PROPER 20 YEAR A

 It was not yet daylight, although the eastern sky was turning orange.  The shadowy figures began to make their way into the little square across from the town hall.  They gathered under the palm trees or sprawled on the ground.  Some drank coffee and a few ate a piece of stale, day-old bread.

 They all looked alike.  Their clothes were old and worn and dirty.  They smelled of dried sweat and stale wine and beer.  Their hair and beards were long and shaggy and unkempt.  Their hands were rough and callused for they worked with their hands.  They were day laborers and this little park was their labor pool.  They would hang out here, hoping that someone would hire them for the day.  One denarius was the going rate for a day’s work and it would buy enough bread to feed a family for three meals.  The work day commenced at sun up and ended at sun down, roughly calculated from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

 What was telling about these men were their eyes.  They were dull and lifeless.  They were the eyes of men who had no future.  Today was the same as yesterday and tomorrow would be the same as today.  There was no future in the sense of purpose or direction.  These were the eyes of men who had been beaten down by society or the system or their own self-destructiveness.  They were of little value to themselves or anyone else.  Theirs were the eyes of everyone in every society whom we look upon as the loser, the outcast, or the marginalized.

 As the sun came up the owner of the vineyard appeared.  When the grapes are ripe they must be picked in a matter of hours.  They must be picked, separated, crushed, the skinks separated from the body and the juice filtered into the jars.  From there it would be put in jugs or wine skins.  The grapes were ripe and the harvest had to be completed and the workers were few.  The owner agreed to the usual wage for a day’s work and sent them off with his foreman.  It was not quite 6:00 a.m.

 The owner of the vineyard returned at 9:00 a.m. and recruited some more laborers, the “late risers.”  He promised them a “fair wage”.  He returned at noon and again at 3:00 p.m.  Each time he said simply, “There is work to be had in my vineyard.”  He even went back at 5:00 and found a few who had gathered in the park.  “Why are you here?” he asked.  “Because no one would hire us,” they replied.  These were the “bottom of the barrel,” the dregs of the available workers.  “There is work in my vineyard – it’s not too late.”

As the sun was setting the owner told his foreman to line up the workers, beginning with the last hired and he would pay them off.  The first man stopped at the pay table, held out his hand, and a coin was placed in it.  As he walked away he looked down at the coin and was shocked to see that it was a whole denarius.  His first thought was that a mistake had been made so he hurried down the road before someone noticed the error.  The next man stepped up to the pay table and the scene was repeated.  It took a while before the men in the line realized what all the murmuring was about.  The truth began to dawn; those who had worked the least were being paid the same as those who had worked all day.  An angry roar began to be heard.  Before long the cry went up, “Unfair! Unfair!”

I don’t blame them.  If I had been in that line I would have shouted as loud as anyone and I suspect you would have, too.  If the union organizer had come along at that hour he would have recruited all those who felt cheated.  There is nothing fair about equal pay for unequal work.  We know the score and, by God, we keep score.  As children at Christmas, sitting on the floor unwrapping presents, we’re keeping score, making sure that our siblings don’t get more than we.  In the office we find out who got bonuses and for how much and we keep score and cry, “Unfair!” when we think someone has gotten more than we think they deserve.

 Scorekeeping is necessary for us because it separates us from others and justifies our own behavior.  “I only smoked pot once, but I didn’t inhale!”  That separates the President from the ordinary pothead and raises him to a higher level. It’s that kind of scorekeeping that gave us mortal sins and venial sins.  Mortal sins will get you into hell; venial will only get you a few eons in purgatory.

 This parable, my friends, is not about scorekeeping or fairness.  It’s not even about a group of workers or about you and me.  This is a parable about Grace . . . God’s Grace.  And what it maintains is that God’s ways are not our ways.  We keep score so we can set ourselves up above someone else and, thereby, feel just a little bit better about who we are.  And we come up with all those neat little phrases like, “You get what you earn” and “What goes around comes around” and “Fair is fair!”.  God’s grace says, “I have a present for you!”

 Listen to what Frederick Bechner, the great Presbyterian writer, says about grace:

                         Grace is something you can never get but only be given.  There’s no way

            to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste

            of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.

                        A good sleep is grace and so are dreams.  Most tears are grace.  The smell

            of rain is grace.  Somebody loving you is grace.  Loving somebody is grace.  Have

            you ever tried to love somebody?

                        A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are

            saved by grace.  There’s nothing you have to do.  There’s nothing you have to do.

            There’s nothing you have to do.

                        The grace of God means something like: Here is your life.  You might

            never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete

            without you.  Here is the world.  Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don’t

            be afraid.  I am with you.  Nothing can ever separate us.  It’s for you I created the

            universe.  I love you.

                        There’s only one catch.  Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours

            only if you’ll reach out and take it.

   Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift, too.