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| James Janknegt (b1953), The Day Laborers |
A sermon given during the Sung Eucharist at St George’s Bloomsbury on Sunday 24th September 2023 (The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity), Year A, Proper 20, based on readings from Jonah 3.10-end of 4, Psalm 145.1-8, Philippians 1.21-end and Matthew 20.1-16
Jonah was a reluctant prophet. Perhaps the most reluctant. Maybe that’s not so
surprising. A prophet’s lot is not a happy one. But when God called them, they
usually answered.
Unlike Jonah. When God called him to go to Nineveh
- he fled in the other direction as fast as he could.
He boards a boat bound for Tarshish which gets
caught in a terrible tempest. The sailors begin to suspect that somehow Jonah
is the cause of the storm. When they discover that he is running from the
presence of God, Jonah offers to be thrown overboard, to save the ship from
sinking. God sends a huge whale to eat Jonah and protect him. He sits in its
smelly belly, praying for forgiveness and release.
Three days later, the whale vomits him up onto the
beach. While recovering, God calls Jonah a second time. “Travel to Nineveh and
prophesy the destruction of the city,” he is told. This time, Jonah obeys. Out
of the whale’s mouth, into the lion’s den. Nineveh is the capital city of the
Assyrians, who had conquered and ruled the region with an iron fist. A vast metropolis
and archetypal city of sin, Jonah sets off, proclaiming its imminent
destruction by God.
The King of Nineveh gets word of Jonah’s journey –
and his prophecy - and repents of his sins. He orders every person and animal
in the city to fast and to cover themselves in sackcloth and ashes.
In
our first reading we hear how God, seeing how the Ninevites have turned from
their evil ways, changes his mind about the calamity he said he would bring
upon them.
Jonah is livid.
And in his angry outburst we get to the root of his
reluctance to be God’s prophet. He knew that God was merciful. He knew God
would spare his enemies. That’s why he didn’t want to go to Nineveh in the
first place! Jonah had been so conditioned by the bitterness and resentment
passed down through generations that have endured the violent Assyrian
domination of his people, that he cannot imagine life without it. He wishes he
was dead.
To cool him down, God grows a bush to give Jonah
some shade in the heat - but the next day he sends a giant worm to eat the
bush. Jonah flies off the handle again.
In reply, God himself makes a profound statement
about his radical, expansive love. You care about this bush which you did not
grow or nurture - God says to Jonah - should he not therefore pity all the
inhabitants of Nineveh?
The Book of Jonah ends right there. We don’t hear
Jonah’s response.
But what is ours?
Jonah is arguably one of the most successful prophets
of all time. One hundred and twenty thousand people and countless more animals
to boot have turned away from sin and towards God in a single day.
But Jonah doesn’t think they are entitled to
receive God’s forgiveness.
After their violent, sadistic treatment of the
Israelites, he thinks the Assyrians should have been punished.
God’s solution isn’t fair.
What do you think?
How does this outworking of God’s grace make you feel?
In our gospel reading we find ourselves out in the early morning with a
vineyard owner, as he hires workers in return for the usual daily wage. Several
hours later he goes out again to find more staff, this time agreeing to pay
them whatever is right. He makes three further trips to the market-place - the
final time just one hour before the end of the working day. On this occasion,
the vineyard owner asks why these labourers have been standing idle all this
time? Because no-one else would hire them, they reply.
At sunset, the vineyard
owner asks his manager to pay his staff. Those who had worked since the early
morning are the last to receive their dues. While waiting in line to be called,
they see those who had worked a fraction of the time being given what they had
been promised in payment - so they expect to be paid more. When it is finally
their turn to meet the manager, they too were given the usual daily wage.
They complain that they have
been treated unfairly. They were entitled to more pay than the idle labourers
who were only in the vineyard for an hour at the cool end of the day.
In response, the landowner
explains that no injustice has been done. He has paid them the agreed rate -
and in any case, he has the right to use his money as he wishes. He goes on to
suggest that the cause of their anger is not that they have been treated
unfairly - but that they are jealous of his generosity towards those who found
it harder to find work.
The start of the passage explains that Jesus is telling the
parable to describe what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. It’s not hard to see
why the owner of the vineyard is usually interpreted as God.
Here, as in the account
from Jonah, not only is something of the nature of God and his Kingdom revealed
- but we also see how people respond to the outworking of God’s mercy and
grace.
What was your response to
the parable?
I admit to feeling
sympathy with the workers who have toiled all day. I take pride in hard work -
that my family tree is full of people who have undertaken difficult, menial
jobs to make ends meet. The fact that the workers who arrived in the vineyard at the
eleventh hour are paid the same as those who were there all day doesn’t seem
quite right.
But thoughts like those
place me in the same position as Jonah. Instead of giving thanks that a whole
City has been saved - in awe at God’s mercy to the people of Nineveh - who had
done unspeakable things to their neighbours but showed contrition and asked for
forgiveness - Jonah is angry that his enemies will no longer perish. That his scores
will not be settled.
Instead of telling of
God’s marvellous acts and pouring forth the story of his abundant kindness -
like the Psalmist - my first thoughts on hearing the parable were quite the
reverse.
Just like Jonah, instead
of giving thanks for the grace of God, who as the vineyard owner, called those
who had been left standing in the market-place, my first reaction appears to be
the opposite.
I was angry about God’s
grace to the poor and the marginalized.
It’s an uncomfortable
truth.
And one which reveals how
bewildering God’s mercy and grace is - even to those who respond to his call
(however reluctantly) - and those who, like me, claim to spend all day working
for him.
Unpicking our sense of
entitlement and learning to prioritise what is truly just is key to living life
in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ - as Paul encourages us to do. As he
recognised then, and as the example of Jonah - and my instinctive reaction to
the parable shows, overcoming our cultural conditioning in order to live the
gospel, is a life-long struggle.
But our readings today
also assure us of the good news that no matter how conditioned our thoughts and
actions have become by the unequal systems for exchanging money, status and
power in the world today, God’s mercy and grace is so bewilderingly great that
it still shines through - our light in the darkness.
And that light will be
there revealing uncomfortable truths - for as long as it takes us to learn that
it is God’s Kingdom - not ours that - however reluctantly it seems at times -
we long to be revealed.
As the Psalmist reminds us:
The Lord is gracious and
merciful, long-suffering and of great goodness.
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