Be Not Anxious : A Sermon for Proper 20

I don’t know about you, but I’m inclined to side with the first group of laborers. I understand why they were upset…I would be too. They arrived early and worked hard in the field all day long, yet were paid the exact same amount as those who arrived late and only worked one hour. Yes, they got paid exactly the amount that they agreed upon. But if they had known ahead of time that they could have gotten paid the same amount for only working an hour, perhaps they would have hung back when the landowner was picking laborers at 5:00 in the morning. 

Of course, when we hear this parable today, we do so with the benefit of hindsight. We know on whose side Jesus stands, and the message he is delivering. Through the character of the generous landowner – Jesus puts those who grumble about getting their fair share in their place, reminding them that the “last will be first and the first will be last.” 

So, when I hear parables like this, I end up eating my slice of humble pie, I hope to see things more like Jesus does, and I strive to once again be transformed by Gospel. But this is terribly difficult to do when we inhabit a world that lives by a different set of values than those that Jesus calls us to. 

Today’s parable isn’t the first time in the Bible that the so-called “righteous” were upset about others getting more than their “fair share.” It is clearly human nature to be competitive and to keep score. In our story from Jonah, we see first-hand the difference between the nature of God and the nature of humankind. When the Ninevites responded to Jonah’s call for them to turn from their evil ways, God decided not to obliterate them. God saw that they had repented, so God did what God does. In the angry Jonah’s very own words, “God was merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” 

But our text tells us that this merciful response from God “was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.” So much so, that he asked God to take his life from him. Think about that for a moment. Jonah was so eaten up with bitterness and anger that he would have rather died than live to see the Ninevites escape God’s punishment. Like most of us, Jonah wasn’t satisfied with his own redemption. He wanted the Ninevites to get what he felt they deserved. I assume that Jonah was operating under the false assumption that God chose him – and chose Israel – to be God’s people because they deserved it.

Yet God’s economy isn’t a zero-sum game. God’s mercy towards the Ninevites didn’t negate God’s mercy towards Jonah, the Israelites, or anybody else. With God, there is simply enough love, grace, justice, and mercy to go around. Sadly, this Truth isn’t seen as Good News to folks like Jonah, the laborers in the vineyard, or perhaps even us.

The world we live in now is very different from the world in which Jonah and Jesus lived their earthly lives. But human beings were and are still human beings, no matter where or when we live. And this truth about human nature is what allows our ancient scriptures to remain relevant in any context. So, Jonah’s anger over God’s non-competitive economy of grace is also my anger. Jonah’s story is my story, and our story.

And I am also very much like those who heard Jesus tell the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. I never expect a handout – but I do expect to get my fair share. I have always and will continue to work hard and expect to earn some sort of reward, whatever that is. But this “work ethic” isn’t necessarily biblical or uniquely Judeo-Christian. But there was and is a strand from the Protestant Reformation that indeed holds hard work and its subsequent reward as being a Christian value. 

The Puritan Protestants who aligned themselves with John Calvin believed in predestination – in other words, God had predetermined who would be “saved” when Jesus returned. This was a Protestant response to what they believed to be the excessive ceremony and sacramentalism of the Catholic Church. The clergy of the Church had gained too much power and influence, and too much emphasis was being placed on salvation through the sacraments. So, Calvin proposed that our salvation is not in the clergy’s hands or the church’s hands, but in God’s hands. I agree with Calvin on this point. The problem is, his followers who came after him took his understanding of “God is in charge” to a different place. Though they no longer were anxious about their salvation being tied up in the sacramental life of the church, they were still anxious. “How will I know if I am one of the ones chosen by God? If my salvation doesn’t hinge on my attending and paying for the sacrament of confession every week, what can do to ensure that I am saved?”

Many of the post-Calvin Puritan Protestants believed that the answer to this existential dilemma lies in hard work and pious living. If you work hard and live a pious life, you will be rewarded here on earth. You will have enough to feed yourself and your family, and you will always have enough. The earthly benefits you receive through your own initiative and hard work will be a sign to you that you indeed are chosen by God. If you do not have a good work ethic, or, if you do have a good work ethic but for some reason still can’t make your ends meet for you and your family, that is a sign that you are not one of the ones chosen by God. 

Many of these Puritan Protestants emigrated to what is now the United States with this philosophy in mind. One could argue that this country was founded on that principle. German economist and theologian Max Weber addressed this in 1904 when he wrote the now classic “The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.” There is a direct link between old Puritan Protestant work ethic and the current Prosperity Gospel we now hear and see on television and the internet. Financial success is a sign of God’s favor and blessing. The more faithful you are to God, the more financially successful you will be.

If we’re honest with ourselves, many of us probably abide by the Puritan Protestant work ethic understanding of salvation at one level or another. I know that if I am not careful, that I do. I am drawn to it because I can control how hard I work. I’m like the laborers in the vineyard who wanted control over their wages. And I want control over my salvation. How nice to be able to have a formula to follow – whether it is through the sacraments or through hard work – to ensure our salvation.

For centuries, human beings have wrestled with this existential question of what salvation is, and what we can do to attain it. Perhaps one way to think about salvation doesn’t have anything to do with what happens to us after we die. Perhaps salvation looks like those grumbling laborers in the vineyard coming to work the next day, and having the exact same thing happen in terms of hours worked and wages paid. But this time, after everybody got paid, they rejoiced and threw a feast with all of the workers, no matter who had worked how long. And as they sat at the banquet table with one another, those who had grumbled the day before recognized how much better it feels to celebrate with gratitude than to grumble with resentment. Being freed from the bondage of control and resentment seems like salvation to me. Our lessons today steer us away from anxiety about our or anybody’s else’s eternal salvation - not because of who we are, or what we do, but because of who God is, and what God does.