To those who emailed him about this, I owe you that $5 I promised. But for those of you who know Alex, you know that he didn’t just have the topics picked out or the scriptures picked out, but for him, having the sermon series mapped out meant he had half a sermon written already for each Sunday. So when I chose this particular parable, he sent me his 500 word blurb that he already had written up about it. I usually work better with a conversation partner anyway, so I’m actually going to use some of what he said and expand on it. So if I reference Alex’s thoughts on this particular parable, that’s what I’m talking about. This parable is such a difficult one for the hearers both in Jesus time and now. We see what happens as some injustice. Allow me to recap. Early in the morning an owner of a vineyard hired a group of workers for the day and agreed to pay them a day’s wage. Later that morning he hired more people because there was a lot of work. Around noon he hired more and then at five o’clock pm he hired even more. Once the workday was over, he paid everyone a day’s wage, even those who only worked for like an hour! The workers who worked all day felt like this was unfair and the owner said, “did I do something wrong by you? I told you I’d pay you a day’s wage and I did.” Essentially the landowner said, think of the story like this… Early in the morning an owner of a vineyard hired a group of workers for the day and agreed to pay them a day’s wage. Once the workday was over, he paid everyone a day’s wage. Why does what happens in between these two things change the feeling at the end of the story? In order to get into that we need to first get into the different layers of the story, and there are several layers. Classically this story is interpreted, as Alex puts it, as a last-minute confession of mafia leaders before they die, coming to the priest and confessing their sins so they can get into heaven… and if this is a real thing that happens, then I think I would feel a little twinge in my heart about it, as I’m sure a bunch of other Christians would too. I work hard at being a Christian, it’s not easy. It’s so much simpler to write people off and cuss them out and flip off the car behind you and hold on to grudges than to do the things that Jesus teaches us. So, if I’ve put in 35+ years into this and I see someone use, what essentially amounts to, a “get out of jail free card” and not really have to do any of the hard stuff, then suddenly I feel cheated. I feel slighted, I feel like this is unjust! Unfortunately, though, this is a sign of my own selfishness and a skewed perspective. I don’t want to steal anyone’s thunder for next week, but we’re talking about the lost coin and the lost sheep, and how much rejoicing there is when those lost things are found. My perspective is based on me focusing on what I did vs what they did, instead of them being found and rejoicing in that. My perspective is also based on this idea that they’ve pulled one over on God somehow, instead of God being radically gracious and merciful. My perspective also forgets all of the times I’ve, for a lack of a better metaphor, slacked off on the job. Sat down and stopped picking grapes, or took a quick hour-long siesta, or chatted with my fellow workers about that one show on Netflix or HBO instead of working. I may have been in the vineyard, but that doesn’t mean that I worked perfectly that entire time… instead I just have a feeling of superiority to those who came later because I was in the vineyard longer. Instead, I should join in on the rejoicing over another person joining the ranks, stop focusing on myself, and accept that God’s graciousness is for all, not just me. Now, to go to a deeper layer, we have to start back at the original layer. Those who don’t work as long are rewarded with the same day’s wage as those who worked the full day, which we see as grossly unfair. We have been taught throughout our childhood, adolescence, and adult lives that hard work pays off, and thus if you don’t work as hard you shouldn’t make as much. Alex brought up an interesting point in his blurb about this though, “…something that this parable doesn’t really highlight is the question of opportunity. Why exactly did the workers hired at the end of the day not have the opportunity to work until that point?” Our assumption is that this has to do with laziness. We hear about workers still not working at noon getting hired and some still not working by 5pm and then getting hired. Our default setting is that they must not have been trying hard enough. They must not have been pulling at their bootstraps enough. They must not really care if they don’t get a day’s wage. They’re just lazy and that’s why they are where they are. Whereas, this may be true sometimes, in a lot of situations it’s not. Maybe the workers had kids that they had to take care of, or an elderly parent that needed them, perhaps they were working another overnight shift that didn’t end until 10am. We don’t know. Likewise, when we hear people lambast those on food stamps or other government programs because they see them as lazy, we don’t know their whole story either. There is a well-known theory of socioeconomics called “The Boots Theory” which was written in a piece of dialogue from the book Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett. This novel features a City Watch commander named Captain Samuel Vimes, who often ruminates about the differences between rich and poor… it says, “Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.” This seems easy enough to understand, but also easy enough to dismiss if all the other aspects of opportunity weren’t to be considered. Having transportation to and from a job or the grocery store or school, having acceptable clothes, being able to wash those clothes and wash oneself regularly, and much so much more. Any of these things taken and expanded upon can show how much opportunity is being overlooked not just in our parable, but in our everyday assumptions of those who work less and/or earn less. But I think the final level that I want to talk about today is about worth. At the heart of this parable it asks us to consider what we think makes someone worthy. Because ultimately that’s our issue with the perceived injustice at the end. That those workers who worked a couple hours at most weren’t worthy of the same pay as those who worked all day. And this is where I want to get slightly controversial. I think that our society and specifically Capitalism has sold us a bill of goods, and that is that we are each only as worthy as our work. In order to matter, we have to do, we have to create or labor or tend or sweat and strain, we have to earn our keep, we have to pull our weight, we have to relentlessly earn ourselves and our bosses and our country money. This is what we’re told gives our lives value… and if we’re looking at it from a strictly Capitalistic or Corporate point of view. That’s not wrong. A person, is only as good as the amount of income they can generate and then through spending put that money right back into the economy. But what if someone can’t work, whether because they don’t have the skill set, or they don’t have reliable transportation, or because they’ve aged out, or because they are physically or mentally unable. What then is their worth? Instead, Christianity tells us that we are worthy based not on how much money we make or are able to put back into the economy, but because we are human, made in God’s image, Children of the creator. Our worth is tied solely and completely to God. Nothing else make us worth more or less. You are not worth more because your bank account is. This is a fairly easy thing for us to understand when we put it in a personal perspective. Bill Gates is no more worthy than you. He is wealthier than you, but not worth more. Jeff Bezos is not worth more than you. When we hear this, we think of course not. I don’t believe that… but we start to run into problems again when we turn the tables slightly. Imagine if you will that you see someone who looks like Alex in the parking lot, suit on, flagging you down. He says, “Hey, I’m sorry to bother you, but my car broke down and I’m looking for a way to get home. Do you have some money for the train, so I can get home?” How likely are you to give that person money? I’d expect that you’d be fairly likely. Now imagine someone who looks like they’re experiencing homelessness comes and asks you the same question. How likely are you to give money to them? I’d expect, less likely. In fact, studies are on my side. We as a people are more likely to give money to someone who looks like they’re more put together. Someone who looks like they’re just down on their luck that day, but for the most part still has expendable income. What does it say about us as a country that we’re less likely to give money to someone who looks like they have more NEED? And I hear some of you already. How do I know they’ll use that money for the train? They might just be trying to get money for drugs or alcohol… Did any of you think that about the man in the suit? If not, why not? Wouldn’t he be just as likely to be lying? Afterall, men in suits do drugs and alcohol too… and some with greater frequency than anyone experiencing homelessness.This hypothetical, and yet very real, example serves to underscore my point of worth. We’re more likely to give to the man in the suit because we see him as more worthy of our help. Whether we say it out loud or not, we see him as a productive member of society who just hit a snag and as soon as we help him he’ll be able to get back to his life and work and thus prove his worth. Whereas, the person experiencing homelessness, we think, isn’t a productive member of society and thus would just spend that money and then need more tomorrow, so they’re worth less. Our scripture today throws this in our faces to deeply consider. The workers at the end of the day worked significantly less that those there all day and yet the landowner sees them as worthy of a full day’s wage. When the full day workers complain that they’ve worked harder and deserve more, the landowner says, no, they are worthy. When we complain about people not pulling their weight, God says, no they are worthy. When we yell about lazy people on welfare without getting to know anyone in that situation, God says, no they are worthy. When we think less of people who need live in section 8 housing for their entire lives, God says, no, they are worthy. When we putdown immigrants coming to our country because they didn’t happen to be born on this plot of land instead of that plot of land, God says, no, they are worthy. And if we want to follow this God, the God who calls all worthy, the God who pays all the workers the same, the God who says you’re worthy because I say so… if we want to follow that God, then we have to start looking through different eyes. We have to start seeing everyone’s worth not based on what they earn or how much they work, but on the mere fact that they are human. Otherwise, you’re serving Capitalism and not God. Capitalism says you must earn everything including your worth. God says, no, you are already worthy. Let us see with God’s eyes as we go out into the world, treating everyone with the same worth, knowing that God’s love and grace and mercy are free flowing and radically inclusive and allowing that to shape how we act to one another. Amen.