

As Aaron spoke to the whole Israelite community, they turned to look towards the desert, and when and just then the glorious president of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

The Lord spoke to Moses, I've heard the complaints of the Israelites.

Tell them, At twilight you will eat me, and in the morning you will have your fill of ribbon, and then you will know that I am the Lord your God.

In the evening, a flock of quail flew down and covered the camp.

And in the morning there was a layer of dew among the rim the camp.

When the layer of dew lifted, there on the desert surface were thin flakes, as thin as the frost on the ground.

When the Israelites won it, they said to each other, What is it?

They didn't know what it was.

Moses said to them, This is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.

This is what the Lord has commanded.

Collect as much of it as each of you can eat, one omer per person.

You may collect for the number of people in your household.

The Israelites did it as Moses said, some collecting more, some less.

But when they measured it out by the omer, the ones who had collected more had nothing left over, and the ones who had collected less had no shortage.

Everyone collected just as much as they could eat.

Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am so glad to be with you all today as we dig into another of Jesus' parables from the Gospel of Matthew.

Last week we wrestled with forgiveness in Matthew 18.

And this week Jesus pushes even harder on our sense of what's fair.

Our parable today is in Matthew 20.

But before we read it together, uh I want to pray, and then I want to talk a little bit about what happens just before it.

But before we do that, let's let's pray together.

Loving God, we give you thanks.

For your word to us in Scripture.

And for your word to us in Jesus Christ.

Open our hearts to hear what your Spirit says.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

So in chapter 19, before our reading today, after tangling with the Pharisees and blessing the children, Jesus turns to a rich young ruler and tells him to sell everything he owns.

It will be easier, Jesus says, for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.

And this lands hard on the disciples.

If the rich aren't getting in, the ones with the resources and the security, then what about the rest of us?

How what hope do we have?

What do we get for leaving everything behind?

They asked Jesus.

Aren't we going to get stuff from being your disciples?

And Jesus doesn't dodge the question.

He promises them that their sacrifice will not be forgotten, but he answers them with a warning tucked inside of a promise.

He says, Many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

And that's sort of the gateway through which, that's the verse right before, where we're going to start reading today, about what is owed to the disciples in the age to come.

But now, let's listen together.

For God's word to us from Matthew chapter 20, verses 1 through 16.

Matthew 20:1–16

The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.

After he agreed with the workers to pay them a day's wage, he sent them into his vineyard.

Then he went around nine in the morning and saw others standing around the marketplace, doing nothing.

He said to them, You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.

And they went.

And again, around noon, and then again at three in the afternoon, he did the same thing, and around five in the afternoon he went and found others still there standing around, and he said to them, Why are you just standing around here, doing nothing all day long?

Well, no one has hired us, they say.

He responded, Well, you go also into the vineyard.

And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, Call the workers and give them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired, and moving finally to the first.

And when those who were hired at five in the afternoon came, each one received an arian.

That is one day's wage.

Now, when those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more.

But each also received a day's wage, and when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner.

These who were hired last worked one hour, and they received the same pay as we did, even though we had to work the whole day in the hot sun.

But he replied to one of them, Friend, I did you no wrong.

Didn't I agree to pay you a day's wage?

Take what belongs to you and go.

I want to give to this one who was hired last the same as I give to you, and don't I have the right to do what I want with what belongs to me?

Are you resentful because I am generous?

So those who are last will be first, and those who are first will be last.

This is God's word for God's people.

Thanks be to God.

Um ten years ago, um I was preparing uh to move into an apartment with Lauren after we graduated seminary together, um, and we got a phone call uh from someone with a major league soccer team that was going to be starting in Atlanta.

They were going to start a new team in Atlanta where we lived.

We loved soccer.

We didn't even have a place to live yet, but we loved soccer.

And the guy on the phone said, look, if you get in on the ground floor with these season tickets for next year, you'll always get 10% off merch.

You'll get free swag, you'll have first dibs at away game tickets, you'll have all of these perks that simply won't be available for folks who decide to join us after this first season.

And so for some reason, we decided that we would be Atlanta United season ticket holders before we even had officially become Atlanta apartment renters.

So we got our free scarves uh in the mail.

We eventually found a place to live, and we hung our free Atlanta United flag outside, and we headed off to the very first Major League Soccer game in Atlanta, a little over a year later.

And do you know what?

They gave away free season tickets, free scarves, and free flags to every single person in attendance, even those who just walked in off the street that very day.

No, I'm kidding, they didn't do that.

That didn't happen.

But could you imagine how furious I would have been if all I had to do was show up when I had spent all that money to become founding members and everyone else got the same perks as me?

But I suppose that Arthur Blank himself could have walked down to our seats in section 201 and said, uh, Chad, are you envious because I am generous?

Are you envious because I am generous?

To be honest with you, I'm the kind of person who occasionally enjoys watching a movie with a really good plot twist.

I love the discomfort of having my expectations uh turned on their head.

And so when I first read this parable, my thought was, well, that's not fair.

But the feeling that followed for me, because of the kind of person I am, was, ooh, that's interesting, right?

Because it isn't fair, and I want to know, well, why?

The parable really pushes against so many of our culture's ideas about fairness and hard work and loyalty and self-reliance.

Our internal participation in this uh this Protestant work ethic makes hearing this parable a real challenge for a lot of people.

But here Jesus is offering this story to his closest followers after they are worried.

They're worried about what they're gonna have on the other side of this age, in this age that is to come.

What is gonna keep me secure?

Am I gonna have enough?

In a sense, uh, these disciples he's talking to are the early adopters, right, of this whole Jesus thing.

And there's another sense in which Jesus picked them because they had been overlooked.

They had been kept on the outside by the Romans and the Pharisees and even their own families in some cases.

And so as I read the story, I don't know how the disciples hear this.

Do they hear themselves as the early people on the job, or do they hear themselves as being uh having gotten in late in the day?

I wonder how they would have heard this story.

They're at the marketplace at five in the morning, the sun hasn't finished coming up yet, and you're standing there with others who haven't been able to find steady work.

They don't have a regular workplace.

But they're hoping that someone has enough work for them to do that they might earn enough for today.

And you're standing there with them, go with me in your mind's eye.

They've been there before sunlight, and at 6 a.m., the first picks get made.

Have you ever stood in a line for dodgeball?

Did you get picked first or did you get picked last?

Who is going to get picked first for a day in the labor fields?

Like practically, who would you pick if you pulled up?

I would pick the strong ones.

I would pick the young ones.

I would pick the ones who looked like they had energy.

I would pick the ones who looked like they might have gotten some sleep last night.

Not me, though.

I wouldn't pick myself.

I would have to wait with the rest of them.

And these workers know what that means.

They've done this math before.

The longer they have to wait to get to the job, the the less money they're going to have to feed their families.

No work means no wage means no bread on the table tonight.

And it means explaining again to the people you love why the cupboard is still empty.

And so when this landowner comes back a number of times, and then finally at five o'clock, friends, an hour before the whistle blows, and he says, Why are you standing here idle all day?

I don't hear a scold in that.

I hear a wound.

Why didn't you get picked?

Why are you still here?

And they answer him honestly.

They say, Because no one has hired us.

Nobody wanted us, nobody saw us.

So what are the kinds of people that might still be there at 5 p.m.

practically?

If people have been coming to hire them and they're still there, these are the sick, these are the tired.

These are the small, the weak, the overlooked, the disabled, the ones up all night with sick kids, or you hadn't fully recovered yet from an injury, and who definitely hadn't had enough to eat.

And yet he hires them anyway.

Now stay with me because this is where the story stops being logical and starts being a little dangerous.

Payday comes, and the landowner lines everyone up to the last ones hired first.

He didn't have to do that, by the way.

He could have paid the ones who got there first, and then when he pays the ones who got there last, they feel they feel like they're getting a little something extra, and no one is grumbling because they don't know, right?

But he he does it in reverse.

He he makes the ones who got there first watch as he pays a full day's wage to folks who have only worked an hour.

And if you were the first one there, that feeling in your gut every time you saw someone else get paid, and you're waiting, you're gonna be the last one to get it.

That feeling for me is like it feels like injustice, doesn't it?

It feels unfair.

That's the feeling of doing everything right and watching someone else get the same as you for doing less.

That's maybe how the older older brother felt uh uh in the in the the story of the prodigal son, right?

That's Cain watching Abel have his offerings preferred by God for no reason.

Why did God prefer Abel's offerings?

We don't know.

That feeling has a name.

That feeling is like unfairness.

And I see it uh as young as two, three, four years old.

Kids know what isn't isn't fair, right?

And we have built whole lives and whole systems and whole economies around that feeling.

And Jesus doesn't tell us that that feeling is wrong, by the way.

It's not wrong to desire fairness, but this story tells us that the economy of fairness belongs to a different economy than the one God is running.

Because here's the thing about grace, friends.

There are areas in our lives where we feel like we got in first, but the truth is there are other areas that we don't tell people about where we're gonna be the last ones in.

We don't realize the level of grace we are all receiving.

And Grace isn't interested in uh counting our hours or quantifying our productivity.

Grace isn't interested in your seniority or your resume or your years of faithful service or your certainty that you have earned your way to the front of the line.

Grace looks at the one who showed up at five o'clock, soaked in shame, and says, You will get everything you need for today.

You will also have enough.

Not because you deserve it, but because I am good, and I am not running this world like a business.

I am running it toward the common good, toward everyone having what they need.

Are you envious because I am generous?

Uh the Common English Bible translated.

Uh the Greek is more literally, is your eye evil because I am good?

It's asking us if we are resentful when other folks get their needs met.

Not was it fair?

We know it wasn't fair, but the question is, can I stand next to somebody who got more grace than they earned and rejoice with them?

Can I be grateful that someone is going to be able to feed their children, even if I don't like everything about that person, or if I was told that they were lazy, or if I was told some sort of story about why they should get less than me?

Can I celebrate when they are able to feed their kids and themselves and have enough?

When a single mother gets support for her children, when an addict gets treatment instead of prison, when a foster child gets a college scholarship or help with their rent, even though I didn't, can I celebrate that?

Can that be a good thing?

In some way, this story is about whether what God desires for us will be enough for us.

Once we learn that in God's economy, we don't have anyone we can downcompare with.

If we prayed for God's kingdom to come, and that that meant we got on this day the bread we needed for today, give us today our daily bread.

And everyone else got theirs too.

Would we be resentful that we didn't have more than someone else?

There is a way of seeing that requires someone else to be beneath you.

There's a book about it.

I'm not going to reference the whole book, but it's called The Skyboxification of Our Public Life Together.

These baseball stadiums, you there were nicer and less nice seats, but you all kind of had the same experience.

You had access to the same concessions, you all watched the same game, but now there's this skybox effect where depending on your level of income, you can separate yourself further and further and more and more above the hoy pillow, right?

Where my comfort only counts as comfort because I can look down at the others and see that they don't have what I have.

The dawn workers, the early workers, build their whole day on that same logic.

They didn't just work longer, they watched as more and more people came throughout the day.

And each latecomer became a new rung on a ladder that they felt they were on top of.

Right?

I'm gonna get more than that guy.

He didn't get here till three.

Until by five o'clock, they built a whole self-worth system on a ladder made of other people.

So when the landowner pays everyone the same wage, their fury, their envy isn't just about the money.

It's that the ladder vanished.

It went away.

The NRSV says in verse 12 that they say, You have made them equal to us.

The early workers say about the late workers, you have made them equal to us.

And this is the cry of people who suddenly don't have the self-worth they thought they had, because they had built their self-worth on someone else's lessness.

This is what comparison does when it becomes our way of seeing.

It makes other people into instruments for our own self-assessment.

We don't actually uh look at them, we look past them, gauging our distance, checking our position.

Comparison is the thief of joy, it said, uh because it's also the thief of true sight.

We don't see with God's eyes when we compare.

It never lets us see anyone for who they actually are, only for where they stand relative to us.

And grace looks different for different people, friends.

When the landowner pays the last worker first and the first worker last, he isn't scrambling the line for effect.

He is refusing the line that everyone had already assumed.

He's flipping it on its head.

He looks at the worker who showed up at five o'clock, exhausted and unclaimed all day, and he doesn't see a latecomer, but he sees someone with a full day's dignity.

And he looks at the dawn worker, the early uh adopter, not as someone who earned more than the others, but as someone who also deserves what they need for that day, not less.

And this is presumably closer to how God looks at us.

I don't believe that God measures us against our neighbors.

I don't think God looks at you and says, Oh, Chad, you're doing so much better than that person, or Chad, you're doing so much worse than that person.

He looks at me and says, Chad, are you doing what I called you to do today?

Are you doing what's Chad's work to do?

Like, are you doing your work?

Or how are you doing it?

Right?

And that's all of us.

God doesn't compare us to other people.

Each of us receive uh God's full attention.

And anytime we are comparing uh up to make ourselves feel worse or down to make ourselves feel better, we are not seeing ourselves or others the way God sees us.

And that's the disorienting mercy of this story is that grace doesn't just redistribute the wage, it dismantles the very apparatus that let those early workers feel above the late ones.

And in taking that apparatus away, it invites them into a way of seeing that has nothing to do with rank.

The way of seeing that let the landowner walk the rows at five o'clock and still find someone worth calling into the vineyard.

So, friends, here's the invitation.

Step off the ladder.

Stop counting your hours.

Someone else will count them for you, I promise.

You don't have to.

Uh stop checking the seating chart.

Stop measuring your worth against who's still standing in line.

The landowner isn't asking us to pretend that fairness doesn't matter, but he is inviting us to want something bigger than fairness.

He's inviting us to want what God wants, that everyone gets their daily bread.

That no one goes home tonight explaining an empty cupboard to those they love, that that's the economy of God's kingdom.

It is not scarcity dressed up as merit, but abundance handed out at every hour, not all at once.

Does that make sense?

Enough, having enough for today is having abundance.

And having trust that there will be enough tomorrow in community is faith.

Because every single one of those people was worth a full day's dignity.

So may we lay down our ladders, may we learn to rejoice when grace shows up for someone else.

And may we trust that there is more than enough of God's goodness to go around.

Starting with us.

May it be so amen.