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Outrageous Justice Matthew 20:1 – 16; Exodus 16:2 – 15 John Westerhoff, one of America’s leading Christian educators, served as a consultant to government teachers in a school for Native Americans. One of the teachers confessed how shocked she was with the lack of morals among the children. “They cheat constantly, and we cannot make them stop.” When Westerhoff interviewed the children and asked them why they all looked at each other’s papers during tests, they were not at all ashamed to explain ‘when someone in the tribe knows something, he should tell those who do not know. When someone in the tribe does not know, he should ask someone who knows.’ What one culture calls cheating – another calls cooperation. (Wm. Willimon, Pulpit Resource. Logos Productions, Vol. 33, No. 3. 2005. P. 52.) It is very difficult to understand life from a perspective other than our own. Faithful people that we are – the Gospel passage of today seems outrageous and alien to our sensibilities and whatever perspective we have in life. Reading and studying this passage probably brings similar response to what Fred Craddock experienced years ago when he was a visiting preacher and Sunday school teacher. Dr. Craddock is one of the great Disciples preachers and teachers of preaching of our time. One particular Sunday he was trying to teach the prodigal son parable, and invited his class to imagine that the story ended differently. “Imagine,” Dr. Craddock said, “that the prodigal had come home to throw himself on his father’s mercy, and he heard that the father was in the midst of throwing a huge party for the son that had stayed behind and had served so faithfully for many years.” Just as Craddock had created that image, the class heard a loud thud in the back of the room. A woman had slammed her fist down on a table and then said: “and that’s the way it should have happened!” (Biblical Preaching Journal. Biblical Preaching Institute, Vol. 18, No. 3. P. 32) It is that kind of emotion and outrage (if we are honest with ourselves) that a reading of today’s passage incites. Let’s get this story straight. We have workers who worked all day – outside in the sun, by the way – and received a wage. There is no grumbling about whether it is a fair wage — so I imagine we can trust it was. That is not the issue. There were other workers who came later in the day — some at noon; some at 3; some at 5 — they all got the same pay. We are not talking about the same hourly wage, but the same amount on the paycheck. If it was $50 for the full day workers, the workers who showed up at 5 and worked an hour or so also went away with $50. That is outrageous in our thinking — unjust, certainly having nothing to do with fair labor laws — and non-sensical. In the Native American student comparison — what one culture would call cheating another would call cooperation — our culture would call this example outrageous. What would Jesus call it? Grace. Yes, dear friends. This outrageous justice of God’s is called grace, and when it happens to other people we often do not like or understand it. Jesus – knowing us through and through – gets outright personal and challenging with his question at the end of the passage. “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” I’d like to be the one who worked an hour and received a full day’s wage, but I’d probably be right there on the picket line if I was one who worked all day for the same pay as the one-hour worker. Let’s put it into non-financial terms. Church – we are the ones who are trying to keep some spiritual disciplines in our lives. We show up on Sunday mornings — many of us come to Sunday School — because it is good for our education. We work at the Homecoming dinner, and have volunteered to do something for the upcoming fish fry. And even though it is not our choosing we do committee, department and board work – because we know the church cannot run well if people don’t do that. What is the payoff? A little easier path into the heart of God? A slightly smoother ride into the gates of heaven? A church that has a better chance of being on God’s top 1000? How outrageous to hear that a capable, young, educated person could walk into this sanctuary today and not ‘choose’ to do any of the stuff of church we know needs to be done, and we somehow hear (from God) that she is every bit as beloved as those of us who have washed more dishes, taught more Sunday School lessons, handed out more bulletins than we can ever count!? It arouses the same feeling when we consider our professional pathways. How is it that some of us have spent our lives in training and education, done the right thing at the right time, planned our career well and then suddenly are outranked by someone who doesn’t have the qualifications, hasn’t done the grunt work, never put in the sweat equity to get to the position. Entitlement — what is it except the expectation that we will receive something that is fair according to how well we have worked. Our lives in this culture have been set up according to that understanding. How dare Jesus come in and tell us something different! Bizarre as this story seems to us, it is not the only one of bizarre proportions in the Gospel. In fact, Matthew has a string of just as outrageous stories:
None of these stories make sense — none of them! The sooner we realize that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the most counter-cultural expression in the world, the closer we will be to finding the delight that God has in store for us.
No, the church is about hearing Jesus Christ sharing God’s grace to all. The church is about making sure that those who met God in the morning and those who met God in the evening are all drawn into the arms of incredible love and tenderness. The church of Jesus Christ is about receiving the news that those who have lived lives pure and virtuous for 85 years are just as beloved by God as those who came to faith 10 minutes before death and vice versa. The church of Jesus Christ is about proclaiming the outrageous justice of God. God's justice, which has absolutely no resemblance to any nations’ laws of justice, has another name. The name of God’s justice is grace. Pure…full…all encompassing…grace. Grace for all God’s children — all those in this world created by God. SW |
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