The Game is False

Devotion for Being Apart -
September 27

I will share new devotions from time to time,
and invite you to browse through devotions that have been posted on this blog.

Today's scripture comes just after a rich landowner, who has followed all the religious rules, asks Jesus, What must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus tells him to sell everything he has and give the money to the poor and come follow him. Then Peter, seeing this, asks, Hey Jesus, we’ve given up everything to follow you, what will be our reward?  Jesus answers, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a vineyard owner..."  Matthew 20:1-16.




Jesus’ parables are always designed to expose something about the way of fear and reveal something about the way of God. In the way of fear envy is at play – we envy others and desire to be envied.  Envy is an essential component, actually, a necessary part of the game.  We only know how good we have it or how far we’ve gotten, or how much we matter, if we compare ourselves with others and see where we rank.  

We want to know what we have to do to succeed, to be safe, to be good, to be secure. We figure that out by looking at others and seeing how we measure up. We’re better than some, but worse than others. It’s how the way of fear operates.
 
But in this parable the landowner pays everyone the same thing, no matter how long they work. Forget that they all start out equally in need – some worked all day, and some just a few minutes, and they all received the same thing.  And he made sure that they all knew it too, it wasn't a secret what he paid them. He set them up for envy and then broke the measuring stick. He refused to play the game.
 
The parable could just as easily have been about tragedy. When tragedy cherry picks– through accidents, or sickness, this one dies from covid, that one has no symptoms, these parents have a child with addiction or mental illness, that one’s kids are honor roll athletes – envy comes into play in a huge way. We feel relieved it isn’t us, or we wonder why it’s us and what we did wrong. 
 
But when tragedy is a hurricane that destroys the entire town, or a fire that wipes out the whole region, it doesn’t matter how nice our house was or how hard we worked, or how well we followed all the rules, all that we’ve invested is gone- whether that was a whole lot or nothing at all.  Now we are all equal – we all have nothing. The measuring stick is broken; everyone is out of the game.  (Of course, in real life we’d find other things to envy – like who has better home owner’s insurance, because inside the way of fear we can’t help comparing ourselves, searching for ways to save ourselves.) 
 
But in the way of God there are no comparisons, there is no way to gain an advantage over anyone else.  The reasons for envy disappear. We are all human beings, claimed and cared for by God.  We are all living by God’s grace.  We participate alongside each other and no one is better, or more deserving, worse, or less deserving than any other.  We are not paid by what we have earned; we are paid by the generosity of our God. 
 
This is bad news for when we think we think we’re doing pretty well comparatively speaking, when we’re convinced we’re secure or that we’ve succeeded. When the game is working for us, it sucks to be told it's pretend.  But this is good news when we have nothing to give, nothing to lose, nothing to compete with. The game is false. We are free.
 
We all belong equally to God and to each other, and every one of us is dependent on the generosity of our God.  All of us live in God’s grace. And God invites all of us to join in, no matter how much or little we think we have to give. And this God also makes sure we have what we need, no matter how much or little we think we’ve contributed to earning our keep.
            
I hope that this makes us brave.  We’ve got nothing to prove and nothing to earn.  In God’s Kingdom all people really are equal, each one valued, made in the image of God.  Every single one of us is loved by God completely, whether we think we deserve it or not. No matter our circumstances, each of us meant to share in God’s life and joy. And regardless of how much or little we may think we have to give, each of us is called join in God’s redemption and hope in the world. 

Amen.

(Go here for more on The Way of Fear and The Way of God).
 

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we can pray in this way, and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Envy and Gratitude - a mental, written, or praying exercise

Envy is the currency of the way of fear. Gratitude is the currency of the way of God. 

Envy tells us we are in it alone and against one another, and uses comparison as a way of measuring how well we are doing.  Gratitude recognizes we are all in it together and everything is a gift, and there is no measurement - it's all grace.  

It doesn't work just to try not to feel envy and to try to feel gratitude.  
But when envy arises we might be curious about it and acknowledge it, Oh, hello envy! There you are! Telling me I need to earn my place! I am envious because I am telling myself things would be better for me if...

We might turn toward gratitude by letting envy lead us there.  
The way of fear is telling me I need _____ to be (secure, happy, ok, good enough, successful, safe, etc).  
But here is my life, just as it is.
I know love through ______.
I feel joy when ______.
I am grateful for ______.
God cares (God, you care) for me through _____.
(Thank you).

This whole exercise can be done written, in our head, or as a prayer.

God is not fair

Matthew 20:1-16

Parables Series - Week 2! (Here's Week 1,  Week 3 and Week 4)

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.

The Radical Unfairness of God

Matthew 20:1-16

I love fairness. LIFE SHOULD BE FAIR.  I think that seems right, don’t you?

Everybody gets the same size piece of cake in my house.  

I am the oldest of four girls, and as a kid it was like my unofficial job in life to make sure everything was absolutely fair.  No special privileges that weren’t properly earned, nobody shorted when it came time to divvy things up. The same number of m&ms in each hand, baby.

Fairness is important.  When I was 16 I waited for three hours with my mom outside the NBC studio in Burbank, CA to get into the taping of the final episode of the Carol Burnette Show, and the two people who budded in front of us were the last two to get in.  So completely unfair. 

I like when the rules are clear and we all follow them.  If you get there first, you get in first.  If you pay more, you get a better seat. If you work longer hours, you get make more money. It’s only fair. 

 So you can understand why I HATED the parable about the laborers in the vineyard for much of my life.  It is so very unfair.  Like a good parable should; it got under my skin and made me uncomfortable.

Today’s parable is told in response to a question Peter asks Jesus.  Just before it Jesus is approached by a very wealthy man, who asks him, What good deeds must I do to have eternal life?  And Jesus answers, “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 asks which ones, and Jesus lists them off.  I keep them all, he answers.  What do I still lack?  And Jesus answers, 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, and figures that 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 says, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.  What do we get?”  And Jesus answers him with comforting words of future glory – you get taken care of in the end, but then throws in the zinger, that the last will be first and the first will be last.  And then Jesus tells a parable to illuminate his point.  Something like this:

You have a full-time job, and you like it fine; it’s not spectacular, but it’s reliable and fairly interesting, and you’ve been there for some time, and make a decent salary.  You work a typical 9 to 5, 40 hours a week with an hour for lunch and three weeks vacation, negotiating for time off on various holidays, and you’ve done well, dutifully recording your hours, week after week, month after month, year after year. 

On this sunny Friday afternoon, Fran, your coworker, has just arrived in the and the two of you are sitting down to lunch.  You get along pretty well, but you don’t see her much because she only works half days Fridays.  You open your lunch sack and pull out your tuna salad sandwich and apple.  Fran gets up to put her Lean Cuisine in the microwave, and as she does she drops her stack of mail on the floor.  You lean down and pick the papers up for her, and suddenly find yourself staring at her paycheck.  It turns out that Fran makes exactly the same salary that you do.  The Kingdom of Heaven is like this.

Wha…? 

The first workers in the vineyard were there for the entire day, and when they see what the newcomers are paid, they are, naturally, outraged. We worked for you all day, and you gave them as much as you gave us. You have made them equal to us!  But the landowner points out that he never wavered from his agreement with the first workers, they were paid what they’d agreed on. It only became unfair, when the others who did not deserve it, got the same payment.  You had no problem contentedly working for our own salary as long Fran is paid appropriately less.  It is only fair!

How will we know where we stand, unless we can compare ourselves to others? How can we tell how far we’ve come unless we can look back at those we’ve passed up? We understand rank and success, order and status; we know how to measure with this ruler.  But the kingdom of heaven is different.  It does not operate by what is fair. Not even close.

When I lived in Pasadena, every week I would drive past a corner where day workers waited for jobs.  A truck would pull up and people would negotiate and discuss, and finally climb aboard – to go pick crops or help on a construction site.  They got to that corner very early in the morning, and the good jobs came early too. If they were one of the first, they could take a job or pass it up for another one that came along, and when they agreed on a job, they agreed to a salary up front.

But what choices are there at the end of the day? There was no reason to hire them when the workday was almost over – and their chances of taking home any pay that day had trickled away as the sun rose higher and then began to set, and if they stood there still, on the curb, watching the work day come to a close, they were utterly without bargaining power. The last workers in our parable were entirely at the mercy of the landowner.  They had no full or even half day’s work to exchange for payment, only their need.  And yet both groups were paid the same.

For the first workers, the payment from the landowner was expected, anticipated, and earned; it was fair.  For the last workers, it was inconceivable to expect it, unthinkable to anticipate it, and impossible to earn it; it was grace.  And when grace came onto the scene fairness was flipped on its end.  Suddenly, what had been fair for those first workers became completely unfair.   “So the last will be first and the first last.”

Because God’s way is not about fairness.  The kingdom of heaven judges and condemns our sense of fairness.  “Fair” compares people to each other, and rewards those who those who earn it.  “Fair” maintains a hierarchy. “Fair” says that by what we invest or accomplish, we can deserve to receive more than another. God does not respect the rule of fairness that we have set up to keep life orderly.  The kingdom of heaven levels the playing field.  It brings us all back to our common denominator, our humanity, and it upholds it.  In the kingdom of heaven, if nowhere else, we are made equal.

And the beauty of the parable is that the landowner’s action redeemed not only the last workers, but also the first.  Because the landowner’s actions said to all of them, You are worth the same as one another. You are all valuable to me.

We like to feel in control of our own destinies.  But we’re not in control of our own destinies.  We may not be wondering from day to day 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 today, but we may be stuck waiting for test results, or word that the grandbaby is out of surgery.  We invest our money wisely, and then the financial markets crash; we work for 30 years for the same company and get pink slipped without warning.  We follow all the advice and steps for a good marriage and end up divorced.   

Putting our trust in the rules is a dangerous mind game.  It is 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, somehow other than vulnerable human, in it alongside everyone else.  

The big picture, the kingdom of God, shows the illusion for what it is.  That 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, or unforeseen accidents in your lifetime.  

And when the system is working well for us, it is easier to swallow the lie 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 one of them.  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 doesn’t care at all about being – or even appearing to be – fair. 

Instead, “God is” as the Psalmist says, “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”  (Psalm 145:8) All of these parables we will encounter this Lent invite us 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.  It is going to feel like losing your life instead of saving it, it is going to feel like being last instead of being assured you are first.  The kingdom of heaven is like this.  It confronts the kingdom of earth, the way of fear, and strips away all illusions and all false security, and it leaves us standing exposed in our true and simple humanity – with the lies we tell ourselves and the invitation of the truth right before us.  It invites us to let go of fairness and join in generosity instead. 

And for some people, it’s simply too terrifying of an invitation, or too offensive, and they walk away grieving, or leave grumbling.

But to the last worker, the thief on the cross, the lost sheep, the son who returns, and really to every single of us at one point or another in our lives and everyday, if we are extremely honest, this is the good news of the gospel.  God’s way is not interested in fairness, it’s 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.   And 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.  Because we are not paid by what we have earned; we are paid by the generosity of our God.

I hope that this makes us brave.  We’ve got nothing to prove and nothing to lose.  We are loved and called to share in the joy and the work that God is doing in this world that God loves and claims.   And we are part of the kingdom of heaven, where all people really are equal, made in the image of God, and every single person is loved by God without earning a thing, and is meant to be part of God’s redemption and hope in the world. 

But lest we begin to think we have earned it, lest we ever begin believing that in any way we deserve something that others do not, there is the parable of the workers, the story of the last receiving the same reward.  Those who clearly couldn’t earn it, and obviously don’t deserve it.  

And lest we ever begin to doubt our place, suspect that we don’t belong, that God can’t use us, we have nothing to offer, or that others are more valuable than we are, this parable reminds us that we are all recipients of the unfair grace and outrageous mercy of our generous God.

Amen.