19 Pentecost A Proper 20 21 September 2008

‘ The Kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his field. ` Mt. 20: 1
Some times we just don’t know where we are going.

Let me begin by telling you a story that you may already have heard. It’s an old story, first told when Billy Graham was a brand new pastor.

He had been asked to come and preach for a number of days at a tent revival ‘down south’. He accepted; however, before he started, he wanted to mail an important letter. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find the post office. After a long and frustrating walk, he saw a young boy and got directions. Billy Graham thanked the boy and invited him to the tent revival. He added that he was a new pastor and he was going to speak about how to get to heaven. “Want to come?” The young boy looked at him with surprise in his eyes. You can’t find the post office, he said; how are you going tell me how to get to Heaven?

‘ The Kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his field. ` Mt. 20:1

Some times, we just don’t know where we are going, do we?

We’re not surprised at this; after all, it’s not like tripping over something new. Why, we’ve heard it as children and we are already visually used to it. You see, anyone who has been to or seen east Jerusalem knows of the labors in the field and, if not, we all have encountered the eager laborers at the Seven-Eleven, across from the Matawan train station, who try to work but often find none available.

But things are different now aren’t they? Or are they? Why just this week brought a steady stream of shifting information and with it a piercing stress that was not solely related to the ancient labors in the field. It reminded me of seven years ago, on September 11th, when we also felt the ground of reality shift that left us all very insecure.

To further complicate the landscape, especially in election years, the focus is on personal visions, wants and gains and who will do what we want done? What we really need to emulate, whom we should strive to become, what the lasting graces of a well-lived life lived means, has to do with the dilemma being faced now. How will we as Christians respond? How do we respond to what has and what will effect us? Make no mistake; this moment could be a test. It demands that we rethink every thing we do. Many, sometimes my self included, don’t respond well to shoddy ethics, and escalating greed, or we feel guilty that we said too little too late to guide, contradict or contest.
‘ The Kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his field. ` Mt. 20:1

It’s really ironic that Jesus’ parable of the laborers should appear as Wall Street’s complexity unravels. The Parable turns on a contrast between the owner’s simple approach to treat everyone the same and the worker’s complex calculation of prorated compensation.

In a marketplace that feasts on an intricate hierarchy of jobs and compensation packages, the idea of a usual daily wage sounds like
something reserved for losers…………and, after all, paying whatever is right violates our belief in competition.

The usual approach to this parable is to see it as an analogy to forgiveness, love or some other divine attribute. But maybe it also means what it says even in the market place. God’s simplicity outperforms human complexity and calls each of` us into the vineyard.

Amen
The Rev. Denise P. Mantell