Rev’d Peter Balabanski
Season of Creation 3 – Exod 16 2-15 – Matt 20 1-6
This wonderful parable turns our world upside down. It challenges our notion of fairness. That notion comes from our world where everything is exchanged. We like to see a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay; a fair price for things on sale. But our parable describes the kingdom of heaven as like this landowner, who is recklessly generous, regardless of anyone’s worthiness. This is Grace. And it’s shocking to us, because we tend to identify with the workers who toiled all day!
So what is it about our world that this parable turns upside down? It’s our idea that other people should earn their keep. Other people should be worthy of what they get. I get several emails a day from someone who writes to all the city churches reviling homeless people and charity collectors for being lazy parasites; people who don’t deserve their pensions or commissions. This attitude is getting spruiked on a national level now about refugees and Indigenous people being given undeserved handouts – as though it’s us who are being disadvantaged by this!
The first-hired workers told the landowner he’d made the last-comers equal to them. Was that really an outrage? How can people who have what they need want others to miss out? This parable challenges us with God’s grace. And in this Season of Creation, it’s time for us to take a step back and know that the Creator has placed us all on this bountiful Earth with no precondition that we’re worthy of it. Earth gives far more than anyone can desire or deserve; work all day or just one hour.
I’ve met people who do get this parable. I’ve said before that I used this parable to see if I could get an ESL class talking. It sure worked. Many in the class spoke; outraged at how ‘unfair’ and ‘arrogant’ the owner was to humiliate all the all-day workers. But then an elderly Vietnamese student stood up and said this. The owner of the vineyard knew that every one of the workers needed a day’s pay to feed their family that night. He gave to them all what each one needed. He was a good man! Need was met with scandalous Grace. The only natural / adequate / decent response can be gratitude.
What our readings say in this Season of Creation is that self-righteous entitlement and greed blind us to the Source of our Being, and so blind us to the purpose of our life here. In the Exodus reading, people who’d willingly chosen to follow Moses to freedom suddenly turned on him. But they’d seen the plagues sent on Egypt. The miracle of their escape through the Red Sea was only a couple of days behind them. They were loaded with gold and silver Egyptians had given them. They were freed slaves! And yet they whinged; where’s our food Moses? Where was their gratitude?
Their attitude of entitlement was deadly back then. And right now, industrial-scale greed and contempt for God’s miraculous gift of creation threatens the survival of life on Earth. Greed and entitlement shape our scandalised reaction to the parable, they’re a tragedy in the Exodus story, and they’re ruining life on Earth today.
Greed is one of the seven deadly sins. But our patron St John, in his first letter, refers to something called mortal sin. 1 John 5.16-17 He doesn’t give examples, but Church history has worked with this idea. Catholic teaching says mortal sin is 1. A serious trespass 2. which a person does with eyes open to what they’re doing, and 3. yet deliberately goes ahead with it. Mortal sin destroys charity in the human heart and turns us away from God, who is our ultimate end. That’s serious.
Two weeks ago, we saw in the creation story that our end – our purpose is to serve and preserve creation, and that we’re all in this. It’s perfectly clear what our sin of greed is doing to God’s Earth. And its consequence is that it turns us away from God. St Paul writes Rom 1.20, Ever since God created the world, God’s invisible qualities, both eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. And in her last book, Vicky wrote, As we allow the diminishment of species and ecosystems, we diminish our ability – and the ability of future generations – to perceive the glory of God. So what do we do?
The Church – and I mean all traditions in the Church – the Church is calling us all to join in Caring for our common home. That’s the title of a document the Catholic Church published two weeks ago on Creation Day – September 1. It argues that the way we care for Creation reveals and shapes our relationship with God.
What our parable today, and the story from Exodus say to me is that we can begin this care from a position of gratitude. Grateful people change their world by blessing those around them. If gratitude is our starting point, then a reverence in our hearts for what we’ve received can transform us and those around us. And because we Christians are nearly a third of the world’s population, and we have kindred spirits in all the other major religious traditions, we can transform our world.
So in a few moments of silence, please think of Creation’s beauties and wonders and abundance and quirkiness. What warms your heart? What makes you give thanks? What do you want to share with others about the creatures you’re thankful for? How do those creatures praise God? How does their home – our home – praise God? What does this do for your commitment to care for them? Thank you God for revealing yourself in Creation, and thank you for entrusting us with its care. Amen