Peter is so reliable at asking the things everyone else just thinks but is afraid to say outloud.
He’s like an adorable, feisty kindergartner who predictably shoots up his hand
and waves it frantically around, brow furrowed, biting his lip, at nearly
every new thing the teacher says. You want to be annoyed with him, but he’s so
darn sincere and trying so hard to get it right, that you can’t help but smile. Just like last time, today's parable is an answer to a question by Peter.
Yes, Peter? What is it?
What
could Peter have asked to get Jesus to tell this
story?
What burning question compelled
him?
Just before this Jesus has just
been approached by a very wealthy man, who asked him, What good deeds must I do to have eternal life? And Jesus answered, “Why do you ask me about what is good. There is only one who is good. If
you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” The man asked which
ones, and Jesus listed them off. I keep them all, he answered. What do
I still lack? And Jesus responded, if you wish to be perfect, sell all your
possessions and give the money to the poor and follow me. And in the space
between paragraphs, the man disappears, never to be heard from again.
Now Peter gets
anxious, again, and the questions bubble up.
If the key to winning God’s favor is not by how well you do, then it must be by how much you give up. So he waves his hand and says “Oh, oh,
oh, Jesus! Jesus, look, we have left everything
and followed you. What do we get?”
And Jesus answers
him with comforting words of future glory – Don’t worry Peter, you will be
absolutely taken care of in the end. But
then Jesus throws in the zinger, again, the last will be first and the
first will be last. And he follows
it up with this parable, which boils
down to:
The people who get
picked up to work at the end of the day get paid the same as those who worked
all day long.
I can feel myself get riled at the fairness factor here.
It’s not fair. Not remotely. If you work
longer, you get paid more. Period. Everyone gets how these rules work; we base
whole societies on these things. How
come this landowner can’t seem to stick with the program? And I feel utterly justified feeling that way,
too, until I get to the line, “You have made them equal to us.”
And isn’t that the heart of it?
Are you envious
because I am generous? The landowner asks the first workers, when they
complain about being paid exactly what they were promised, but were upset
because those who worked shorter than they did, didn’t make enough less money than them to make it fair.
Am I not allowed to do
what I choose to with what is mine? Or are you envious because I am generous?
Neither of these options are one I would want to fess up to in the moment. Obviously it’s his money, he can spend it how
he wants. I’m not about to disagree with that. And yes, he did pay me just what he said he would – he’s not cheating me in any
way. So then, do I admit I am envious?
What if I just want things to be fair?
If I am the first worker, is there any conceivable scenario
where I would switch places with the last? In other words, given the choice, would
I have preferred to have secure employment from the beginning of the day, with
a clear sense of what I was earning, and get paid just what I expected, or,
would I like to spend the day standing around listless, anxiously watching the
hours tick by not working but wishing I was? Which would you want? Would we have wanted to wonder and worry all
day long and then feel grateful to get at least an hour of work in? Even with
the amazing surprise in the paycheck, would we have chosen that roller coaster over getting the same amount without a day filled with fear
and apprehension?
Let me take a stab at these fictional parable people and
say, with some confidence, they don’t want to switch places. They are not jealous. They are envious. Envy is not
wanting what someone else has, it is not
wanting them to have it. They are
fine with what they have. They don’t want someone else to have it. “You have made them equal to us.” they
said.
This landowner broke the rules.
The unwritten ones that we all live by in the
accounting system, the way of fear.
How
can we know how well we are doing unless we can look back on those we’ve passed
up? How can we be assured of our own
security, or our progress, if others are given a place at the table right next
to us and they didn’t have to work nearly as hard as we did to get there?
The rich man walks away because Jesus took away his
measuring stick.
You know all the
commandments and follow them perfectly. If it was about earning your way,
you’ve clearly earned your way here and everyone can see that. Now, give it all
away. Have nothing left to show for your success, or your faithfulness. Just
follow me, without getting any credit for it, without even knowing how to
credit yourself.
And that was too much for him.
And Peter, Peter, Peter! What
will we get, then, Jesus? If we have already given up everything to follow
you? We must surely get more than others, right? Because we’ve
sacrificed more? Followed longer? Been ready to do what that rich guy wasn’t? We should be super assured of our superior place,
right Jesus? That’s only fair!
Peter keeps forgetting that the Kingdom of God is not
fair.
That’s a goal of the accounting
system, not the Kingdom of God.
Jesus
doesn’t care one tiny bit about fairness. If you want fair, you’re looking in absolutely the wrong place. And Thank God for that, actually.
Because as
noble a goal as it seems, it’s a farce. “ Fair” is an unachievable illusion. And
the idea that we can somehow earn our security permanently – whether here or in
eternity – is an utter lie as well.
Putting our trust in the rules is a dangerous mind
game.
Like the rich man trusting his
wealth, and Peter trusting his sacrifice – it’s thinking that something we do
can make or keep ourselves secure, or worthy, or good, or safe, or somehow other
than vulnerable human in it alongside everyone else.
We may not be wondering today where our food will come from,
but we may be wondering how long our health will hold out. We may not be stuck waiting to be hired for
work, but we may be stuck waiting for test results, or word that our
child is out of harm's way.
Sometimes we
invest our money wisely, and financial markets crash.
Sometimes we work for 30
years for the same company and get pink slipped without warning. Sometimes we follow all the advice and steps
for a good marriage and end up divorced.
We like to feel in control of our own destinies. But we’re not in control of our own
destinies. We like to think we are the
first workers, and always will be, the ones with choice, the ones who “deserve
it.” Longer work equals higher reward.
Simple. We can sign on to that and then work hard, right? That’s fair.
But the kingdom of God, shows that illusion for what it
is. No matter how fair we may try to
make things, they are never really
fair. It’s easier to do well and go far,
for example, if you’re raised with enough resources, with tons of people who
believe in you, in a culture where you speak the dominant language and look
like the majority. It doesn’t hurt at
all to have an extra dose of math skill in your genes, or the good looks and
athleticism that opens doors, or to know someone who knows someone. On top of that, it’s handy to avoid any
genetic conditions, serious illnesses, unforeseen accidents or devastating
natural disasters in your lifetime, not to mention personal mistakes or
failures on your part. And, if you can at all help it, try to never, ever, get old or die.
And for those times we happen to be in the first shift, for
the times when we are lucky and the system is working well for us, it is easier
to delude ourselves that we are somehow earning our worth or securing our
lives. But the truth is, that while life
is a lot of things, fair is not actually
one of them. Not even when that’s what
we are aiming for as the goal.
Life is precious, and scary, and holy, and messy, and
precarious, and no matter how we feel
about the matter, according to this parable, God actually doesn’t care at all about being – or even appearing to
be – fair.
Instead, “God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and
abounding in steadfast love.” (Psalm
145:8) God is a dangerous affront to our idea of fairness.
And Jesus’ parables are designed to peel back
the surface and step into something deeper, something troubling, something that
is risky and life-giving, but at first it is going to feel like dying.
He says following him is going to feel like losing your life
instead of saving it. It is going to be like letting go of all your security
and measuring tools. It will feel like being last instead of being assured you
are first. The kingdom of heaven is like
this, Jesus says.
It always confronts the kingdom of earth. It always dismantles the accounting system. It always strips away illusions and false
security.
God’s kingdom welcomes us only when we are our most basic, human
selves, quite apart from any earnings or deservings we may or may not have. The Kingdom of God is much easier for the
last to recognize than it is for those who’ve gotten used to being first.
The day is coming when Peter wont be so confident, in fact,
he will be crushed completely. He will let himself down in the worst way he can
imagine: he will fail Jesus. It doesn’t matter how much he’s given up, or how
much he’s done, or how well he follows, he will lose forever any shot he had at
earning his way or proving his worth as a disciple when, despite being warned--three times!--he denies even knowing Jesus to save his own skin. Three times he
will betray the one he said he was more committed to than anyone else was.
And then the risen Jesus will find Peter in the depths of
his despair, in his own personal death, and welcome him close, and say to him, If you love me, feed my sheep.
The kingdom of God is not an accounting system.
God doesn’t keep track like we do.
God is not interested in fairness; God is
interested in life.
When you are beyond hope, God is there. When you have wandered so far that you can’t
find your way back, God will rescue you and nurse you back to strength. When you have squandered all that God has
given you and you limp home ashamed and miserable, God will run to you with
open arms and embrace you as his beloved child. When all that your luck, or bad choices, or poor planning, or the hand you’ve
been dealt, allows for is one measly hour of work at the tail end of a long
day, you are not paid by what you have earned, but by the generosity of our
God, who makes the last first, and the first last, and every last one of us:
beloved.
Amen.
