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An Unfair Blessing
A sermon by Dr. James Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Have you ever been a teacher? If you have, you know that
the first task is to get the attention of your people. And that is not always
easy. Jesus had an uncanny way of not only getting attention but teaching the
truth. And he did it through stories. And as he spun his parables, so often
there were characters we can identify with. As a matter of fact, sometimes we
even find ourselves choosing sides.
One such parable is found in Matthew 20 and I invite your
attention to that passage at this time. Matthew 20, beginning with the first
verse.
"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who
went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to
pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
"About the third hour
he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told
them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is
right.' So they went.
"He went out again
about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the
eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them,
'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?'
" 'Because no one has
hired us,' they answered.
"He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'
"When evening came,
the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them
their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.'
"The workers who were
hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those
came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them
also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against
the landowner. 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said,
'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and
the heat of the day.'
"But he answered one
of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a
denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the
same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what
I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'
"So the last will be
first, and the first will be last." (Matthew 20: 1-16)
This, friends, is the word of the Lord.
Now, harvest time in that part of the world and
for all of the world is crisis time. If you don’t get the fruit in and the
storm comes, a whole year’s wages go down the drain. So, during the harvest,
you will hire anyone at anytime to help you get it in. And that was the case
here. The owner of the vineyard made several trips, wanted to be sure he could
get as much labor as possible in the vineyard.
Now the Jewish day began at sunrise, 6 am. That
would be our time. So, the third hour would be, our time, 9 and the sixth hour
would be noon. The ninth hour would be 3 o’clock, the eleventh hour would be 5
o’clock. Laborers were hired at all of those times. So far, so good.
Then the day was over, 6 o’clock in the evening.
By the way, in the Jewish way of looking at things in those days, that began the
new day in the evening at 6 o’clock. When it came time to pay off everybody, lo
and behold, they all got paid the same amount. Protests came. The one,
however, who made the payment said, “Friend, I’m not cheating you. I’m doing
exactly what I said. Are you just envious because I’m generous?” And so the
last shall be first and the first shall be last.
Who do you identify with? Do you identify with
the one who had worked all day and yet got paid the same. Or, do you identify
with the one who was hired at the eleventh hour, worked only one, but got the
same wage?
Now, friends, if you will read this parable
carefully again, you may have overlooked the first words. Listen. “For the
kingdom of heaven is like …” This is not something that Jesus is telling us on
how to run a business. It’s not on economic policy. It’s not on salary
administration. This is a teaching – hear me – this is a teaching about grace,
God’s grace. Now the classic definition of grace is “unmerited favor.”
Unmerited favor. Say it with me -- unmerited favor. Grace, in the Bible, is
not a performance, attitude, aptitude, or evaluation. Grace is unmerited
favor. And that’s what was given to those who came late but got paid the same
amount.
Friends, is it not true that all of us, at some
time or another, have had something happen to us that is just sheer gift, sheer
grace. Our family experience that, by the way, last Sunday night. You are such
a grace-filled people. Whole family together. You had the reception, Fine Arts
Museum. Lady who’s been there for a long time said, “When they told me there’d
be a thousand people here, we just smiled.” Said, “Now that you’re here, I
think you need to know we’ve never had this many people in this building at one
time before.” That’s you – saying “Thank you.” Unmerited favor, as far as I am
concerned. But it is, it is the gift that one person can give to another but
most of all it is the gift that God gives to all of us. And if you haven’t
caught on yet, you haven’t caught on to the genius of the Christian faith. It
is not how well you perform; it’s how much God is able to work through you and
give to you in the living of your life. We call that, grace.
We often see things the wrong way.
One afternoon a shopper, Christmas rush, local
mall, need for a coffee break. Went in to get a cup of coffee and saw some
cookies there and bought them. Stood in line for the coffee, finally got that.
One seat was available, across from a man reading a newspaper. She thought,
“Um, OK.” So she sat down, sipped her coffee, reached into her shopping bag,
got a magazine to read it. As she was sipping her coffee, she reached out and
got a cookie. And she noticed, as she reached out to get a cookie the man
across from her reached out to get a cookie. Puzzled, she didn’t say anything,
went ahead and read, sipped her coffee, reached for another cookie, and when she
took one, he did. Finally, there was only one cookie left. She wondered, and
just about that time, he took the cookie, he broke it in half and he handed her
half of the cookie, put the newspaper under his arm and walked away. By this
time she was steaming. “This guy has ruined my coffee break. How am I going to
tell my family about this?” She reached down to put her magazine in the
shopping bag and there staring at her, full-faced, was the untouched, unopened
bag of cookies she had bought. She had been eating the man’s cookies, not
vice-versa. How often we see things the wrong way.
And I’m not sure but what we don’t read this
parable the wrong way. We don’t see it with the right set of glasses. Let’s
try to see it like Jesus might have seen it and what he was trying to get at.
First thing that Jesus does is he replaces
competition with commitment. Our Lord knows that in competition you have only
one winner. You might have several finalists but even so you have only a few.
The love and the grace of God are not only for winners and if you ever read
through the gospels, you can realize sometimes God has a game of his own. The
loser wins. As Jesus saw it the big issue was not competition but commitment.
With commitment, everybody wins. Look at Jesus’ parable honestly – everybody
won. The one who worked through the day won – he got what he agreed to work
for. And certainly the ones at the end of the day won.
In December we begin what we call Upward
Basketball. Lots of churches are doing it now. It is for kids, boys and
girls. And it is a genius way of doing things in my estimation because it’s
built around “everybody wins.” Most of the time they don’t even keep score.
The goal is for everyone to make a goal before the end of the year. Devotions
are at halftime, given by lay persons like you and me. A short devotional, but
lots of fun. And the big thing about it is, it is replacing competition with
commitment. All you have to do to have a good time and to be part of the team
is to show up, to be committed. You don’t even have to be good. You don’t even
have to know anything about basketball. It is a parable of grace.
Why does God put so much emphasis upon commitment
and surrender instead of competition of winning and losing? Because he knows
the whole picture.
In verse 14, Jesus says to the one who had worked
a full day, “Take your pay and go.” But now notice the last of that verse. “I
want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you.” It’s his
privilege. I wonder if he knew it. I wonder if this parable is something that
really happened and Jesus watched it.
Maybe it could be – well, let me in my
imagination, picture the last man who was hired. Maybe this is a man, older, a
caregiver for one of his family. And he had arranged for somebody to come and
take his place because they desperately needed the money and harvest was the
best time to make the money and he knew that. And, lo and behold, it turned out
that the individual couldn’t come and take his place. And all through the day
he tried to get somebody but nobody was there – until the last minute. And he
sped to the marketplace, hoping maybe that somebody was still hiring and here
was the vineyard keeper. He had only an hour. The vineyard keeper sent him.
And at the end of the day when they’re paid, can you imagine, what a grace
gift!
You see, that’s what Jesus Christ the Lord has done for you and for me. We
aren’t perfect. Our lives are sometimes tangled in many different directions
and sometimes we, out of our over-commitment, can’t work him in as much as we
should. And you know what the Lord does? The Lord says, “Look, I have given my
life for you. I have given my life for those who are able to do it much better
than you can and longer than you can but the cross is the same for you as it is
for anyone.” That’s grace.
The second thing that Jesus says about grace: he sees grace not as
comparison. Watch somebody Christmas shop. Watch somebody in a grocery store.
Comparing. It’s our world, it’s the environment. What Jesus wants to know is
not how much you are compared to somebody else, their background and your
background, your IQ and their IQ, your possibility and their possibility. No.
He’s interested in you. ‘Cause he knows your possibilities and he knows what he
can bring. What he really needs in our part of putting his grace to work is the
willingness to change, the willingness to grow.
Did you read the article this past week about a VCU basketball player? I do
not know him at all. His first name is Calvin. At the tiny college in which he
began, he would sometimes hang around until everybody had gone home and then he
would lock the door, stretch his 6 foot, 11 inch, frame on the floor, put some
padding here and there and use his book bag as a pillow. And that night, he’d
spend the night and get a good night’s sleep. His parents, mired in bankruptcy,
had been evicted from their house. They were just struggling to eat. The large
family had been split among relatives. Now, he’s a fifth year senior at VCU,
already has a BA degree in sports management. What if you compared his
possibility five and six years ago with everybody else? See, that’s, that’s the
principle of grace. God knows US. Doesn’t compare us to everybody else. And,
I wonder if he hasn’t touched you and said, “You have some gifts I need, I
desperately need. My grace is sufficient. Launch out into the deep.”
There is a third thing. God replaces our time clock with his time clock.
You know, the guys who had worked all day and were comparing themselves to the
guys who got there just at the end of the day, their heads were all full of time
clock. And ours are too. Have you ever tried to live your day without a
watch? And you say, “I don’t wear a watch.” Well, you don’t count. But for
all of us who do and who try to keep schedules – to live a day without, without
a time clock, is a frustrating exercise because we are so wrapped up in our own
time schedules and God’s time schedule is not ours.
Some flowers bloom in the spring. Some flowers bloom in the summer, some in
the fall, and there are some that bloom in the winter. God’s time clock is not
ours and that’s important when it comes to salvation. What a wonderful thing it
is when a child comes to know the Lord, personally, as savior. What a privilege
it is to baptize them. As you know and as I have said many times, I was 8. I
bless those who come early. ‘Course their struggles are ahead of them. Most of
their sinning is still ahead of them. God’ll be there. But most of the
disciples were adults. In fact, all of them were. That means that God’s time
table is not going to be wrapped up in your age.
And there came a time, some years ago, when somebody called and said, “Need
to see you.” I recognized the name and recognized the voice, been coming for
some time. We chatted about mutual interests and then I said, “Tell me about
your spiritual adventure.” Here’s a man, right around seventy years of age. He
said, “That’s my trouble. I don’t have a spiritual adventure and I want to find
one.” Before that day was over and before he left that office, we had prayed
and he had received the Lord Christ into his life and the adventure of the
spirit had begun. And I’m going to tell you right now, he’s been one of the
most committed Christians and faithful members of this congregation that we
have. Don’t put your time table on God’s. And wherever you are right now, it’s
all right with God and with his grace he wants to come in.
Let me close by showing you how much grace there was in his final moments.
He’s on the cross, whew. On the cross. And the soldiers that put him there and
nailed his hands and feet, he says to them, “Father, forgive them.” Sheer
grace. At the foot, the women are there -- Mary, who birthed him by means of
the Holy Spirit, she’s going to be alone now. “Mary, here’s John. He’s your
son. John, here’s your mother. Take care of one another.” Grace, timing,
taking care of. A thief is on the other side of him and pleads for mercy and
what does Jesus say? Does he say, “Look, I am in pain like you are. Leave me
alone!”? He says, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Grace. And after
it’s over, the women, the last to leave the cross, the first to be at the empty
tomb, they are the ones sent, rejected by everybody, really, but him. Simon
Peter, who cursed him and denied him. He wraps his arms around him and forgives
him. Grace.
What about you? Do you really understand the power, the wonder, the
splendor, and the life-giving energy of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ?
You say, “I’m a nobody.” You didn’t hear it. “The last shall be first; the
first, sometimes last.” There’s room for you.
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